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Hi reader,
We are doing it again, and I have made my peace with it. Six days from now, on Friday the twenty-first, three brand-new books arrive on the same day, because staggering our releases like sensible people is apparently a skill this house was not issued. Here is your heads-up so nothing sneaks past you.
Landing Friday, August 21:
The Broken Script of the Stars, by Jennie Wren Foster. The library is at peace, and the peace is the lie. Three months after they broke a god and remade the Last Library into a place that keeps instead of consumes, a student's name goes missing from every mouth in the school, and only the three who love her most still remember the girl existed. Sapphic-centered romantasy, open door, found family, and a dark that stays with you. Book two of the Chronicles of the Celestial Fold.
The Broker's Mask, by Jennie Wren Foster. A second descent into the Midnight Auction, where nothing changes hands without a price and every face at the table is a mask over a deal. Worldbuilding-forward, bond-driven, romance-forward and closed-door. Book two of five.
Feathers and Phantoms, by Jessie Clark. An iron key opens a house that has been shut for thirty-five years, and Winifred Baxter's crow will not be parted from it. The town calls the death on the tower stair a ghost. The town's beloved old doctor calls it a rotten step and enough of this ghost nonsense. They are both wrong. A fair-play paranormal cozy, sweet and closed-door and deeply suspicious of the most reasonable man in the room. Book three, and a fine place to start.
More on all three in Monday's and Wednesday's letters, with the real opening pages.
And if the August 7 wave got away from you, it is all still right here waiting: Hostile Intent (Kira Deveraux, a scorching corporate takeover with a secret buried in the company), Hidden Truths at Mercy General (Clara Langford, a warm over-40 hospital romance about being truly known), and Bonneville Shadows (Jessie Clark, a thriller about a machine under the salt flats that can rewrite what a crowd remembers). Everything the house has put out this summer lives in one place: https://www.jlcollinspublishing.com/books
If a friend is forever asking what to read next, forward them this email. New readers can subscribe right from the site.
One more new thing. The house has a podcast now: Story Worlds from JL Collins Publishing and Glassbound Ink. Episode one is called "Every Book Is a Doorway," and it is about exactly what it sounds like, the way a book hands you a whole world through a very small opening. Watch or listen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxrgNNk8yik. Subscribing costs you nothing and helps a brand-new show more than you would think.
The one favor that matters more than it sounds: if any of the August 7 three landed for you, a quick honest review is the single most helpful thing you can do for a small press. It is how the next reader finds the book. And if you want the next book before anyone else, join Read It First, our launch team. A free advance copy about three weeks before release, in exchange for one honest review on launch day, and all three of Friday's titles are going out to the team right now. You pick your authors on the signup form: https://readitfirst-jlcollinspublishing.beehiiv.com/p/read-it-first
📌 One tiny favor: I dropped this week's countdown pin on Pinterest. Tap Save so more readers find the August 21 books, it takes two seconds: [PIN URL — paste the live pin link when building in Beehiv] (pinterest.com/jlcollinspublishing)
One quick reply makes my weekend: of the three coming Friday, which are you reaching for first, the unwritten library, the masked auction, or the haunted house on the hill? Hit reply and tell me.
Happy reading,
Lori Collins
Publisher, JL Collins Publishing
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