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Tara Sim

@tarasimauthor / tarasimauthor.tumblr.com

Author of THE CITY OF DUSK, WE SHALL BE MONSTERS, SCAVENGE THE STARS, and TIMEKEEPER. Grumpy. Biracial. Runs on tea and cake. Professional cat wrangler.
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Frankenstein meets Indian mythology in this twisty, darkly atmospheric fantasy where the horror is not the monsters you face but the ones you create.

When her sister Lasya dies, Kajal vows to bring her back to life using any means necessary. But in preventing Lasya from rejoining the cycle of reincarnation, her sister’s soul turns corrupt and warps into a bhuta—a violent, wraith-like spirit hell-bent on murdering those who wronged it in life. With each kill, her sister’s bhuta becomes stronger and angrier, and Kajal’s chances of resurrecting Lasya with her soul intact grow slimmer.

Blamed for Lasya’s kills and declared a witch, Kajal is locked away with little hope of escape until two strangers who label themselves rebels arrive and offer to help free her. The catch: She must resurrect the kingdom’s fallen crown prince, aiding a coup to overthrow the usurper who murdered the royal family decades ago. Desperate to return to Lasya’s body, Kajal rushes to revive the prince…Only to discover that she hasn’t resurrected the crown prince, but another boy entirely.

All her life, Kajal has trusted no one but her sister. But with Lasya dead and rebels ready to turn her over to the usurper’s ruthless soldiers, Kajal is forced to work with the boy she mistakenly revived to find the right prince—before the rebels discover her mistake, or Lasya’s bhuta finally turns its murderous fury on the person truly responsible for her death: Kajal.

WE SHALL BE MONSTERS arrives June 25, 2024!

Be sure to preorder if you like gremlin girls, undead dogs, star-crossed love, and the horrifying ordeal of being known facing the consequences of your actions.

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‘The grave of the Russian composer Alfred Schnittke in Novodevichye Cemetery in Moscow is surmounted by a stone on which is engraved a rest beneath a fermata with a triple forte noted at the bottom: A very, very loud extended silence.’

- John Biguenet, Silence (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), p.49.

The fermata suggests the indicated notation (in this case, a rest) is to continue at the discretion of the conductor. When the chosen conductor arrives, Alfred Schnittke will rise again.

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WOE, BARNES AND NOBLE PREORDER SALE BE UPON YE

WE SHALL BE MONSTERS is my ode to horror fantasy, outcast girls, doomed siblings, and grump4grump romance--and you can get it here for 25% off for a limited time!

Some inspirations that went into this book:

  • Frankenstein
  • Indian mythology
  • The Untamed

Last day to get 25% off your preorder if:

Your motto is "I believe in women's rights, and also women's wrongs"

You love canine companions who can't die bc they're already undead

Your ideal ship is "I'm going to do a crime!" "NO!"

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To be clear to those unfamiliar: these are the companies that libraries use to lend ebooks.

They are literally cutting off library access to minors.

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ayellowbirds

If you are affected by this or other bans and restrictions in the United States, be aware that the Brooklyn Public Library is offering free digital library cards to anyone age 13-21 nationwide as part of their Books UnBanned initiative:

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enfouled

ppl are always writing characters doing dumb shit like roasting a fresh-caught rabbit over an open flame instead of making a stew with that thing. great now you’re letting all the fat drip down into the fire as it cooks, wasting calories and flavor as well as causing the flame to flare up = inconsistent heat source,… when you could be maximizing the nutritional value of small game by making a soup or stew. Come on

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21 of 22 anti-LGBTQ+ bills dead in the Florida Legislature!!!

!!!! And here's a source!

Thanks so much for posting about this, OP

More from the article:

"At 2:27 p.m. on Friday, March 8, the Florida Legislature adjourned sine die. With this adjournment, 21 of 22 anti-LGBTQ+ bills were effectively killed, leaving an anti-diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in education bill as the lone piece of legislation to pass this session. This session featured some of the most severe bills ever proposed against transgender individuals, all of these bills are now officially dead. LGBTQ+ activists in the state now have the rest of 2024 to regroup, with hopes that the November general election will yield results against a legislature that has spent two years targeting transgender individuals in every aspect of life.

The bills that have failed include H599, a bill that would have expanded "Don't Say Gay" policies to the workplace. It proposed banning government employees and any business with government contracts from sharing pronouns. Furthermore, it aimed to prohibit all nonprofits in the state from requiring education and training on LGBTQ+ issues—a significant issue for LGBTQ+ nonprofits, which would have been unable to operate within the state. That bill is now dead.

Another bill that died is H1639, a measure that would have mandated transgender individuals to have driver's license sex markers matching their sex assigned at birth. It also aimed to penalize insurance providers offering gender-affirming care coverage and would have required health insurance plans to cover conversion therapy for transgender individuals. Although this bill did not pass, the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles has reinterpreted certain provisions that already exist, effectively banning changes to driver's license gender markers in the state and threatening individuals with accurate markers with charges of criminal fraud. However, challenging an administrative action is simpler than challenging a law enacted by the legislature, and such actions can also be reversed by future administrations.

Further bills that made headlines which died include:

...This is the first time in three years where the bills targeting LGBTQ+ people, and trans people in particular, seem to be losing steam, according to local organizers.

“The momentum is undeniably shifting against extremism,” Nadine Smith of Equality Florida said in a press release, “Extremist groups are collapsing amidst multiple scandals. Parents are mobilizing on behalf of their kids and to stop the dismantling of public education. We will build on this momentum and redouble our commitment to the fight. Together, we can put power back in the hands of the people.”"

-via Erin in the Morning, March 8, 2024

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glass--beach

the point of art is not to be great but to make it transparently obvious that there is something wrong with you

The point of art is to let other people know that the thing wrong with them is also wrong with you

This is in fact how you make friends

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ekjohnston

Exit, Pursued By A Bear was always going to be my statistical outlier book. People love it so much. It moves them. It makes them feel like things will be okay. Until tomorrow, it's my only contemporary book, yet it remains the most fantasy thing I've ever written.

Pretty Furious isn't like that. I mean, I hope people love it, but it's not as simple as EXIT was. If EXIT is all the easy answers, Pretty Furious is one frustrating question after another, and the girls who are asking don't always get solutions they can work with. It's about being small and knowing the world is a big place. It's about seeing things that are wrong and being told it's not your problem, not that big a deal, or that it's not happening at all. It's wanting to fight and not knowing how. It's about making mistakes so you can learn. It's about finding the tools to grow, and realizing that you can leverage your identity to improve the world.

And it's about friendship. And family. So much family (I do not apologize for the number of characters in this book). It's about the things you try and don't repeat. It's about the things you leave behind and the things you take with you. It's about how you can change even if you decide to stay.

April 16, 2024, bookstores and libraries everywhere, ebook and audiobook too. Stay angry, little Meg. #prettyfurious

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skrutskie

HI. NEWS.

Coming your way in summer 2025. Because if publishing is only interested in romantic fantasy right now, we're doing it my way. 😘

Emily Skrutskie's LAST NIGHT BEFORE THE WAR WAS WON, a friends-to-lovers fantasy romance in which, after a last-chance hook-up on the night before the world was supposed to end, two soldiers must reckon with a romantic future they never could have imagined when the realm is unexpectedly saved by a plucky band of insufferable heroes, pitched for fans of Shannon Chakraborty’s The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi and Travis Baldree’s Legends & Lattes to Emily Archbold at Del Rey, in an exclusive submission, for publication in summer 2025, by Thao Le at Sandra Djikstra (World).
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