Something wicked this way comes

Macbeth, romance, and The Handmaid’s Tale

1. Is that a dagger which I see before me

2. In the Firing Line

3. When romance writers gather

4. Moms for Liberty banning books

5. Time to join the Masterclass.

1. The thing about the Elizabethans and the Jacobeans after them is that they did good drama. Murder, blood, witches, ghosts, love gone mad, the mad gone madder. Revenge, drink, dastardly plots. For all these reasons, let alone the ghostly daggar, Shakespeare’s Macbeth has long fascinated me. So I used that story in Falls the Shadow. There’s Lady Vula (a stand-in for Lady Macbeth), Vula in his wheelchair (a crippled version of Macbeth) and Luna Maplewood as the modern day witch/sangoma dispensing powders to Vula to keep the evil spirits at bay. But, of course, there is no gainsaying what is writ in blood…

2. While on the topic of Falls the Shadow, a huge box of said books arrived today from my publishers, PanMac. They’re calling this The Jackal Series, and have scheduled number two, Firing Line, for February 2027. Meanwhile, somewhere in Texas, the perspicacious Jessica Powers of Catalyst Press is editing that manuscript. Catalyst also publish Falls the Shadow in February and btb Verlag publish in August with the title Die Schakalin (The Jackal).

3. As I’ve been approached to chair a panel of romance writers - an intimidating thought - at the March book festival in Knysna, here is some US news about the success of Romantasy novels: “‘Romantasy’ novels, sword-sex-and-sorcery stories for female readers, are propping up the publishing industry. Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros, about amorous cadets at a dragon-riding school, became the fastest-selling adult novel in 20 years last year, while the Court of Thorns and Roses series about a woman falling in love with fairy — or ‘faerie’ — lords has sold more than 75 million copies; the genre brought in an estimated $610 million in 2024. The protagonists are usually women, and the stories combine fantasy and romance tropes, The Conversation reported. US women read more than men, recent polling found, with the romantasy genre likely a major driver.”

4. “How low will politicians sink when pressured by groups like the Moms for Liberty to ban books?” writes Jan Harayda in her Substack, Jansplaining. She lives in Fairhope, Alabama where for a year the public library has been “fighting a […] battle with politicians […] who cut off its state funds because it refused to move a dozen or so books, including Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, from the teen to the adult section. After its defunding, the library raised through donations the $42,000 it had lost.” However, “the residents’ refusal […] seems to have enraged the Alabama Public Library Service board, which had faced pressure from ultra-conservative groups like the Moms for Liberty to set more limits on the freedom to read. [Recently] the APLS revealed how it would punish our library. […] Alabama is taking an unprecedented new form of revenge against our town that will especially hurt the poor, the sick, the disabled, and others who can’t afford or lack access to books. The gist of it is that the politicians are cutting off our access to a courier service that lets users of our library borrow books easily from the others in Baldwin County. This book-sharing program[me] gives residents access to thousands more books than a small-town library could afford to buy. Its loss means that our library can’t easily borrow from others, and they can’t borrow from us. The nominal reason for it is that a library must be eligible for Alabama Public Library Service funding to use the courier service. The APLS board made sure Fairhope isn’t eligible.” Sounds thoroughly trumpian.

5. Time to join The Writers’ Masterclass for 2026. Read about the class here. Register here.