In My Summerween Era!

Plus a little sneak peek at my next book ;)

There’s one thing you should know about me: I’m not a summer person. I know, I know. Most people love summer. Blue skies, beach vacations, school’s out, and the days are longer, the nights much, much shorter.

But here’s the thing. I live in the Upstate of South Carolina. If you’re not familiar with the area, summer is brutal. The air feels like hot soup, and the moment you step outside, you’re going to sweat from every orifice of your body. Fire ants are out and about, mosquitoes are attacking me from every angle, and the locusts are LOUD. It’s just not an ideal time for me.

Fall, however, I can get behind. Unfortunately, it doesn’t start cooling off here in the South until much later, but that’s not going to stop me from putting out my fall and Halloween decorations on September 1st. (Are you that shocked, since I wrote The Ground that Devours Us?!)

And it also didn’t stop me from celebrating Summerween this year.

The name speaks for itself, but summerween is a trend where people celebrate Halloween-themed festivities during the summer months, mostly in July and August. So what have I been doing to celebrate?

Spooky Movie Marathons

With Final Destination: Bloodlines releasing this summer, I went back and watched most of the franchise. (I will not be driving behind a truck carrying logs on the interstate, let me tell you.) I viewed Bloodlines on my birthday, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Did I shed tears for Tony Todd? Yes, yes, I did.

Then, of course, I had to watch the original Scream movie. A total classic. Here I am as Ghostface a few Halloweens ago:

The Conjuring: Last Rites releases on September 5th, so you can bet I’ll be at our local drive-in theater with a carton of popcorn and a desire to be terrified. First, I need to go back and rewatch all of the movies in The Conjuring universe in chronological order. (By the time you’re reading this, I should have two films down!)

Books I’m Reading

First up is Murder Land by Carylyn Greenwald, Difficult Girls by Victoria Bane, and Liarland by Madison Rupp. I haven’t quite finished with Murder Land yet—I’m about halfway through—but all of these are thrillers/horrors set in theme parks with a murder mystery. They’re wonderful and lovely, with fast pacing, incredible voice, and bone-chilling scenes that left me more than a little creeped out.

I also finished an advanced reader copy of Hollow by Taylor Grothe back in June—so good! I may never want to enter the woods again.

I’m halfway through the audiobook of When Devils Sing by Xan Kaur, which is a young adult Southern gothic horror set in rural Georgia. And wheew boy, it’s unsettling in the best way possible—so obviously a great pick for Summerween. I highly recommend grabbing the audiobook if you’re into immersive reading.

Other books that are on my list: Blood Slaves by Markus Redmond, Girl in the Creek by Wendy N. Wagner, and Kill Creatures by Rory Power.

What I’m Writing

I can’t go into great detail about what I’m currently writing next quite yet, but I can say that if you noticed a pattern in the books I read, maybe there’s a reason for that. ;) The setting is so fun, the characters are morally gray, the romance is full of yearning and tension and desperation.

And the spooks… well, let’s just say I have quite a few scenes up my sleeve.

I’ve been posting weekly writing updates on Instagram, as well as small teasers I’ve written from the manuscript. So if you’re interested in keeping up with my process of writing a new book from scratch, be sure to check it out. I plan to post weeks 5 & 6 together, and that’s because I’m pretty close to finishing the first draft—WILD, I know. I hope to finish it up at around 8ish weeks so I can do several intensive rounds of revisions.

Here’s the playlist for my next book, in case you’d like to listen:

Happy summerween, everyone!

xoxo,