Hey awesome,

What a wild week - is it just me, or are we all saying that more often? It's spring (ok, mostly, pretty sure it's going to be a hard freeze here tonight), and we're barreling toward the end of March. It's going to be April next week. What even is happening?

In the last few days, I turned in a short story, a novel, and made solid progress on another short story. Forming whole sentences is a struggle at the moment, BUT let me take a break from that and show you some amaaaazingness.

I picked up On Basilisk Station in high school, and fell immediately, irrevocably in love with the Honorverse. I mean, I'm a fan, y'all. Here I am at a signing for Uncompromising Honor, directly after I'm pretty sure I forgot how to say anything other than 'I love your books!'

High-school-Marisa was internally squealing in this picture, and both she and 40-something Marisa are full-out squealing now, because: what!! I got to write in the Honorverse? My name is on the cover of an Honorverse anthology, edited by the incredible Tom Pope, surrounded by these toweringly wonderful authors? WHAT? Only dolphins can register the noises I'm making.

Speaking of squeals, I did a little cover tease on facebook yesterday, but you all are the first to see THIS:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAA! What do you think?? I love the combination of classic fantasy cover art and current graphic-look dominating covers lately. Tom Kidd painted the portrait art and he's an award-winning artist for a reason. Looooove.

As for the story - I've been teasing and hinting about this for months...and longer. If you've been here for a while, you've actually read a version (two versions, truly) of the first page of this book. Cima and her (mis)adventures have been percolating in my head for a few years (yup. years!), and soon you can spend more than a page with her. A Plague of Magic is out from Baen this September, and my excitement knows no bounds.

Part of that excitement? Being part of a SLEW of awesome fantasy books that slay (see what I did there?) coming out this year. You could say I'm...Feral for Fantasy!

Are you Feral for Fantasy?

....would you like to be?

We have some really exciting things planned over the next few months, and I will be telling you all about it right here in your inbox, aaaand on the internet streets.

Here's a quick preview: Feral Fantasy kicks off in May with Magelight, from the unparalleled genius brain of Kacey Ezell (eARC available now!).

In June we continue with Rise from Ruin from the so-good-and-so-evil Melissa Olthoff (eARC also available now!).

August brings us to some deeply fantastic urban fantasy from A.C. Haskins, and then in September we have not only A Plague of Magic but a whole new fantabulous novel from the incomparable Wen Spencer...and Y'ALL. That's just Baen!! Mel Todd has new epic fantasy coming (yesssss), Edie Skye has some deliciously rowdy goodness afoot, Shami Stovall is bringing the awesome - and more.

We know there are some rapacious readers out there, and no one author can satisfy them all...but a group effort? Let's goooooo!!

I can't wait to tell you more...but also I'm kind of a tease, so I will in fact wait. Mwa ha haaa!

In the meantime, some more quick hits:

If you loooove books for your earholes, the audio of Beyond Enemies is on sale now through April 2nd to celebrate its one-year anniversary.

If you like watching authors nerd out about comics/comic-related TV shows on the internets, here are four I got to participate in recently: we talked X-Men 97, said Farewell to Superman & Lois, dug in on our favorite comic BFFs, and had a ton of fun unpacking Deadpool & Wolverine!

If you want to see the Feral Ladies being fully Feral about a variety of topics you can find our latest videos on both my fledgling YT channel and also Kacey Ezell's Writer Life.

If you want to go feral for fantasy in person, you could join Melissa Olthoff and I (and a bunch of other ridiculously awesome folks) at Jordan Con (April 25-27 in Atlanta!).

What are you particularly looking forward to? Let me know, and probably we can nerd out about it together because I am READY for some fantasy fabulousness ahead!

Til next time,

Marisa