Dear Readers,
Welcome to the September newsletter.
You may have noticed that August did not have one.
I would love to offer you a dramatic explanation. The truth is far more ordinary: I was busy, I was tired, and every time I sat down to write it, I discovered I had nothing cheerful to say.
June left more of a mark than I expected. The house was repaired within a week. I took slightly longer. I kept starting sentences about it and then deleting them, and eventually I decided that a newsletter written through gritted teeth was not something I wanted to hand to you.
So I skipped it.
Thank you to everyone who checked I was still alive. It was lovely, and only mildly alarming.
I am here. I am writing. The universe has, for now, forgotten about me again.
Long may that continue.
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🌱 A Change of Season
Spring has arrived on my side of the world.
Someone has finally located the thermostat.
The sun has been turned back up to a setting I would describe as "functional," and for the first time in months I can type without my fingers feeling like they belong to someone else. I have emerged from beneath approximately four blankets and rejoined society.
To my readers in the North: I am sorry. Your turn.
Enjoy your autumn. Enjoy the leaves, the jumpers, the socially acceptable excuse to drink hot things constantly. I will think of you fondly while sitting outside in actual daylight.
We are, as always, exactly six months out of step with each other, which I find quietly delightful.
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📚 This Month in the Stories
🎉 New Release — Beastkin Chronicles 1: The Exiled Princess
This is the big one.
A brand new book, a brand new world, and a heroine named Aeryn who has spent the past month refusing to let me think about anything else.
If you have room for one more story in your life, I would love for you to take a look. If you do not, that is entirely fine — I know how long a reading list can get. But if you have space, Aeryn would very much like to be read, and she has been extremely insistent about it.
More on why this book exists in a moment.
📖 Weaves of Ashes & Rebirth of the Technomage
To everyone still reading both of these, and especially to those of you who stayed patient through a very rough June and a completely silent August: thank you.
You have no idea how much easier it is to sit down and write when you know there are people waiting on the other side.
Both stories continue. Neither is being abandoned for the shiny new thing. I have simply acquired a third plate, and I am spinning all of them with what I would generously call competence.
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🎁 Reader Giveaway
ABDHYSCJNHT6EBT5
The code can be redeemed by:
◇ 10 readers
◇ 10 FP per reader
First come, first served, as always. Luck decides.
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💭 A Glimpse Behind the Curtain
Several of you have asked how I write, and why a new book appeared when I already have two.
I will attempt to explain, though I warn you now that the explanation does not make me sound entirely well.
First, a confession: I have no idea how other authors do this.
That is deliberate. I do not read about craft. I do not read interviews about process. I have, in fact, more or less stopped reading fiction altogether, which feels like a terrible thing for an author to admit.
The reason is simple. I am frightened of absorbing someone else's voice by accident.
Not through any grand principle. I just know myself, and I know that if I read something brilliant on a Tuesday, there is an excellent chance that by Thursday my sentences will have quietly rearranged themselves to sound like it, and I will not have noticed it happening. So I keep the doors shut and work with what is already in the house.
What is already in the house is quite loud.
The stories do not arrive as ideas. They arrive as tenants.
A story will move in and sit there for months, doing very little, while I go about my ordinary life. Then it starts talking. Then it starts talking during work. Then it starts talking at 2am while I am trying to sleep, and eventually it becomes so loud that writing it down is the only way to get any peace.
That is the entire process. I am not a planner. I am a landlord with poor boundaries.
Some days Jayde and her people take over completely, and I write nothing else. Some days it is Raven. For the whole of the past month it has been Aeryn, relentlessly, until I finally sat down and gave her a book of her own.
That is why Beastkin Chronicles exists. Not strategy. Not a plan. Just a woman who would not stop talking.
And I should mention, in the interest of full disclosure, that there is a fourth story currently whispering.
I am pretending not to hear it.
It is not working.
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✍️ The Website
Still happening. Still slow.
I continue to gather content, save what I can, and work on it in the gaps between everything else. Progress is being made, but at the speed of a woman building something one brick at a time while three books and six cats compete for her attention.
It will exist. Eventually. I am simply refusing to give it a deadline, because the universe reads my deadlines and finds them funny.
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🍫 A Brief and Bitter Word About Chocolate
I should warn you that I am mildly grumpy this month.
Winter has ended, and winter took with it any pretence that my clothing still fits. I have gained weight. This is not a tragedy. What follows the weight gain is the tragedy.
No more sugar.
For most people this is an inconvenience. For me it is a bereavement. I rank chocolate somewhere between water and oxygen on the list of things required to sustain human life, and I am now expected to simply carry on without it, like a normal person.
Which brings me to my complaint.
We have put a man on the moon. We have machines that can hold a conversation. We can photograph things that happened billions of years ago at the far end of the universe.
And yet nobody has produced a staple food that delivers every calorie, mineral and vitamin a human requires while tasting exactly like chocolate cake.
I refuse to believe this is a technical limitation. I think we simply have our priorities wrong.
If any scientists are reading this newsletter, please consider it a formal request.
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🐾 The Cat Chaos Report: The Introductions
You have all met Nimbus and Powder, who remain exactly as they were. Nimbus still requires nightly rescue from locations approximately two metres from the door, and still looks at me as though I am the one with the problem.
But there are six cats in this house, and I have only ever introduced two of them. That seems unfair to the other four, who have been contributing to the chaos this entire time without credit.
So. Introductions.
🖤 Siren — The Lady of the House
Siren is the eldest. We found her seven years ago in an abandoned warehouse, a tiny scrap of a thing who has since developed the bearing of minor royalty.
For a long time she confused me deeply.
She is black. Except she is not. If you actually look at her coat, roughly three quarters of each hair is silver, with only the very tip in black. I spent an embarrassing amount of time unable to decide whether I owned a black cat or a silver cat committing fraud.
Eventually I did some research and discovered that she is a British Shorthair and the colouring is called black smoke.
I have read the explanation. I understand the genetics. I still believe she is a silver cat in disguise, and no amount of science is going to shift me on this.
Siren is extraordinarily ladylike. She is also the only cat I know who insists on skincare. She watches me do my routine every single day, and when I reach the end she delicately lifts one front paw, then the other, to receive her share of the face cream.
I have been doing this for seven years. I have stopped questioning it. She also has opinions about perfume.
She is the main reason I am so pleased spring has arrived. Siren despises the cold, and has spent the last three months in direct competition with my keyboard for possession of my lap. She has never accepted that a lap must be positioned underneath a desk in order for writing to occur, and she certainly does not accept that humans occasionally need to stand up.
Every bathroom break, every meal, every attempt to fetch a drink has been met with formal complaint.
She has now relocated to the couch behind me.
We are both much happier.
🧡 Lunabell — The Hunter
Lunabell is a tortoiseshell Persian who arrived as a temporary guest. We were asked to babysit her for a few weeks while her owner sorted out some personal difficulties.
Some months later, he collected her, kept her for one night, and returned her the following day.
She had, apparently, become too noisy.
That was two years ago. She is ours now.
Lunabell's greatest achievement to date is the capture of two crickets, both of which were large enough that I would have accepted "locust" as a description. On both occasions she screamed as though she were being actively murdered, which sent me sprinting across the house in a blind panic.
The first time, it took me an embarrassingly long while to work out what she wanted. Then the human brain finally engaged.
She wanted recognition.
She did not quieten down until I had told her, repeatedly and with feeling, that she was a magnificent hunter and I was extremely proud of her.
The flaw in this system is that she does not kill the cricket. She merely detains it.
Which means the ceremony is always followed by me removing a very much alive insect from the premises, while the great huntress supervises.
🐅 Archimedes & Hades — The Brothers
Two tabbies, rescued from a rabbit cage. It is a long story, and one for another newsletter.
Archie is convinced he is the master of this house. He spends his days on patrol, walking the borders of his territory with the seriousness of a man who has never been told his job is imaginary.
Hades is what I will politely call special.
I am reasonably confident he was a squirrel in a previous life. Unless food is involved, he appears to operate on a slight delay. When another cat attempts to pick a fight with him, his response is to flop over and give them a wide-eyed look of complete blankness, which is so confusing that the aggressor generally gives up and leaves.
It is not a strategy. He is simply like that. But it works, which is arguably worse.
He spends his entire day in whichever patch of sunlight is currently available. His only recorded exercise is the sprint to his food bowl, and heaven help you if that bowl is late. Sleeping in is not permitted. He will stand on your chest, yowling and patting your face, until you accept that the day has begun.
He is also overweight, and I have made several attempts to address this.
Every single time, the diet has been answered with dead mice. Not one. Three or four, deposited at my feet or outside my bedroom door in a single morning.
I have never been certain whether he was concerned that I could no longer afford to feed myself, or whether it was a threat.
I lean towards threat.
The moment his rations returned to normal, the mice stopped.
For the sake of my own sanity, I have decided to simply let the vet complain.
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💭 Final Thoughts
August was quiet, and I am sorry for that. September will not be.
Three books, six cats, one very slow website, and a fourth story whispering at me from the corner of the room. It is more than I probably ought to be carrying, and I would not swap any of it.
Thank you for reading. Thank you for commenting, theorising, and continuing to catch the mistakes I am certain I no longer make. Thank you for still being here after a month of silence.
The story continues. It always continues.
May your September be filled with good books, warm drinks, and either the first flowers or the first falling leaves, depending on which half of the world you are standing in.
With love,
Tracy
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JULY 2026
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Dear Readers,
Welcome to the July newsletter!
If you are new here, hello. If you have been here since June, I am genuinely impressed you came back after reading about the moth incident.
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📚 This Month in Weaves of Ashes
Upcoming Bonus Chapters
🎉 July Bonus Chapters
10 bonus chapters are still happening.
However, instead of dropping all at once, they will be released over a few days as they are completed.
The reason for this involves what I am generously calling a "hiccup" in June, which I will explain shortly.
"Hiccup" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence.
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🎁 Reader Giveaway
This month's redeem code
Code:ABDHYDD96C77R3VDA
The code can be redeemed by:
◇ 10 readers
◇ 10 FP per reader
First come, first served.
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💭 A Glimpse Behind the Curtain
I have been thinking recently about sharing a little more of myself with you. Not the author. The person.
My life, for about 90% of the time, is exactly like yours.
I work hard just to stay afloat. I pay off debts. I worry about the same things most people worry about. Where most people unwind by reading, watching telly, or gaming, I write. That is my version of normal. I am, in almost every measurable way, unremarkable.
And then, every few months, things go spectacularly sideways.
I have spent decades trying to understand the pattern. I have analysed it. I have stared at it from every angle. I still do not understand it.
Here is what I have worked out so far:
I have never been lucky. I have never won anything. Not a raffle, not a scratch card, not even one of those "everyone wins" promotions where the prize is a keyring.
And yet.
The things I have survived probably should have broken me. Some of them probably should have killed me. Which has led me to a philosophical dilemma I have been circling for years.
Am I very unlucky, or very lucky?
The glass half-full version: all the luck I would normally accumulate—the raffle wins, the parking spots, the minor daily blessings most people take for granted—gets quietly redirected toward keeping me alive during the disasters. A cosmic savings account that only pays out in emergencies.
The glass half-empty version: I am clearly being targeted by the universe, and the luck required to survive these events is just the universe covering its tracks so it can have another go later.
To this day, I genuinely do not know which one it is.
What I do know is this:
The universe appears to operate on a cycle. It forgets about me for four to six months. During that stretch, nothing amazing happens, but also nothing terrible happens, and honestly that is wonderful. I live a quiet, uneventful life. I recover from whatever the last disaster was. I start to relax.
And then the universe remembers I exist.
It does not ease back in gently. It does not send a warning email. It just arrives with two or three disasters stacked on top of each other, dumps them on my doorstep, and wanders off.
I survive. I recover. The cycle resets.
I know it sounds arrogant to believe the universe is personally bullying me. In the grand scheme of things, I am a speck of dust. It feels ridiculous to think that something as vast and indifferent as existence has singled me out for special attention.
But when the disasters hit, it really does feel like bullying.
Anyway.
December 2025 was my last disaster month. Since then, things had been normal. Quiet. Uneventful.
I should have known it would not last.
It did not last.
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🔒 What Happened in June
June started normally.
Then, in the early hours of the 21st, four armed men broke into our home at 2am.
They chose the wrong house.
My kids, my daughter-in-law, and I fought them off. It was chaos. Five of us against four of them, room by room, until we managed to force them out. My eldest son was outside still fighting when a gunshot went off. He leapt back inside, and we barricaded ourselves in, waiting for the police to arrive.
We were lucky.
The shot missed my eldest. Nothing was stolen. Most of us came away with just bruises. My youngest received a knife wound to his arm. My other son cut his foot badly on broken glass. A window and a couple of lights were broken. That was the extent of the damage.
In the grand tally of things that could have happened, we got off lightly.
But afterwards, I did not feel like writing.
I had stored chapters set aside, which I used to maintain my release schedule. The downside is that my buffer is now completely empty, and I only started writing and editing again yesterday.
So the promised bonus chapters will be released as and when they are finished.
I appreciate your patience more than I can say.
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🐾 The Cat Chaos Report
You may recall that last month I was dreading the vaccination visit for Nimbus and Powder.
I had prepared myself. I had mentally rehearsed the howling, the clawing, the carrier escape attempts, the dramatic betrayal stares.
None of it happened.
Both kittens climbed willingly into the carrier. They were quiet in the car. They sat calmly for their examinations and injections. They strolled out of the carrier at home as though nothing had occurred.
I stood in my kitchen, deeply confused.
When I took them back on the 23rd—Nimbus to be spayed, Powder to be neutered—the same thing happened. Nothing. No drama. No post-operative sulking. No accusatory glares.
Nimbus was so unbothered by her surgery that I actually checked to make sure the vet had done it. She was playing within hours, exactly as energetic as the day before.
She was operated on, I thought. This is confirmed. And yet.
This is the same cat who screams as though she has been abandoned by civilisation if I leave a room without formally announcing my departure.
This is also the same cat who, when four armed men broke into our home at 2am, did not scatter.
She watched.
I know this because I nearly tripped over her during the fight.
Every other cat in the house vanished. It took me hours to find them all after everything calmed down. But Nimbus apparently decided an armed home invasion was a spectator event.
I am no longer confused by Nimbus.
I am mildly concerned.
In other cat news, both Nimbus and Powder have decided that kitten food is beneath them and will only eat the adult food. The adult cats, meanwhile, have discovered the kitten food and are enthusiastically helping themselves.
Everyone is eating the wrong food.
The adults are getting rounder.
The kittens are thriving on stolen rations.
I have accepted that I am not in charge.
Nimbus also continues to require daily rescue missions from her outdoor adventures, with a particular fondness for getting "lost" at approximately 3am. This involves me stumbling outside in the cold to retrieve a cat who is usually sitting less than two metres from the door, looking at me as though I am the one who is lost.
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💭 Final Thoughts
I debated whether to share what happened in June.
In the end, I decided that you deserve honesty. You show up for me every day—reading, commenting, theorising, correcting my many mistakes—and the least I can do is show up honestly for you.
We are all fine. We are healing. The house is secure. And I am writing again.
Some months are harder than others. But the story continues. It always continues.
Thank you for being here.
Thank you for your patience.
Thank you for making this journey worth taking, even on the difficult days.
May your July be filled with good books, warm drinks, zero home invasions, and cats who eat the correct food.
With love,
Tracy
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JUNE 2026
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Dear Readers,
Welcome to the very first monthly newsletter!
I have been looking for a way to keep everyone updated without cluttering the story with endless author notes, and this seemed like the perfect solution. Going forward, I will update this newsletter on the 1st of every month with story news, upcoming events, random author ramblings, cat-related disasters, and whatever else chaos has occurred since the previous update.
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📚 This Month in Weaves of Ashes
Upcoming Bonus Chapters
🎉 June Celebration
10 Bonus Chapters releasing on the 1st of June.
🎉 Father's Day Bonus Chapter
An additional bonus chapter will be released on Father's Day.
To all the fathers, stepfathers, grandfathers, mentors, and men doing their best for the people they love—thank you. You matter more than the world sometimes gives you credit for.
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🎁 Reader Giveaway
One of the rewards Webnovel gives authors for maintaining a consistent release schedule is a redeem code that can be shared with readers.
For the last two months, I have released at least one chapter every single day without using my Leave of Absence.
As a reward, Webnovel issued the following redeem code:
Code: ABDHYDTLAHUEEHT6A
The code can be redeemed by:
◇ 10 readers
◇ 10 FP per reader
First come, first served.
I spent quite a while thinking about how to distribute these rewards. In the end, I realised I simply could not pick favourites.
Every reader matters.
Whether you have been here since Chapter 1 or only arrived yesterday, whether you comment every chapter or silently lurk in the shadows, you are part of this journey.
Each of you is a bright shining star helping light the road as I stumble my way toward the dream of becoming a full-time author.
So each month, whenever I receive one of these rewards, I will place it here in the newsletter and let luck decide who gets it.
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✍️ Author Updates
For the past two months, whenever I have managed to steal an hour or two from reality, I have been working on something very exciting.
An author website.
I have so much worldbuilding, lore, character information, and behind-the-scenes content I want to share with all of you. I would love a place where I can talk about Doha, explore the history of the realms, showcase character profiles, and eventually share proper artwork.
Right now I am slowly gathering content and saving funds.
My dream is to eventually commission or generate professional-quality character artwork and worldbuilding illustrations. One day, if I am lucky enough, I would even love to create small video trailers.
But dreams are built one brick at a time.
So for now, I save what I can, work when I can, and slowly move forward.
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📝 Editing Corner
One thing having amazing readers has taught me is that writing is a journey.
Every single day I learn something new.
• Sometimes it is a grammar rule.
• Sometimes it is a pacing issue.
• Sometimes it is discovering that I accidentally forgot to write an entire scene that only existed inside my head.
As a result, I have started slowly revisiting older chapters and editing them where possible.
I would like to think my writing has matured since Chapter 1.
Whether that is actually true or simply wishful thinking remains a matter of debate.
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🐾 The Cat Chaos Report
Winter has officially arrived on my side of the world.
Somewhere, someone appears to have misplaced the thermostat and turned the sun down to its lowest setting.
I am freezing.
As a result, my dream has now evolved from:
"Become a full-time author."
to
"Become a full-time author who can follow summer around the world."
Unfortunately, fate decided that wasn't enough excitement.
My daughter-in-law recently arrived with two rescue kittens.
Now, any sensible person would have said:
"I already have four cats."
Unfortunately, my daughter-in-law knows me.
She knew perfectly well I was incapable of saying no.
So now there are six.
The newcomers are a brother and sister Persian mix.
The little boy is mostly white with a grey spot on his head and a grey tail tipped in white.
His name is Powder.
His sister is mostly grey.
I wanted to call her Talcum.
This suggestion was immediately vetoed by everyone.
Apparently I am not allowed to name things.
So she became Nimbus.
Very dramatic sigh.
Nimbus is... special.
After a month of scientific observation, I have estimated her survival rate without human intervention at approximately 0%.
She gets lost constantly.
To clarify:
She does not actually get lost.
She merely believes she is lost.
For example, if her human leaves a room without informing her, she immediately assumes she has been abandoned forever and begins screaming as though the apocalypse has arrived.
Recently she climbed out one side of a window, walked less than two metres along the windowsill, reached the next window, discovered it was closed, and concluded she had become permanently stranded.
This resulted in another dramatic rescue mission.
The good news is she successfully caught a moth.
The bad news is I strongly suspect the moth was suicidal. (She was yawning, and it flew into her mouth.)
Nimbus then spent ten minutes traumatised by her own success.
This week they are due for vaccinations.
Please keep me in your thoughts.
I have a feeling I may need a drink afterwards.
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💭 Final Thoughts
Thank you.
For reading.
For commenting.
For correcting my mistakes.
For theorising.
For making me laugh.
For taking this journey with me.
Writing can sometimes feel like shouting into the void.
You remind me every day that there are people listening on the other side.
And that means more than I can properly put into words.
May your week be filled with good books, good food, warm blankets, and significantly fewer lost kittens than mine.
With love,
Tracy