Friday Feels #22

It’s Mercury and Jupiter retrograde, friends – hold on to your everything. The planets be wilding out there. Against common advice, I decided this was a good week to do All The Things. Which is to say, I did a bunch of really important book publishing related stuff. If you’re on the mailing list for my author newsletter, you will have received some exciting updates in your inbox. All I’m going to say here now is: bookmark January 8, 2026 because that is the day when A Party to Murder will be released!

OK, I’m going to say one more thing: the e-book is now available for pre-order (Amazon and other retailers), and I would be eternally grateful if you chose to support me by pre-ordering in advance of Jan 8. Pre-orders are hugely important to the ranking that new books get on release on platforms like Amazon, which in turn impacts the algorithms that determine how broadly the book gets pushed out to other customers. Basically, the more successful Amazon’s algorithm thinks your book is, the more it shows it to other people. (A Party to Murder is available on a number of different online retailers’ platforms, so there are options for people who don’t want to support Amazon).

In other news, this week I fell down an Instagram rabbit hole of Frankenstein-related content. I am talking, of course, about Guillermo del Toro’s new movie. I haven’t seen it, and I’m not sure I want to – I’ve heard it focuses on an exploration of parent-child and intergenerational trauma, and that’s just too heavy for my current emotional bandwidth to handle. But I’m obsessed with the gothic romance vibed clips I’ve seen … and I say that as someone who never considered herself a monster romance girlie. If anyone can change my mind, it’s GdT, I suppose. (Crimson Peak still occupies a significant portion of my brain-space, rent free all these years later.) Who else would cast a 6’5 Australian hunk as a ‘monster’ and have him wear a mummy’s version of a Speedo for a good chunk of the movie? GdT knows what he’s doing … and, let’s be honest, we are all here for it. I am also sat for the costumes – his movies are always flawless when it comes to vibes + style, even if the pacing and plot are sometimes a bit wobbly. Personally, I just want to watch Elizabeth and the Creature hang out and bond over the beauty of nature and how much they both hate Victor. That’s it, that’s the movie. I hope there will be a director cut of this at some point.

Not coincidentally, my Instagram discovery page is now saturated with Jacob Elordi-adjacent content. Generally speaking, I’m not mad about it. In this trash fire year of our lord 2025, there are a lot of far, far, far worse things I could be doom-scrolling through. Did I mention he’s 6’5? Anyway. The worst thing that has come out of this is … God, I can’t believe I’m about to admit this … I’m now kinda intrigued by Emerald Fennel’s upcoming adaptation of Wuthering Heights. OK! Before you come at me with your literary pitchforks, listen: I made fun of it too when the first on-set photos came out. It looks utterly stupid as an actual literary adaptation and it’s completely historically anachronistic, and I don’t even like Wuthering Heights the book. [In fact, I loathe it. Now you can come at me with the pitchforks.]

But!

If you look at it as a thirst trap for people who enjoy quasi-historical cosplay and toxic smutty romances, I think it might be a really fun ride, no pun intended. Like, based on the trailer, this movie looks like it was made for people who like Frankenstein’s Creature but want to call him daddy. I hope the trailer and the advance buzz for this movie haven’t oversold how horny and depraved it is. I think it would be super interesting (ahem) to see that kind of story told from a female perspective, ya know?

Full disclosure: I have not seen Saltburn or anything else from either Fennell or her lead actors. [Yes, that means I haven’t seen Barbie either.]

Have a great weekend!