I had completely forgotten I keep a vague, meandering list of weird shit I look up for every manuscript. I just dug out the Rotting Trees list and I’m pleased that I have absolutely no memory of why I needed to look up Ed Sheeran.
The Archers
Consumption
London to Southend train times
Ed Sheeran
Victorian necklaces (spoiler! she cackles)
Old timey newspapers*
Southend high street and surrounding places. So many businesses have gone bustwere shit closed since 2015, and I didn’t fancy naming one erroneously and getting roasted in a Facebook group
How to design a family tree, and I will tell you for free that you need a spreadsheet, a lot of patience and ideally Photoshop because those free graphic design options are shite
How to spell Jack Vettriano
* Technically I used my uni credentials for evil and found what I needed on an academic database, not Google, but technically I use Ecosia as a search engine anyway, not Google, but no one is saying they Ecosia-d anything are they, so really this whole post is playing with the truth a little bit, but that’s in keeping with a book about digging up one’s family history so if you think about it, I’m being clever here and not lazy.
You can find Rotting Treeshere if you are so inclined. All I’m looking up at the moment is bus times and ideas for lunch. Every lunchtime I am surprised by the advent of lunch, which makes me a prime target for places that sell overpriced lunch. Devastatingly, I also loathe spending more than fourteen seconds at a kitchen counter. Save me, BBC Good Food.
Look after yourselves! Francesca
Want to support this blog and/or enjoy exclusive access to my latest book, Rotting Trees, plus chatter from me? Join the No. 1 Reader’s Club on Patreon! Alternatively, you can use PayPal or Ko-fi for one-off support. If you’re into fairy tales and/or want a brief respite from reality, you can also buymy first book, The Princess and the Dragon and Other Stories About Unlikely Heroes, from most ebook retailersand as a paperback from Amazon.(That link’s an affiliate. Gotta scrape every penny from Bezos…) If you enjoy my book recommendations, you can find my Bookshop.org page here.
I can’t remember the last time I did a Read, If You Like (I think it was for Gideon the Ninth? We may be seeing a theme emerge) and I have been reading some absolutely tip top non fiction lately. Quite a bit of it is about death. Rituals, evolving attitudes to human remains, death as preferable to immortality. I thought I would do a post about some of the books I’ve enjoyed. In time for Easter! This was not deliberate but if you would like to make a Jesus joke here, I will not stop you.
Read Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?Big Questions from Tiny Mortals About Death by Caitlin Doughty (2020), if you like:
Straightforward, but not unemphatic, conversations around the Western death industry and death rituals (each chapter answers a question asked to a mortician by a child)
Thinking about what might happen if you die with a pet present. For the record, I am happy for my remains to feed any pets I may have at the time of my passing. If I’m not there to feed them, I may as well… be there to feed them
A really good conversation starter of a book. ‘What are you reading at the moment?’ ‘A book called Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?‘ ‘Will my cat eat my eyeballs?’ ‘They’re more likely to go for a fleshy bit.’
I did not know that I needed to know you cannot make popcorn in a cremator, but I’m hopeful that such knowledge has pushed out something that was taking up space in my brain, like the names of the Kardashians’ children.
Read Dark Archives: A Librarian’s Investigation into the Science and History of Books Bound in Human Skin, by Megan Rosenbloom (2020), if you like:
An introduction to the world of anthropodermic bibliopegy, otherwise known as ‘books bound in human skin,’ and the evolving cultural conversations around storage and display of human remains. There is a chance you won’t know if you will like such a topic before you start. Possibly read the first ten pages and go from there
Brief histories of people who made extremely bad decisions (Burke and Hare!)
Brief histories of people we don’t hear nearly enough about (Phillis Wheatley!)
Inflicting conversations about the above on your friends and relatives
Free copy of ‘Rotting Trees’ to whomever guesses why I took notes
Read From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death, by Caitlin Doughty (2018), if you like:
Learning about other cultures
Travel inspiration (sort of. A few of the rituals are open to tourists, some just to anthropologists or journalists who ask nicely. This book reminded me of how many cool places I would love to visit, but I probably would not attempt to view most of the rituals that are open to tourists unless explicitly invited)
Thinking about what you would like done with your earthly remains
I don’t know how many people enjoy doing that
But we probably all should
(Green burial for me, please, assuming my pets didn’t get to all of me)
Because I read this sort of thing all the time, I can’t always tell what’s macabre or horrific the majority of people and what is potentially interesting depending on gore level. Or what is just a day in the office. I dunno. If you’ve read any of these, let me know your thoughts on them! As per, if any of the above catch your eye, you can find them on my Bookshop.org page. If Caitlin Doughty sounds familiar, she does Ask a Mortician on YouTube. Happy Easter and/or Bank Holiday weekend, whichever is the more spiritual for you.
Look after yourselves!
Francesca
Want to support this blog and/or enjoy exclusive access to my latest book, Rotting Trees, plus chatter from me? Join the No. 1 Reader’s Club on Patreon! Alternatively, you can use PayPal or Ko-fi for one-off support. If you’re into fairy tales and/or want a brief respite from reality, you can also buymy first book, The Princess and the Dragon and Other Stories About Unlikely Heroes, from most ebook retailersand as a paperback from Amazon.(That link’s an affiliate. Gotta scrape every penny from Bezos…) If you enjoy my book recommendations, you can find my Bookshop.org page here.
As I recall, most of the regulars to this space live in the Northern Hemisphere and are, presumably, currently quite cold. So I thought I would put together a list of cosy books to distract you as your nose runs and your glasses steam up every time you go from outdoors to indoors. Don’t need glasses yet? Just wait.
Carmilla
The vampire novel that came before Dracula, I have a very specific memory of reading this on Project Gutenberg, on my phone, in the snow as I awaited a bus for over an hour. Now I think about it, Carmilla isn’t a particularly wintery story, I will just never unpick it from the memory of frozen fingers as I scrolled. It’s short, it is literally free on the internet because the copyright is long expired, there are vampires. Make a cup of tea, curl up and… am I going to say it? Yes I am. Sink your teeth into this excellent novella!
The Scorpio Races
Traditionally read by fans in October and November, I first came across The Scorpio Races in January. It has the best sense of place of any book I’ve ever read so you will either feel immediately autumnal and therefore quite cosy… or you will read the scenes in which the characters move from a freezing beach to a sunlit bakery and warm up. Either way, you will have read The Scorpio Races and thus you will have ascended to a better plane of existence.
Good Omens: the Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
I realised this year that I’ve fallen into the habit of reading Good Omens every January. Possibly because it always makes me laugh and then I warm up (physically and spiritually, I suppose). Possibly the bleak midwinter is just the best time to read about the coming of the antichrist… and the M25.
The Starless Sea
I picked this back up before new year having first read it in, or in between, one of the lockdowns in 2021. It is quite a strange book, and I enjoyed it immensely. I have a few books on the go for uni at the moment, but I think I might pick it up and start again when I have a moment at the end of the semester (which is creeping up, it’ll be fine, whydo I panic about 3,000 word essays when I recently finished a 72,000 novel? Possibly because no one is grading the novel). Anyway. Your mileage with The Starless Sea may vary; Erin Morgenstern’s other book, The Night Circus, is also delightfully bizarre but tends to be quite Marmite. So is most of this list, now I think about it.
Devastatingly I must finish this post here as my chronic fatigue has recently become even more chronic and horribly more fatiguing and, as mentioned, I have an essay to be cracking on with. Tomorrow morning. This evening I will be washing my hair and finishing the last fortnight’s edition of Private Eye. It isn’t exactly a cosy read, the Private Eye, but I like to keep my copy handy just in case I ever meet a senior official from the Post Office and then I can chase them from here til Sunday with it.
If any of these titles have caught your eye, please a) borrow them from a library and b) if you wish to buy them, consider placing an order at your local bookshop or using my Bookshop.org page. I earn a teeny amount in affiliate linking if you do.
Look after yourselves!
Francesca
Want to support this blog and/or enjoy exclusive access to my latest book, Rotting Trees, plus chatter from me? Join the No. 1 Reader’s Club on Patreon! Alternatively, you can use PayPal or Ko-fi for one-off support. If you’re into fairy tales and/or want a brief respite from reality, you can also buymy first book, The Princess and the Dragon and Other Stories About Unlikely Heroes, from most ebook retailersand as a paperback from Amazon.(That link’s an affiliate. Gotta scrape every penny from Bezos…) If you enjoy my book recommendations, you can find my Bookshop.org page here.
Once upon a time, I nicknamed a manuscript ‘cursenovel.’ More recently I finished it, named it Rotting Trees and, when no one I’d approached wanted to sell it, decided to publish it myself.
Then I wrote this post. I do have some graphics planned to share to my social media as part of the never ending PR machine that is required of self publishing, but I thought it would be fun to have a master post type blog here, since most social media platforms are increasingly functionally unusable and/or full of Nazis and/or require you to have 250k followers before it’ll show anyone anything.
What is Rotting Trees?
A young adult contemporary fantasy novel. In normal English: magicky but set in the real world, and with an audience in mind of anyone aged about 15 upwards. I’ve been describing it as for fans of The Raven Cycle and Good Omens in both tone and generalised vibes.
Okay, but what’s it about?
All the women in Ariel Scarlet’s family die before the age of forty. Family legend blames a cursed Victorian necklace, and Ariel is determined to discover who cursed it and why.
Sophey Cartwright works in Bezzina’s Emporium of Magical Artefacts and Antiquities. She can help Ariel find out the truth… but is Ariel ready to face the past and choose her own place in history?
Keen eyed readers will remember Sophey and Ariel from the handful of Bezzina’s Emporium short stories I’ve been writing over the last few years. I think the first ever story was part of the Major Arcana series – what a lockdown project that was – and you can read the Bezzina’s stories here and the whole Major Arcana series here. You don’t have to have read the short stories to enjoy Rotting Trees, but they are a good time and you might enjoy seeing how I splashed around in the world before committing to a seventy-one thousand word manuscript. Which has, for the record, been professionally proofread and been checked by a sensitivity reader.
I’m sold, where is it?
From December 2023-December 2024, I’ll share a chapter per week of Rotting Trees to my Patreon, the No. 1 Readers’ Club (it’s available for all paying members regardless of tier!). The prologue is up now. This will, of course, be alongside all my usual Patreon funsies like tarot readings and short stories. I’d love to do a Kickstarter to fund an ebook and print run in 2025, but that will depend on demand (my energy levels aren’t likely to go up but my workload probably will, so we’ll see how it goes on Patreon first). If you’re new: membership to the No. 1 Readers’ Club starts from £1 a month, and there’s an option to trial for 7 days. You can also sign up for free to see my public posts. I name a character after every paying member, do monthly tarot readings and add paid members’ names to the thank yous of published books.
Yes! As you can tell from the blurb, this isn’t a romantic comedy. It’s not really graphic and it’s definitely not sexy (I would say it has at least one hundred percent less kissing than The Raven Cycle and the same number of dogs as Good Omens), but I did explore complex and often uncomfortable topics.If you prefer to know themes before you begin, I have a list (if you prefer to dive into a book come what may, just scroll on):
Minor: alcohol, animal cruelty, blood, cursing, disordered eating, mental and physical illness, parental neglect, religious bigotry, vomit.
If you’re a parent and your 14 year-old would like to read it but you aren’t sure: you know your child better than I do, so my recommendation is to take the content warnings into consideration and read it yourself first. Unless, of course, you’re one of those parents who thinks children shouldn’t consume anything depicting LGBTQ folk, children having adventures, or critical thinking. In which case, get them and yourself a membership to your local library immediately and go and have a think about what you’re really afraid of. Did I just spoil Rotting Trees or was that a generalised moan about books being banned from libraries? There’s only one way to find out!
Is Rotting Trees available anywhere for free?
No. If you see it online for free, please tell me because it’s been stolen. I’m mindful that we are all living in horrible financial times and to keep my work as accessible as possible the No. 1 Readers’ Club has a trial option, plus you can join from just £1 per month. I cannot make it cheaper without devaluing a) my work and the effort it takes to write, edit, publish and promote a novel while living with chronic health issues, juggling five jobs and undertaking a degree simultaneously, and b) the writing industry. If Patreon isn’t for you, no hard feelings – I have 14 years of posts on this blog available free, plus dozens of short stories online. You can find previous Bezzina’s Emporium short stories in particular here. You can, as ever, support my work on a one-off basis via Ko-Fi or PayPal.
That’s all for now – I’m sure I’ll add more questions throughout the year I’m sharing this story. I am so very excited for you all to get to know Sophey and Ariel properly over the next year. Thank you to my critique partners Bel, Jengo, Ruth and Lindsay, to my editor, Debz Hobbs-Wyatt and to my sensitivity reader, Helen Gould. Love as ever to the No. 1 Readers’ Club, whose support over the last two years has allowed me to spend time writing this. Let’s gooo! If you have questions about the book as it unfolds, leave them here or on Patreon and I’ll add them to this post.
Links you may find interesting
A blog post where I talk more about why I’m self publishing Rotting Trees
Rotting Trees on GoodReads and StoryGraph if you’d like to add it to your ‘currently reading’ during the read-along
Look after yourselves!
Francesca
Want to support this blog and/or enjoy exclusive access to my latest book, Rotting Trees, plus chatter from me? Join the No. 1 Reader’s Club on Patreon! Alternatively, you can use PayPal or Ko-fi for one-off support. If you’re into fairy tales and/or want a brief respite from reality, you can also buymy first book, The Princess and the Dragon and Other Stories About Unlikely Heroes, from most ebook retailersand as a paperback from Amazon.(That link’s an affiliate. Gotta scrape every penny from Bezos…) If you enjoy my book recommendations, you can find my Bookshop.org page here.
Francesca's Thoughts 