Dream come true: Raven signs books in her childhood bookstore 💝

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For those of you on IG or FB, you’ve already seen the video of this, but this week I’m actually stealing a few minutes to write about it.

I’ve had very little interest from the first bunch of local bookshops I reached out to to stock the Blood & Ancient Scrolls series, so I was super afraid to reach out to the bookstore in the town I grew up in, because getting turned down by them would hurt.

But it turns out I didn’t have to be afraid, because the wonderful employees of the Concord Bookshop welcomed me and my series with open arms, and it was one of the biggest gifts I’ll ever receive 💝

And then they asked me to come in and sign the books, so that they can offer author-signed copies 🥰

Just walking through Ye Olde Concord center to the bookstore was enough to start my emotions going. I don’t get out there very often because, other than the bookstore and the two ice cream places, well, and the award-winning cheese shop, there isn’t much reason for me to deal with the lack of parking and the way that the tourist drivers just ignore crosswalks and basic common sense. (Speaking as a townie, here!)

So as I was walking up to the store I had emotions just bubbling up in me already. And then I get inside, and they are so excited to see me, and then they have my books on display right in the front of the store! So within minutes, I’m damn near crying with joy.

But I hold it together, and have lovely conversations with everyone as I do my best to put vaguely legible signatures in the books, and then I’m given a tour of the two places they have shelved my books: Fantasy and an adorable new little Horror section.

I get the BEST COMPLIMENT when I am told that I got a great cover designer for my books, and I shyly admit I did the cover design, and then I am informed that I am a “woman of many parts.” Since I have always been a bit worried that maybe I should have shelled out the money for a pro, since my layout experience is only from doing a ‘zine in college and then working at the Spectator “news magazine” in Oakland for a year, this compliment was exactly the sort of thing I really needed to hear, basically a cherry on top of the sundae for me.

The best thing of it all was just the reciprocal excitement. They were just as excited to have me in the store as I was to be there. How often do you get moments like that in life? 💝

You’ll be happy to know that I cranked through the short story for the Bauhaus anthology and it’s now with editors.

That means I can get back to the Sadie the Goat / Gallus Mag story and put in the work to bump it up to a novella, as my main editor demanded. I know this sucks for you lot in the short term, but in the long term just means that when you finally get it, it there will be more of it and filled with more pirate-y goodness! 🏴‍☠️

A review of Blood Triad just came in from the fantabulous and deeply talented author Myles McDonough and I love it so much I have to share it:

How do vampires and humans connect?

What does emotional and physical intimacy between two people look like when one of them is a human being—and the other is an immortal, blood-drinking creature of the night?

This question lies at the heart of Blood Triad, Raven Belasco’s delightful collection of three historical fiction novellas set in the same universe as her innovative, vampire-themed Blood and Ancient Scrolls novel series.

In Blood Triad, Belasco brings the unique worldbuilding of Blood and Ancient Scrolls to three settings not typically found in the vampire genre—the US occupation of Haiti, the British Isles in the early Middle Ages, and the slums of 1930s Philadelphia. If you’ve ever wanted to read about vampires fighting a zealous guerilla war against undead Marines, going a-viking, or dancing in sweaty jazz clubs late into the night, you’ve found your book.

And trust me—you do want to read about these things.

A defining feature of Belasco’s world is the extensive, ancient vampire language. Belasco’s vampires refer to themselves as am’r—blood is vhoon—and there are more names for rituals, degrees of kinship, and highly specific crimes than you can count on two hands.

While the invented words may be a barrier to entry for casual readers, they reward the reader who sticks with the novellas long enough for their meaning to sink in. As in A Clockwork Orange or Neuromancer, part of the fun of the book is getting hip to the lingo—learning to think in the way the characters think by absorbing the words and their meanings over time.

Like Heinlein inventing the word grok to describe a kind of deep mutual understanding available only to Martians, Belasco uses words such as vhoon-vaa to encompass emotional and physical highs that can’t be captured with words like orgasm, buzz, or rush.

More than an interesting tidbit, the language is a crucial tool in these novellas that focus on profound connections between vampires and mortals in times of great pain.

This is most apparent in Teeth Are Bones, a remarkable love story between a young Haitian revolutionary and the vampire with whom she fights for the freedom of her people. It also comes to the fore in Abyssinia, a moving and timely story of women navigating dangerous backroom abortion procedures in 1930s Philadelphia. While both of these stories offer plenty of the usual vampire fare—violence and seduction galore—what stands out is Belasco’s heartfelt handling of the emotional ties between vulnerable humans and the vampires who care for them.

Poignant and dripping with well-researched historical detail, Blood Triad is the perfect book for anyone eager to read about vampires outside of their usual element—and feel them struggle with deeply human dilemmas of justice and closeness in an often bloody world.

The music rec this week is going old school. I was watching a show where they played a cover of Nirvana’s Heart Shaped Box. The cover was not a disaster or anything, but when I went and played the original, yeah, it’s still far more powerful and just can’t be done better.

Below is an Advertisement. You might have noticed one last week, too. It’s pretty exciting for me because you AMAZING fans have given me an open rate of regularly 40-50%, which is hella wicked (mixing my Bay Area and Boston slang) for newsletters. If you have gotten down to here, would you just take a second and click on the below ad? You don’t actually need to buy anything, but if I can get a decent click-through rate, even more people will want to start doing ads in this newsletter, and that will lead to me offering you a bigger variety of potentially useful/cool stuff. Also, and not negligible: I get paid for clicks, so just clicking is really helpful for me!

I promise that there will only ever be one ad per newsletter, and it will only ever be stuff I am proud to associate with my name, and which I think you lot might actually appreciate.

Thank you for supporting me in so many ways! OK now, go forth, my friends, and be good or be good at it! (And click below, pretty please!) 😘

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