Category: literature

literature

October 2025 update

rachel(le)

Hello autumn people 🍂 🍁

Well, voilà, I am done Lavender Spike.

I have sent in my last edits, which I finished two days before my birthday (October 1st). Great present to myself! This photo was taken on my bday morning, feeling good, 46 and excited for every freaking day. (Can we be done with the aging taboos? A lady can tell her age, screw all that. Aging is Hot.)

So, let’s see…

  • I wrote Lavender Spike in 2019
  • Finished the first draft and wrote Dead Gretchen during Nanowrimo the same year
  • Published Off My Feet and Crash Kitty in 2020
  • Then in 2021 I started editing Lavender Spike and finished in 2022, six drafts later (my usual)
  • I queried on and off for 2 YEARS
  • In January 2024, after a heavy edit, a final polish with a hired copy editor, and getting blurbs from authors I respect immensely, I was about to self-pub it, but at the eleventh hour I sent it off to Jen at ECW Press
  • We signed a deal in July 2024
  • 2025, we went through the usual cycle of edits — revision edits, copy edits, line edits, and proofread.

And I am done!!! 💥 💃 ♥️ 😍 😭

What a journey this book took me on so far. What a great experience with the team at ECW. What a good birthday gift to be done!!! I am so excited for the next steps — cover & preorders ✨

Pub day is set for April 14th 2026 💫

Thank you for taking this ride with me 🫶🏼 I appreciate you so much.

R.xo

deals, literature

Book Deal Announcement

rachel(le)

I am thrilled to announce that my dystopian, art-centric cyberpunk novel LAVENDER SPIKE will be published next autumn (2025) with ECW Press! 

In a technologically advanced and climate-crisis-stricken world where art is the new religion and the new drug, last artist of the Old Holy Order Isobel “Izzy” Ker is fiercely hunted by Hounds, worshippers of psychotropic Trigger art, and forced to choose among loyalty to her family’s traditions, survival, and following her heart, which finally leads her to create a painting that rattles everyone to their bloody core and starts a revolution the likes of which she never would have imagined could come from her brush.

Stay tuned for the cover reveal, author blurbs / reviews, and other announcements through here, or follow my Instagram account and/or Facebook page for book news, book talk, and life stuff in general 🙂 We have fun! Below is the Publisher’s Marketplace Deal Report and a mood board I created for the book.

Thanks for reading!