Francesca's Thoughts

Happy October! I write to you, spiritually speaking, from the inner depths of a carved pumpkin. Physically speaking I am sitting at a desk and wondering if four o’clock in the afternoon is an acceptable bed time before the clocks go back.

Read Yellowface (R.F. Kuang, 2023) if you like:

• Satires and/or thrillers. I think this is a satirical thriller, although I imagine it has also been called ‘a blistering commentary on cultural appropriation,’ which is is. Get a book that can do both! It might also be a psychological thriller, or a satirical horror. I suspect I’ll come to a different conclusion every time I read it.
• Protagonists so unlikeable you eventually feel sorry for them because they are so determined to dig their own graves that the novel’s central question becomes ‘how deep can this grave get?’
• (REALLY DEEP)
• Characters whose attitude and actions are so unbelievably short sighted that you physically stop reading to hiss through your teeth at their audacity.
• By short sighted I do mean racist. By audacity I mean racism. Although in her defence, the racist character here also has the audacity to think she’s an undiscovered literary genius. Sure, babe. Aren’t we all.
• Being cynical about the publishing industry, which I think has potential to become a professional sport if enough of us do it.

Speaking of publishing novels: those of you who are over at the No. 1 Readers’ Club on Patreon, you have an email. Eyeball emoji eyeball emoji. If you’d like to browse the books I chat about in this series, you can find most of them at Bookshop.org.

I’m off to think about pumpkins. Look after yourselves!

Francesca

Thanks for reading. If you’d like to read my short stories and see behind-the-scenes work, you can sample? the No. 1 Reader’s Club on Patreon for a month with this link. No pressure to stick around! Think of it as trying a miniature dessert with no requirement to eat the whole menu. You can also find me on Ko-fi. Thank you for your support – you’re helping to fund this space and pay for other costs of running a creative business, like paying editors.

Here are the books I’ve published so far and where you can find them. If you enjoy my book recommendations, browse my Bookshop.org page here.

I’m on social media (reluctantly), via Instagram, Tumblr and Facebook. I prefer my montly-ish newsletter! You can find all my books and my unhinged reviews of books I love on GoodReads and StoryGraph.