Dear Readers and Friends,

It’s release day 🎉

The Horse and the Thief and Me is officially out in the world today and honestly? This story was ridiculously fun to write. I LOVE the shorter length stories.

It started with one very simple idea: What if a princess caught someone stealing her horse… and decided to go with him?

And then things escalated from there.

📖 Inside the Lair (Book News)

THE HORSE AND THE THIEF AND ME is live.

He was stealing her horse.

She decided that sounded like a problem she should personally supervise.

A runaway princess.

A half-fae thief with questionable morals.

And a horse who clearly has her own agenda.

What follows includes:

• cursed woods

• dangerous bargains

• banter during life-threatening situations

• deeply questionable decisions

• and one aggressively opinionated horse

Basically: gothic cozy romantasy chaos.

Novelette length.

Grab your copy here. (It's 99 cents or on Kindle Unlimited)

If you've already read it and want to leave a review, I absolutely wouldn't turn you away. 😊 Thank you.

(And yes, some of you are already asking for a sequel. Give me a month to think, then we'll talk.)

👀 Classified Intel (Exclusive Content)

Which brings us to this newsletter’s extremely scientific game:

🐴 Which Fantasy Horse Would Choose You?

Because fantasy horses are never normal horses. Important distinction: not which one you'd choose -- which one would choose you.

Pick your survival strategy:

1. The Dramatic Black Stallion: Will only allow one person to ride him. Unfortunately, it’s not you.
2. The Tiny Feral Pony: Looks harmless. Has committed crimes.
3. The Ancient Warhorse: Has seen things. Judges everyone silently.
4. The Beautiful White Mare: Probably magical. Probably cursed. Definitely smarter than the entire cast. May or may not be a unicorn.
5. The Fae Horse: May technically belong to another realm and absolutely bites people for fun. Also may or may not be a unicorn.

Hop over to my Facebook PAGE (public) or my Facebook READER GROUP (private) and let us know — and there may be a little choose-your-own-adventure story waiting for you there too. 😉 (If you don't have facebook, you can read the choose-your-own adventure story on my blog HERE.)

🌏 Through the Portal (What's Coming Next)

Okay. I have to be honest with you.

This was supposed to be a big, dramatic cover reveal for CHAOS — the final book in the Girl's Guide to Supervillainy series. Confetti. Fanfare. The whole thing.

Instead, I'm going to tell you that I have absolutely no idea what the cover looks like right now, and that's a sentence I never expected to type.

Here's the situation: I just started advertising the series, and while people are clicking the ads, they're not downloading the books. The "experts" say that the most likely reason is that the covers aren't matching reader expectations for the genre — so I'm experimenting. Which means the covers on Amazon right now are not the original covers. And the ads aren't doing much better. So... the final cover for Chaos is still... TBD.

So do I show you the original reveal cover? The experiment cover? Flip a coin?

You know what — here's the original, because this was supposed to be its moment and it deserves at least that. Just know that what you see on Amazon may look different, and we're all living in a state of beautiful uncertainty together. Will the final cover be the one below? Or the one on Amazon? Or one I haven't designed yet? I have no answer for that.

But...

Welcome to the chaos. Jasmine would appreciate the irony.

Jasmine's story is best-friends-to-lovers, multiverse chaos, emotionally devastating in places, and somehow still funny despite the impending collapse of reality.

This one was genuinely hard to write — not plot-wise, but emotionally. Every woman in this series lost someone dear to them. It's their villain origin story. Jasmine's loss in particular... I won't say more here. Those of you who've read the earlier books already know, and you know why it hit differently.

Chaos is up for Pre-Order now. Link here. Fair warning: the cover on Amazon is currently the experimental version. Does it feel like the right vibe for the series? Hit reply and tell me honestly. I can take it. (Probably.)

Quick question for you: What should I write next?

• Mail Order Witch Season 2 — novella length, 3-book series
• Death's Scythe — my Urban Fantasy Grim Reaper series, novel length, 3 books (started on Kindle Vella way back when)

Hit reply and tell me which one you're excited for!

On a personal note — I'm heading to Orlando to drop my youngest off for a Disney professional internship. Equal parts exciting, surreal, and deeply unsettling that I'm old enough to have adult children. My writing schedule may slow a little while I get her settled and recover with excessive coffee and possibly a bottle of wine.

Take care,

— Joy (aka Joynell Schultz)

Otherworldly stories, always with heart.

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P.S. I’m also doing a couple cross-promos with other indie authors. One features discounted books, the other free giveaways — so if you’re looking for new reads, they’re worth browsing.