Foxen Bloom: Old Nan Had Two Sons and other stories
So let me tell you about FOXEN BLOOM.
FOXEN BLOOM is a fantasy romance about a forest god and his accidental acolyte. It’s about the things we’d do for family. It’s about finding similarities in differences, pining for the one you’re standing next to, and occasionally having to rip people apart with your sentient shadow, because stuff happens and keeps! on! happening!! It’s about, for some reason, goats.
It’s a good time, is what I’m saying.
The cover artwork is by Tiferet Design with illustration by Mar Espinosa and I could not love it more! It’s so beautiful and perfectly suited to the story. I am smit with this cover. Look at tiny Fenton and Prior! The raven! Fox friend! The woodcut makes me think of fairytales, which is definitely correct, so long as you remember fairytales usually come with a bodycount…
Yet, despite the bodycount, Foxen Bloom is soft. It’s slow burn. There’s face touching and declarations and a chaise longue. There’s viscera. It’s a bucolic roadtrip with fangs and I’m so excited to share it with you!
AO3 tags include: slow burn; hurt/comfort; only one bed; megafauna are friends not food; flower crowns for all; nose boops; original goat character.
FOXEN BLOOM will be published in ebook and paperback on June 17, 2021. Preorder at gum.co/foxen or books2read.com/foxenbloom
Season after season, hunters have attempted to capture the white-tailed stag. Local legend holds that its capture promises prosperity, and in a land that is dying—to hunger, to war; to a magical curse, some say—even a whisper of hope is a powerful lure. Yet every hunter who tries fails, never to leave the forest. Fenton, god of the forest, yet imprisoned within its borders, watches from his place in the trees as the hunters first despoil and then fall to his land, dispassionate as his deadwood heart.
Prior doesn’t enter the forest in hopes of capturing the stag or securing prosperity. He has a far bolder hunt in mind: to entreat the god of the forest to save his sister from the sickness sweeping the land. It’s a desperate attempt without much hope of success. He doesn’t imagine he’ll meet the god in person, much less that he’ll find himself agreeing to a favour in turn: his sister’s life will be spared, and in exchange, Prior will kill the god’s sibling. And he certainly hadn’t imagined that a god would be so… human.
When Fenton leaves the forest, he has little but revenge on his mind. As he spends more time with Prior, though, he discovers that the world isn’t as simple as the hunt, and he’s not the only hunter with teeth—but sometimes the chase is worth the risk of being caught.
Content Warnings: contagious magical illness; bloody violence; magical violence; bodily injury; death, including the death of animals for food, and magical animals in battle; abduction; vomiting; minor self-harm; bodyhorror; sex.