Francesca's Thoughts

Hello hello,

I’m chilly and it’s raining. I’ve been hearing about the UK’s false autumn so I’m grateful for rain, but I really enjoyed not having cold knees. And not having to put on socks. And not laundering socks. Where do they go.

I’ve almost finished The Lord of the Rings. I didn’t flick between the main story and the appendices while I was reading so now I’m picking through Appendix A trying to remember which elves I’ve met. In the meantime I read a fantastic contemporary satire a couple of weeks ago, in one sitting, and I’m still thinking about it…

Read Julie Chan is Dead (2025) by Liann Zhang If You Like…

• Fuming at lifestyle influencers and the social media machine
• Shouting in disbelief at characters while they dig bigger and bigger holes for themselves
• Despicable behaviour from people with very little to lose
• Unhinged behaviour from people with, potentially, a lot to lose
• Yellowface by Rebecca F. Kuang
• Cliques of girls even worse than that one clique of girls from ten years ago that you always think of when someone says ‘cliques of girls’ except these are in their twenties and thirties which is somehow so much more embarrassing
• Saying ‘no, this can’t be… oh it is. Oh no,’ on loop as the plot progresses.

In other words, I loved it.

My Kindle doesn’t do the cover justice so I’ve borrowed a high res image from Simon and Schuster because it’s great:

Have you read it? What did you think? I’m off to wrangle socks out of the laundry.

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.

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. Keep in touch via my monthly(ish) newsletter!