Shall we talk about books that f*ck?

Welcome

It is Saturday and the skies have opened up over New York City. Not that it matters to me, as I have spent the past two days cocooned in bed, devouring in two sittings a whole-ass dark paranormal romance trilogy.

It…consumed me. I read the whole series in 22 hours, which includes 14 straight hours of reading and 8 hours of sleeping. You heard that right, babes, literally all I did for 22 hours was read or sleep. I’m living the dream, baybee!

But now I’m here and writing this newsletter! I hope you enjoy; let me know what you think?

From the heart 💗

Apropos of the book series that I absolutely devoured on Friday and Saturday of this past week, I’d like to talk a bit about books that fuck. Sexy books. Books with impeccable romantic and sexual tension. Books that make your legs actually tremble a lil bit and you can maybe feel your pupils dilating and holy crap what is happening what did the author PUT in this BOOK!

Here’s the thing: I really love books that fuck. I am always in the middle of at least one adult romance book, and the steamier the better in my opinion. I love them messy and angsty and I love them sweet and I love it when the partners are head over heels obsessed with each other and can’t get enough.

There’s also a very particular kind of book that lights up a part of my brain that I…did not know existed until, like, a few years ago. Where the love runs close to obsession and the fucking is a little feral and it’s messy, oh baby is it messy but it’s also so satisfying. 

A lot of times I find this style of writing and romancing in dark romance books. I haven’t read a lot of mainstream romantasy, but I wonder if they’re similar, in the sense that once you’ve decided to step outside the bounds of contemporary, respectable reality, you might as well get a little dirty, a little bloody and unhinged, with your sex scenes.

There’s something about these books and these scenes in particular that really works for me. Not because I think it’s something I want to pursue in the real world — I’m not here to say I want to date a mobster or an assassin or a centuries-old vampire — but precisely because it isn’t.

There’s a way of letting loose in these books that feels so good to imagine. To close my eyes and breathe in deep and picture myself if I had no restrictions, nothing keeping me from acting on every instinct and emotion and drive within me.

I have bemoaned, lately, my lack of experience with “risk” and “mistakes” and the beauty of these books, I’m learning, is that they let me feel like I am taking risks and maybe making mistakes, but it’s okay because at the end of the day, no matter how bad shit gets, I’ll be back in the arms of my lover(s) and all will be well.

The thing is, we live in a world where there are rules, different than the ones you might find in a fantasy novel, a paranormal romance, a mafia story. There are rules and there are consequences, and we don’t have magic and dragons and ancient prophecies, but hell if it isn’t nice to imagine, sometimes, just what life would look like if we did. If we could let it all out and loose the feral screams trapped behind our throats.

Maybe this is why some people go to clubs and raves; why others rock climb and bungee jump. It’s an adrenaline rush. It makes you feel powerful. And, with books like this, well…it’s hot, man. I’m sorry, I don’t make the rules, I’m just saying, I like a good sex scene!!! Sue me!!!

Maybe I don’t need to make the mistakes I fear are trapped right behind my ribcage, don’t need to sow the wild oats I still carry in a sack over my shoulder. Maybe I can tap into the darkness and ferality of my imagination and channel that into my writing.

Because someday I will write the types of books that fuck that I love.

They’re gonna be sapphic, though.

From the question box ❓

How do you research agents to query?

Oh, what a question, my friends, what a question! There are probably as many ways to research agents as there are agents to query, so I’m going to share what I did, and add a few extraneous tips, and we’ll call it a day, yeah?

First things first: sign up for Querytracker. This is a website that allows you to find agents and track your queries. It’s genuinely a lifesaver, because it compiles like 90% of the information you need, and it links out to agency websites for that last 10%.

I paid the $25/year for a Premium subscription, and then I used filters to narrow down to agents who were open to my genre — YA romance — and then I just went through the list alphabetically. For my initial research, I didn’t differentiate between agents that were open or closed to queries; the truth is, querying can take so long that over the course of however long you’re in the trenches, people will open and close multiple times.

Once I had my preliminary list, I went to agency websites and checked the agent MSWLs (manuscript wish lists) and anti-MSWLs, and then I marked them on Querytracker as “to query.”

Additional research tips include:

1. Talk to your writer friends! They may know of agents you missed, or they may know about red flags for agents you think you’ll love.

2. Sites like Manuscript Wishlist and Writer Beware are excellent resoures once you’ve got a preliminary agent list.

And there you have my tips for researching agents! I hope this was helpful 🙂 

From the shelf 📚

Oathbound, by Tracy Deonn (the link is a Bookshop.org affiliate one! If you purchase a copy of the book through it, I will receive a small commission at no extra cost to you)

What is there to say about Oathbound, the third book in the Legendborn Cycle, that isn’t just a feral scream of delight and pure id?

This book was EVERYTHING. Tracy Deonn is a GODDESS OF WRITING. I am amazed by her ability to write a book that is tense and high-stakes but also so much damn fun. Reading all 650 pages was a delight, because as much as there were plot things happening that stressed me out, there were moments of joy — banter and flirting and power and gorgeous tresses and a trope turducken (Tracy’s words, apparently) that set my lil brain synapses on absolute FIRE.

I so highly recommend this book. If you haven’t gotten to this part in the series yet, consider purchasing Legendborn or Bloodmarked (both of those are also Bookshop affiliate links) and dive into this absolutely stunning series. If you don’t know the premise, it’s a contemporary fantasy following Bree Matthews, a Black teen girl who gets accepted to a prestigious pre-college program at the University of North Carolina and discovers a world of magic and demons that may have something to do with her mother’s death. It’s excellent.

Alla prossima 👋

Hey, did you know I have a podcast? Cause I do! It’s called The Write Way of Life and we just released our sixth episode.

The premise of the pod is that we want to talk about craft with authors; it’s a craft-focused author interview podcast! Two of my favorite things! In this latest episode, we spoke with the inimitable Aamna Qureshi about genre, and as I re-listened to the episode after it released on Monday, I genuinely felt myself getting SO inspired and fired up to write some more. Check it out!

That’s all for this week! I hope you all are taking care of yourselves — and each other.

Love ya!

— Karis xoxo