Myth, the Universe, and Everything

Love, Death, and Comedy: Five Questions with Caitlyn Paxson

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:59:54 GMT

Benjamin Franklin once wrote that “in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes,” but one of the delights in fantasy novels is that even those aren’t certain. They may well be of concern—especially when the livelihood of an entire village depends on it’s lord being alive and well and keeping the lands out of the hands of his wicked (and ambitious) brother. It’s entirely understandable that in these circumstances, the lord’s widow might seek the help of a necromancer in order to bring back her husband by any means necessary.

Caitlyn Paxson

But not everyone is nefarious enough to pull off “any means necessary,” and Caitlyn Paxson’s novel A Widow’s Charm, which hits bookstore shelves next week (March 31, 2026), heightens the comedy through misunderstandings, ribald double entendre, and canine hijinks. In honor of the release, Caitlyn answered five questions (with a mini-review that follows!).

Alana: Badly describe your novel in one sentence (and then tell us what it's really about).

Caitlyn: A small dog inherits a manor house and accidentally makes two idiots fall in love.

A Widow’s Charm is the story of a desperate widow who decides she has to resurrect her dead husband so they can save their community from falling into the hands of his horrible brother. To achieve this, she attempts to blackmail the disgraced and deeply depressed necromancer next door. She’s not very good at it, so he thinks she’s trying to seduce him. Misunderstandings, madcap antics, and heartfelt romance ensue.

Alana: Your novel opens with something of a trigger warning—but also with the promise that it will all work out by the end. (As a reader, I forgot all about it until the relevant moment, and it gave me much comfort!) What inspired you to begin with what some readers might consider a spoiler?

Caitlyn: I actually added the sort-of-trigger-warning just before I started querying the manuscript, out of genuine concern! It’s about something in the book that really upsets me when I encounter it in other people’s books (or movies, or… in any media, really) so I wanted to warn readers that it happens and let them know that they don’t need to worry about it because it’s all going to be okay. And I don’t really think of it as a spoiler, because your experience is the intended one! I hope readers have a little laugh at it initially, and then every time it almost happens throughout the book, they think, is it now? And then after it isn’t, they let it slip their minds—and then it happens and hopefully surprises them a little even though they knew it was coming!

Alana: What is your favorite line from A Widow's Charm that you can share without spoilers?

Caitlyn: I’m pretty proud of the first line, which took me a long time to get right:

“Death slipped in at the end of a perfectly ordinary day, creeping over the threshold of evening as if it might go unnoticed—as if the consequences of it would not shape all that was to come.”

But I also have a soft spot for:

“Your badger hound is stuck in my crevasse.”

Alana: A Widow's Charm feels like cozy fantasy, a romance of manners, and a Regency novel—what were some of your inspirations from those genres that influenced your work?

Caitlyn: I grew up consuming a lot of theatre, and A Widow’s Charm owes much to Shakespeare’s more madcap comedies in particular, like Much Ado About Nothing and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. These plays are hilarious and goofy and full of ribald jokes, but simultaneously deliver incredibly poignant romance and astute observations about what it means to be human. Similarly, The Princess Bride (the movie and the book) was a childhood favorite that really set the tone for me about how to combine fantasy, comedy, and romance.

As far as fantasy novel influences, I’ve been an avid fantasy reader my whole life, so there are endless titles I could list, but one author who has had a profound impact on my writing is my dear friend C.S.E. Cooney, whose stories are so sparkling and inventive that they always excite me. More specifically, her World Fantasy Award-winning book, Saint Death’s Daughter, stars a gentle sweetheart of a necromancer, who inspired me to ponder just how loveable a necromancer could be.

I only really became an avid romance novel reader while I was in the middle of writing A Widow’s Charm, but two authors I quickly fell in love with are Cat Sebastian and T. Kingfisher, and I hope this book is in conversation with theirs.

I love rewatching movie adaptations of Jane Austen novels because they tend to blend costume drama and romcom and that is 100% my jam—my two favorites are Sense and Sensibility (1995) and Emma (2020). These are the sorts of things I would watch in the evening instead of writing if I let myself, so I had to make my manuscript feel like them so I would choose it instead.

Alana: If you could choose one of your characters, from this novel or the next, to spend an evening with, who would it be, and what would you do?

Caitlyn: I think it would be awfully fun to spend an evening out on the town with Elmwood and Winthrop. And maybe after attending the opera and galivanting around the city of Neck, we’ll end up being the subjects of a fabulous highway robbery upon the Wodewood Road when we’re waylaid by Issie and Han from Book 2 (Rogue Charmers, coming in spring 2027)!

Though honestly, an evening curled up with Rollo the badger hound on a chaise next to the fire is probably more my speed.

A Widow's Charm

Mini-Review:

It’s easy to tell from her interview answers that Caitlyn is as charming as her characters, and one of the best parts of the book is that the cast is such a sheer delight to spend time with. Hilde, the widow, feels duty-bound to protect everyone (and not really let anyone protect her in return). Elmwood is a soldier, still suffering from his experiences on the battlefield (not to mention being on the run from the law). They’re both people in need of healing, and they don’t expect to find that in each other. But though they both start out thinking they’re using each other, they find real, human connection in the middle of a difficult time, and that sense of joy and hope infuses the novel. There’s never a doubt that these characters will find a way to get to a happy ending, though what that ending looks like is very much in question.

The novel handles the premise of a novel trying to resurrect her dead husband while also falling in love with the necromancer without ever making it feel like something untoward is happening (or, at least, not really). Caitlyn does a fantastic job of exploring Hilde’s relationship with her husband in way that also brings to light class disparity and power inequality, countering that with using privilege for the good of others. How does all of that heavy material fit into a cozy novel? Caitlyn’s use of humor throughout the novel keeps even the heaviest content—and these characters are going through it, so there are definitely heavy themes—from becoming overwhelming.

It also helps that Hilde and Elmwood’s supporting cast are so delightful. Hilde’s stoic sister Han seems, at times, like she’s the sister with the better head on her shoulders. Hilde’s staff—Cook, Francie, and Ed—form a much sturdier base for Hilde than she realizes; her own plots and plans wouldn’t get far without them, though she doesn’t know it! Elmwood’s “betrothed,” Lady Isobel, is the kind of ingenue you might love to hate if only she weren’t also such a wonderful character with steel hidden in her spine. Elmwood’s best friend, Wintrhop, a loveable lawyer whose madcap plans are the only thing keeping Elmwood’s head above water, should get to star in his own book if the series gets to continue that long. The Harrier is the type of villain readers love to hate. But best of all, Rollo the badger hound is such a very good boy! It’s a wonderful cast that feels deep and wide, and like you could spend time with any one of them in a scene and feel the world was richer for it. Rating: 9.5.

There’s still time to pre-order the novel before it comes out! It hits bookstore and library shelves on Tuesday, March 31, 2026.

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Behind the Scenes with Trip Galey

Fri, 27 Feb 2026 13:40:54 GMT

Back in 2023, A Market of Dreams and Destiny welcomed readers into an alternate 19th-century London, where an indentured human in the goblin market manages to turn the world on its head, aiming for a brighter and better world for those who most deserve it. Shortlisted for the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award, this novel is Trip Galey’s stellar debut—but Trip is also a game designer (Faerie’s Bargain from Choice of Games) and an editor (I Want that Twink Obliterated! from Bona Books).

Now, Trip’s latest project, The Fall of the House of Valenziaga, is about to hit Kickstarter. I got a chance to chat with him about this new project, what he loves about SFF, and why he loves writing queer fiction (with queer creatives at all steps of the process!).

Alana: Badly describe your new novel in one sentence (then tell us what it's really about!).

Trip: A young man learns that if you want to tear down a house, you’re better off wearing a dress while doing it.

So, The Fall of the House of Valenziaga is about a guy called Virtus. He’s the heir to a Legendary House (similar to a noble house—but GAY) and his mother is… toxic, to put it mildly. Of course, the thing is, when you grow up with toxic parents you don’t always realise they’re toxic. You often don’t know any better or have another childhood to compare yours to, really. So the book is Virtus realising how terrible his mother is and then setting out to free himself—and the rest of the city—from her tyrannical dominance. Even if it means tearing down his own Legendary House to do it.

And it’s queer science fantasy, so envision a city beyond the edge of space and time that is made up of fragments of a thousand thousand lost and/or destroyed worlds, riddled with strange science and weird sorcery, and populated by unknowable beings that are all too human and humans that are occasionally unspeakably monstrous.

Plus QUEER. Metaphorically, literally, from a worldbuilding perspective, in terms of references and Easter eggs… in as many senses of the word as I could fit in.

Sometimes, more is more.

Alana: You've written about faeries and edited pulp fiction across all the speculative genres. Your newest title is science fantasy. Which genre is secretly your favorite (and why do you love all of them)?

Trip: Faeries, lol. It will always be faeries. There is something so primal about fairy tales, and I’ve always loved them and found them incredibly appealing. This was possibly helped a great deal by my not really fitting in with my family? My parents literally used to tell me to my face that they thought I might have been switched at birth. They meant hospital error, of course, but you can see why I’d identify so strongly with changelings at that point.

But I do quite honestly love all genres of fantasy and most of science fiction. I grew up in a very rural area. My family didn’t have television until I was sixteen16 and the internet came along even later. Books were my primary entertainment and escape and I was addicted. Also, I lived a three hour drive from the nearest bookstore, and this was before the Evil ’Zon arose. There simply were not enough titles out there to only love urban fantasy or only read epic or heroic fantasy. So I read them all!

I will always have a very soft spot for those books that show me something new, as well. Part of the appeal of genre fiction is seeing outside out everyday, lived experience, so books that depart from the norm, books that mash up genres and go on weird tangents? J’adore.

Alana: You are well-known for having references to other works sprinkled throughout your stories. Without spoilers, can you share a few titles that will grant in-joke access?

Trip: First, this question immediately started a particular scene from the film Evil Under the Sun, starring Peter Ustinov (and Dame Maggie Smith! And Dame Diana Rigg! It’s actually superb, you should all watch it sometime…) playing in my mind. But that’s a digression, so I’ll throw out a list and leave it at that.

Dynasty S03E16; The Courts of Chaos by Roger Zelazny; The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess by Chappell Roan; The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells; Mommie Dearest (1981); Diamonds and Toads by Charles Perrault; POSE (all series); The Complete Kake Comics by Tom of Finland; RuPaul’s Drag Race (any series, really, but All-Stars All-Winners would be my rec); The Last Herald-Mage Trilogy by Mercedes Lackey…

…I am going to say I stopped there, and not admit that there were actually several more before I got ahold of myself and hit the delete key to bring it down to something more reasonable in size for a paragraph…

Alana: You've published traditionally and independently--what brought you to Kickstarter for this project?

Trip: I try to never do a thing for only one reason if I can possibly help it. 😅 My reasoning behind bringing this project to Kickstarter stems from a couple of things.

Kickstarter is, relatively, quick. Traditional publishing is amazing, but turnaround on projects in trad pub is measured in years, plural, most of the time. I’m hoping that this book will see the light of day much sooner than it would if it came through the traditional publishing pipeline.

This also applies to authors getting paid, unfortunately. Advances are broken into increasingly smaller pieces, further apart, these days. My partner and I are coming to the end of our UK visas, and this project is one way we’re hoping to raise funds to stay in our British home (particularly given what is happening on the other side of the Atlantic right now). This project, if successful, will pay out months or years before a traditional publishing house would.

Doing things myself also gives me a bit more creative control. Trad pub is not nearly so restrictive as people imagine, but with Valenziaga, particularly, I want to guarantee that I have a queer editor, a queer cover artist, a queer proofreader, and, if at all possible, a queer person involved in production every step of the way. (Yes, this book is that queer.)

And speaking of queer, the reality is that I also had professionals in the publishing industry look at the concept, and the setting, and the story, and advise me to simplify things if I wanted to improve my chances of selling the book on the traditional market. Science fantasy is weird. It doesn’t fit into easy sales scripts as well. But I didn’t want to make it pure fantasy, and I didn’t want to decrease the polyamorous mess(es) tangled up in the plot. So I opted to do this project on a more personal level.

Alana: Which of your characters would you most like to hang out with, and what would you do?

Trip: Oh no! Not a “favourite” type question! That means I have to choose!? Painful. (And it’s different all the time anyway!)

But as of this moment, I’m currently feeling that it would be… Thom of House Lakhsonen (from The Fall of the House of Valenziaga). He’s fun, and sweet, and always smells of leather. Plus, I’m rather stressed with everything going on at the moment, and he’s the kind of person who knows the best way to take care of you, whether that is cuddling on the couch and watching a film or going out dancing.

Given how much I’ve been working on everything, we would definitely just have a night in, with popcorn, a light-and-fun film, and a couple of books, so just read companionably.

Alana: What "one neat trick" do you use in your life, writing or otherwise? What advice do you follow that has made a difference for you?

Trip: I have struggled with toxic levels of perfectionism my whole life, and the thing I’ve found that works best for me to combat that is telling myself (as I write) that I will “fix it in post.” It really helps me get past that paralytic over-analysis of dramatic choices or dislike of how certain lines are reading in my head, or whatever other mind vampire is trying to suck the life out of my creative momentum.

In terms of writing advice, a big one for me is to read widely and deeply in terms of the “how- to” sorts of books, like On Writing, or Wonderbook, or The Fantasy Fiction Formula, but know that not every piece of writing advice, even if it is good advice, is suitable to every writer. We all have different brains and different processes. Writing is not a one-size-fits-all proposition. (And even this piece of advice may not suit everyone!)

Alana: What do you love most about writing queer stories right now?

Trip: I love that it’s not just an option—it’s encouraged! At least by large sections of the SFF readership and reassuring chunks of the publishing industry. And though trad pub (and even platforms that distribute self-published works) might possibly be wavering a bit in terms of support, considering current events, there are still excellent options for reaching an audience and making a living as a writer of queer books.

I love that there are so many queer books to read! I love reading widely and deeply and I love that there is no longer just a single book with a lesbian protagonist in science fiction, or just one trilogy with a (tragic) gay man as the protagonist in fantasy. My TBR is truly life-threatening at this point.

The thing I love most, however, is the connection with queer readers, and the expressions of enthusiasm and joy when someone finds a bit of their experience in a story where they don’t usually expect to see such things. It’s… just the best. 💙

Trip Galey’s The Fall of the House of Valenziaga launches on Kickstarter March 3! Visit the site to sign up for notification on project launch!

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To Hell with Romantasy: Five Questions with Katrina Kwan

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 23:13:34 GMT

Romantasy is the most popular genre to discuss right now, and there's no way readers actually want to say "to Hell with it!"—unless it's because the novel actually sends its characters to Hell. That's the case in Katrina Kwan's new novel The Legend of the Nine-Tailed Fox, which hits bookstore shelves tomorrow (February 24, 2026)!

In honor of the release, Katrina answered five questions—more reviewer-thoughts about the book follow below, so don't stop reading!

Alana: Badly describe The Legend of the Nine-Tailed Fox in one sentence. (Then, tell us what it's really about!)

Katrina: A ragtag group goes on a road trip through Hell and absolutely nothing goes wrong. // A nine-tailed fox demon and a demon hunter end up trapped in Hell and have to work together in order to get out... Provided they don't kill each other first.

Alana: There have been a few novels lately about being stuck in—and having to escape—Hell (which may resonate with a lot of readers who feel like the real world has some dystopian vibes...). What was the most fun part of writing about hell as a setting?

Katrina: I enjoyed writing Hell as a twisted reflection of the world above. In Chinese mythology, the Jade Palace is a setting that's often cited both in Heaven and on earth (an as above, so below situation) and I thought it would be cool to add an extra layer by adding a version of it in the underworld, as well.

Alana: What is your favorite line from The Legend of the Nine-Tailed Fox that you can share without spoilers?

Katrina: "To be loved is to be seen. To be accepted. To be not only wanted but needed." I think this line sums up the moral of the entire novel. If we can look past our differences and accept one another, faults and all, we can find love, empathy and understanding.

Alana: In addition to your two novels inspired by Chinese myths, you've also written a culinary romance and a forthcoming heist romance. What do you enjoy about writing in these different genres?

Katrina: I enjoy writing different genres because it keeps things fresh. It takes a long time to draft a novel, and by the end of the project, I'm usually craving something new. By hopping back and forth between fantasy and contemporary romance, I get to stretch my writing muscles and give myself a palate cleanser.

Alana: If you could spend an evening with one of your characters, who would you choose, and what would you do?

Katrina: I would probably spend an evening with both Eden Monroe (Knives, Seasoning, and a Dash of Love) and Sai (The Last Dragon of the East) because I know they'd both cook up a storm and they're the least likely to stab me. We'd probably spend the whole time gossiping, eating, and drinking tea.

Mini-review:

The Legend of the Nine-Tailed Fox is the kind of enemies-to-lovers book that true fans of that trope will embrace. (Book Goblin, for example: Book Goblin wants REAL enemies-to-lovers, and Book Goblin would absolutely adore this one.) When they meet, Yue the nine-tailed fox demon and Sonam, an elite demon hunter, are truly enemies—he may as well be dinner for Yue, whose diet consists of humans, and she is the enemy he is determined to banish from the world. When they're both thrown into Hell, they make a pact to help each other out of sheer need to survive. Because the characters are navigating Hell, time doesn't feel linear, which means that the relationship itself feels both as though it has time to blossom and as though—once the enemies part is set aside—there's a quick road to the only inevitable path forward (which is heartbreak).But if anyone can carve destinies for themselves, it's a stubborn fox demon and an almost equally stubborn demon hunter.

Kwan also gives readers the joy of a larger cast present for almost the entire novel, so there are four characters—not just the romantic leads—who drive the story, Sonam's two fellow hunters, Wen and Sooah. They're not given the same focus, as they have no point of view chapters, but each feels as though they have a well of depth, and their devotion to Sonam bolsters his own character. (Sooah also gives readers my favorite line of the book: "'There is little time in the world', she says. 'Why choose to hate when you can choose kindness?'" Instagrammer Steph @stephs.morallygraylibrary made this post to collect more excellent quotes.)

For these characters, readers will want to go to Hell and back—and they'll be ever so glad they did. Rating: 9.7/10.

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