Announcing BEHOOVED!

News

Book news! I have book news! I’ve been waiting since January to be able to talk about this, and now I can finally announce that I’m going to be published! Seven manuscripts, two literary agents, and literal decades of hard work have finally culminated in a lifelong dream:

My debut novel, Behooved, will be published on May 20, 2025 by Tor/Bramble in the US and on May 22, 2025 by Hodderscape in the UK! As well as in translation in four other countries (and counting)!

The announcement is live on Publisher’s Marketplace and Reactor—you can read the full article here! The process so far has been a whirlwind and a dream. I’ve spent months pterodactyl shrieking at my inbox (apparently this is how I process excitement) and now I can shriek to all of you. How wild that the news is finally public!

Behooved is an adult fantasy rom com with chronic illness/invisible disability rep, a bi4bi pairing, lots of action (of multiple types, hehe), and transmogrification hijinks. Here’s the official description from my publisher:

Preorder links are already live if you’d like to snag yourself a copy here, and you can also support the book by adding it on Goodreads and/or making a purchase request at your local library. I am both thrilled and terrified that it’s already starting to make its way to readers (including blurbers, oh my god, real published authors are reading my book??)!

As an extra treat, here’s the character art I commissioned to celebrate when I got the book deal!

There’s lots more exciting stuff to come in the next few months—stay tuned for news on arcs, preorder campaigns, and more!

Writing updates

I’m currently deep into drafting my next book (novel #13!)—another fantasy rom com for adults. If you liked the historical sapphics of A Restless Truth, the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park, and the unhinged adventure of Pirates of the Caribbean, I hope you’ll love this one! I’m excited to share more news down the road. I’m currently on deadline with my first draft due in December, so I’m in full-on drafting mode.

I’m having a ton of fun with it so far—this is easily the most ridiculous book I’ve written to date, which makes for a good time.

Crafty Corner

Today’s piece of craft advice is more of a discussion—I thought I would share my outlining process and how I go about starting new projects, since this is something I’ve done quite recently. After 12 completed books, I have a process!

Part 1: Brainstorm dump

Usually my WIPs start as a premise and some vibes—random related ideas that excite me but are not especially coherent. At the early stage, I just let all the ideas tumble around in my head without judging them. I let myself get excited and I feel out whether the ideas keep coming—a good sign that I have an actual book plot, not just a premise—then jot them down in a dedicated note in my phone.

Then, if the idea is still grabbing me after a few days, I go on a brainstorming walk with my notes app and just let my brain run over the story, pausing periodically to write my thoughts down. At the end of the walk, I’ll have the general gist of the story and a lot of random notes about plot, world, and character I’ll figure out how to use later.

Part 2: Make it make sense

My early brainstorming is mostly vibes and random things, but at a certain point it has to cohere. Usually how I handle this is to take another brainstorming walk while focusing on story-specific questions: What sort of setting would create a situation like the premise I want? What sort of life experience would make my character have this goal? For instance, for Behooved I had to figure out why an arranged marriage would be necessary.

Part 3: Write the pitch

Usually I write a query-style pitch at this stage, complete with genre, age category, and potential comp titles (not necessarily ones I’ve read yet—emphasis on potential). I find this incredibly helpful both for laying out the heart of the story—the character’s goals, motivations, and conflicts—as well as for deciding whether this idea is something I can pitch to my agent and, down the road, to publishers. (This is not to say that books that don’t pitch easily can’t be amazing and worthwhile—but my personal preference in my own writing leans towards “hooky” books, as I imagine myself having to tell people what it’s about over and over in a single sentence.)

Part 4: Beat sheet 

Finally, I start filling in my beat sheet (I use a version of Save the Cat I’ve adapted for my own needs). Usually at this point I know a few of the big beats—catalyst, dark night of the soul, and the climax usually get figured out very early on—so I start by filling in what I know and then see where the gaps are. If I’m having trouble with certain sections (hello fun and games beat, my old nemesis), you guessed it—I go on another brainstorming walk! Typically the outline takes me a couple of days to complete.

For some people it’s the shower; for me, apparently moving my legs outdoors is what really makes the ideas click!

Book recommendation

This month’s book recommendation is The Girl With No Reflection by Keshe Chow! It’s a YA fantasy romance about a girl who marries a prince, discovers a mirror realm populated with murderous reflections, and falls for the reflection of the prince she married. It’s spooky and romantic with lots of action, and it just released earlier this month!

That’s all for now! In my next newsletter I might talk about how I got my book deal and what the process was like instead of my usual craft talk, if that’s something folks are interested in.

~Marina