These Hollow Hearts by Em Shotwell is coming out tomorrow. This is pretty exciting for me because I edited and am publishing it, so obviously I really want it to do well LOL
Leading up to the release we ran a small series of blog posts connected to the book over on the Pen and Kink website. If you’re subscribed to my mailing list you’ve definitely heard about the first two, but if you’re not I want to make sure you don’t miss out on this.
First, Em wrote and shared a short story. The thing about These Hollow Hearts is that it’s about a trio of witch sisters whose magic is seriously messed up. Not only do their spells require all three of them working together to cast, they also shorten their lifespan every time. The reason their magic is so borked is because of an old family curse… this story Em shared, “Sisters Cursed and Broken” tells the story of how that curse came to be.
If you’re up for a short story about an old family curse, click here to read it now.
After sharing the short story, we also put the entire first chapter of These Hollow Hearts up on our blog for people to read for free. We wanted to introduce new readers to the world of the Murphey sisters and to one sister in particular — the eldest, Cheyanne.
First chapters give you a really good window into the style and tone of a book, and this is no exception. Click here if you’d like to read it totally free.
Finally, some of the characters in These Hollow Hearts have been called unlikable so Em offered her thoughts on why she was drawn to unlikable characters, and why she thought they were important. She also recommended three books that contain some of her favourite unlikable female characters. You can check that out here.
As we move toward tomorrow’s release day a lot has been said about how the characters in These Hollow Hearts are polarizing, and how unlike most of what Pen and Kink publishes this is less a romance than it is an urban fantasy with romance — because we want people have an idea of what they are getting going in. But while I believe that is important I don’t want it to start to sound like apologising for the book because I don’t.
I joked with Em that we should put a blurb on this book that said:
“I really dislike all the main characters (except the house) but somehow I still really like the stories?” — Cori Vidae, editor of this book
because it’s true. And I don’t want to spend so much time focusing on the first half of that sentence that we lose sight of the second half.
Because even though I find some of the Murphey sisters decisions incredibly problematic, and I don’t like them, I really like magic that has real consequences, and believably fucked up family relationships. And the house? You have got to meet this house.
And you can.
Tomorrow 🙂
Available tomorrow!
