Belated July Update!
Hey guys!
Weaver here again! This was meant to be the July newsletter, but if you’re seeing it in August, the darn time machine didn’t work! Back to the lab with that one!
Sorry we missed you if you were not at LitRPG Con. It was a blast, and we're already looking forward to the next one!
I had a great time meeting people, making authors sign books, and then talking to them about books that I liked and that I thought they’d also enjoy. Everyone was lovely, and the panels we attended, especially the cozy panel, were very professional.
I loved listening to Toni “Tonic” Binns speak about cozy fantasy the week that her book hit #1 in the cozy category on Amazon! (Honestly, it felt surreal.)
Pictured above: a majestic land otter displaying his wares in a contemporary bazaar. Included in the photograph are Imagine Wagons, Quill and Still, A Day in the Life and Boy Bands and Dragons, among other fine books. I am wearing a fabulous Hawaiian button-up shirt with a design that will draw in even the most hardened of himbos.
Dungeon Core Announcement!
Now that the dust from the con has settled, I am happy to announce that we have our pick for the theme of the next anthology! That's right, we're doing a dungeon core anthology, and you can submit your short story here!
Submissions are due by September 30th, and we expect to publish the anthology in March.
Summer Reading Picks!
I’ve asked our authors and employees to give us a book or two that they’re reading that they recommend, starting with my picks…
I recommend Contracts and Cats and Startup Hell. Congrats and Cats is the kind of cozy that's genre-defining. It's a warm cup of tea that lets you just feel at home while drinking it, whereas Startup hell is something I picked up on a whim, and I've been digging the message, the story and the interplay between the demonic world and the real one.
Our horror imprint editor, Zaq, recommends Book 1 of The Game at the Carousel. It's been on my list for some time, so get it and tell me what you think!!
Next, we’re moving on to the recommendations from our Riverfolk authors, and up first, we have Ria’s choices! She thinks you’ll love The Demon Queen Wants To Live and Omen of a Bluebell. Both of these are on Scribblehub, so you can read them for free right now!
Aaron Sofaer recommends The March North and gives a hearty endorsement to Kim and Perpetual’s recommendations, and the tag line? Egalitarian heroic fantasy with presumed female agency, battle-sheep, and bad, bad odds. Done! That’s been added to my TBR list!
Next up, we have Kim! She has just finished reading the latest Martha Wells Murderbot book, Platform Decay. It's technically a hostage rescue on a ringworld space station adventure, but it's also a family road trip story (kids, teenager, and grandmother) and a great audiobook for a family vacation drive!
And finally, we have Perpetual Motion, who says, "While it's by no means a new book, I will always jump at the chance to recommend A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge. It's one of my biggest inspirations, and I highly recommend it if you want Sci-Fi with just a smidge of fantasy and some excellent alien PoV characters and worldbuilding to contrast with the human cast.”
That’s all from us this month. Get out there and go grab summer by the horns!
Yours in floating down a lazy river,
JP Weaver and the Riverfolk Team