@dorianmaffei.bsky.social
Literary Agent at Kimberley Cameron & Associates. She/her.
the august horror list is live, feat. new books from @johnlangan.bsky.social @scumbelievable.bsky.social @haileypiperfights.bsky.social @patrickbarb.bsky.social @isabelcanas.bsky.social @lindsaykingmiller.bsky.social @daphnefama.bsky.social @steelhester.bsky.social @chucktingle.bsky.social & more!
08.08.2025 21:02 — 👍 112 🔁 48 💬 9 📌 11Love to hear it! You’re in for a treat! 😍
08.08.2025 17:59 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Penguin Michael Joseph has announced Slasher Summer, a 'love letter to horror fans everywhere' by E L Chen
www.bookbrunch.co.uk/page/article... (£)
Penguin Michael Joseph has acquired a “gripping” horror novel, Slasher Summer, from EL Chen 👇
08.08.2025 16:29 — 👍 3 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 1Who's ready for a fun horror romp?! SLASHER SUMMER by E.L. Chen is coming to bookstores summer 2026 and I CAN'T WAIT! 🪓😈
08.08.2025 17:51 — 👍 5 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0Snoopy dance! So excited I can finally announce this. Forget hot girl summer, get ready for SLASHER SUMMER in 2026! 1/
08.08.2025 17:16 — 👍 18 🔁 4 💬 3 📌 6
A wonderful example of how to do modern Gothic horror. A great balance of creepy, visceral scenes and deeper themes. And I learned about Filipino history too!
@daphnefama.bsky.social
#TheHouseofMonstrousWomen #BookReview #booksky #📚💙 #horror #gothichorror
youtu.be/IJUkBleaIoY
You'll find desperate necromancers, haunting poems, draconic royalty, and ancient ghosts in this month's YA new releases. Here's a roundup of all the science fiction, fantasy, and genre young adult books of August 2025!
reactormag.com/new-young-ad...
Clear your schedule: There are 46 horror, romantasy, and other SFF crossover books coming out in August 2025!! Check out the list here or I'm covering you in bugs:
reactormag.com/new-sff-cros...
Day 2 of Filipino Folklore Aswang Aswang is an umbrella term that refers to a myriad of monsters, from vampire-like creatures to shapeshifting witches. Nearly all types of aswang have an insatiable desire for human blood, viscera, corpses, or unborn babies. Beautiful women, old widowed women, and women who practice healing have frequently been accused of being aswang. Particularly when Spanish colonizers began spreading Catholicism.
The most common forms for a shapeshifting aswang to take is a black dog or pig. It's at night that aswangs typically chase their hunger, seeking out blood and gore. Aswang have a variety of abilities. Common ones are flight, a heightened sense for pregnancy or blood, moving without a sound and leaving no shadow, mimicking voices (including babies crying), and paralyzing their victims.
Make no mistake, being an aswang is a curse. And there are a number of ways you can become one. In the Visayas, the aswang curse is passed through bloodlines. Usually from mother to daughter. The curse can also be transferred on a dying aswang's deathbed. They must spit out a black object, which can be a stone or egg, into the chosen successor's mouth. This item carries the curse. It may be warm and alive. But you can also choose to become an aswang by conducting a ritual and eating human flesh.
Love Filipino folklore? Grab House of Monstrous Women on August 12
Day 2 of Filipino folklore in celebration of House of Monstrous Women coming out in 6 days! I love making these. Today's feature is the monstrous aswang, which has haunted the Philippines for centuries...
07.08.2025 14:44 — 👍 9 🔁 4 💬 0 📌 0
An image of a skull and catholic relic. Day 1 of Filipino Folklore. Paktol. Paktol, which means "to knock on someone's head" in Cebuano, is a type of skull sorcery. The skull must come from an unbaptized person (ideally a child), because they haven't seen god and rest in limbo. Oftentimes the skull is stolen from graves or inherited from an elder sorcerer. It's the spirit connected to the unbaptized skull that is called upon to harm or kill its target.
Branches of specific tree, like the Malaysian persimmon and Philippine hackberry, are put in a triangle formation around the skull. Seven branches on each side. Three wooden wedges and the victim's name written on paper are tied to the skull with black cloth. Offerings to the spirits are placed nearby. Usually incense, liquor, and food.
Once the skull is prepared, the ritual can begin. The ideal time is on Friday at 12 noon or at 8 PM, when night is about to fall. The sorcerer will then call out the name bound to the skull or some other dark entity and begins the invocation. "You are no longer among the living. You are of the dead. I command you, go to the person whose name is written here and kill them." The sorcerer then strikes the wooden wedges beneath the cloth while commanding the spirit to kill. The victim will soon suffer headaches and escalating illness. If no counter-magic is used, they will die in a few weeks.
Love Filipino folklore? Grab House of Monstrous Women on August 12.
House of Monstrous Women releases in 7 days!! To celebrate, I'll be posting some of my favorite folklore in the Philippines. Today's feature is paktol, a black sorcery used to kill its target. (1/4)
06.08.2025 14:47 — 👍 13 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0
The cover for Maria Z. Medina's MISTRESS OF BONES, which has a woman in an elegant blue dress holding a mask close to her face, and the reverse has a man holding a skull close to his face like a mask
Happy book birthday to @mzmauthor.bsky.social's MISTRESS OF BONES! 🎉
You will definitely want this gorgeous book full of necromancy, rapiers, and fickle gods on your bookshelves! ☠️
static.macmillan.com/static/wedne...
Happy Monday! For absolutely no reason I'd like to remind you I have a quarterly newsletter, although I may send extra emails if I have exciting news to share 👀
04.08.2025 12:30 — 👍 2 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
A 3D mockup of MISTRESS OF BONES hardcover with arrows pointing at different things you can find in the book: Multi-pov, bone magic, rapier duels, fickle gods, epic worldbuilding, twists, intrigue, necromancy
Banter? You got it. Weird magic? Heck yeah! Fun worldbuilding? Well, of course. Different kinds of love, romantic and otherwise? Definitely! Two separate, intersecting storylines? Right here, right now. Exploration of souls and greed? Compliments of the house.
mariazmedina.com/books/mistre...
Thank you so much Epic Reads for featuring MISTRESS OF BONES! 😍
www.epicreads.com/blog/most-an...
The cover of Dwain Worrell's OTHERWORLDLY featuring an astronaut touching ground on a green and blue planet, with a yellow, pink, and purple swirling planet above.
Congrats to Dwain Worrell for a stellar first review for OTHERWORLDLY! 🤩 moonshelfstories.com/otherworldly...
31.07.2025 21:00 — 👍 1 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
Today is your last day to enter the Goodreads giveaway for HOUSE OF MONSTROUS WOMEN by @daphnefama.bsky.social! Win a free final copy! 👀 www.goodreads.com/book/show/20...
31.07.2025 20:55 — 👍 3 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0UK edition of MISTRESS OF BONES is here and IT HAS FOIL 😱
28.07.2025 21:21 — 👍 6 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
Open cardboard box full of hardcover editions of Mistress of Bones.
ASDAFAGHDGAJHGDWJAHGD final copies are here!
20.07.2025 23:37 — 👍 23 🔁 3 💬 6 📌 1Look at these beauties! 😍
21.07.2025 16:21 — 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
This finished hardback @daphnefama.bsky.social House of Monstrous Women is fabulous and out from @bantambooksuk.bsky.social on 14th August
My thanks to Ollie for sending it to me
www.penguin.co.uk/books/471378...
"Confident prose, strong characterizations, and imaginative Spanish-tinged mythology blend to deliver a rich and intricately crafted fantasy world. Descriptions of powerful characters struggling to navigate the actions of brutal yet self-sacrificing gods further enrich this sprawling series opener.” - Publishers Weekly
Thank you so much @publisherswkly.bsky.social for the lovely review of MISTRESS OF BONES!!
"Confident prose, strong characterizations, and imaginative Spanish-tinged mythology blend to deliver a rich and intricately crafted fantasy world."
Azul del Arroyo didn’t fully know what would happen when she set out to bring her older sister back to life, but since she was ten, she didn’t much care.
We're worried/intrigued...? and sharing an excerpt from @mzmauthor.bsky.social's YA fantasy Mistress of Bones!
reactormag.com/excerpts-mis...
You can now read an excerpt from MISTRESS OF BONES over at Reactor Magazine!! 😍
15.07.2025 19:52 — 👍 5 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
my baby's gonna be in a book club 🥹
ly Women in Horror Book Club @fromthemixedupdesk.bsky.social 💜❤️
Mistress of Bones hardcover and ebook mockups against a light background with a design of outlined roses and a rapier, announcing the Barnes & Noble sale (July 8th-11th) and the promo code: PREORDER25
Barnes & Noble is having a pre-order sale this weekend! You can get up to 25% off any pre-orders (hardcover, ebook, audiobook) with the code: PREORDER25
www.barnesandnoble.com/w/mistress-o...
My birthday is this Friday! Help me celebrate by purchasing one of the last 25-odd physical copies of ARCHITECTS OF MEMORY *in existence* & then follow up with its BONKERS sequel, in which I center the character that EVERYONE HATED
THIS IS HOW I ROLL
JOIN THE FUN 🚀
www.amazon.com/Architects-M...
ask me about filipino witchcraft and mass possession
or idk get my book for free
tinyurl.com/spookybookfo...
MISTRESS OF BONES comes out in just a month, and you can get some lovely pre-order goodies if you buy it at Mysterious Galaxy!
www.mystgalaxy.com/preorder-cam...
