April newsletter - and tour dates!!!

Apr 16, 2025

Hi hi hiiiiiiiiii, everyone!

I’m writing this from a bit of a zombie state after having just sent off the second round of edits on the first book in my next YA fantasy series (yesss, the one I’ve been mentioning vaguely for ages and yet still can’t actually talk about — more ::vagueness:: further below!), so please forgive any typos etc., since, tbh, I’m so tired I can barely see straight. BUT I have some breathing room now to catch up on my (disastrous) inbox and the million other things that have piled up while I was on deadline (legit the hardest round of edits I’ve ever done — more on that below too (if I remember)), so….

… Not gonna lie, I’ve just completely lost my train of thought for how I was planning to end that sentence (something positive about being able to sleep now, maybe?), so MOVING ON!

Can you believe I have a book coming out in less than a fortnight? EEEK!!! I can’t tell where my hives begin and where they end, so that’s fun. (I’m kidding — no hives (yet) but the anxiety is definitely building!) In case you’ve missed it, Wandering Wild releases in AUS/NZ on April 29, and in the US/CAN and the UK on May 20. It’s SO SOON!! *Hyperventilates*

But enough about that for now, since there’s heaps more about it in this newsletter, along with the following:

Tour dates and tickets for the national Wandering Wild launch tour
Signed copies of Wandering Wild — LAST CHANCE!!
UK sale for The Prison Healer
UK release news for Wandering Wild (woohoo!) + preorder links
USA/CAN preorders for Wandering Wild
A giveaway of 4x physical ARCs of Wandering Wild
The aforementioned ::vague:: update about my upcoming fantasy series
Q&A — three of your questions answered
… And more!

So much exciting stuff in this newsletter, so let’s dive straight in!

WANDERING WILD — TOUR DATES AND TICKETS

I’m so excited to share that I’ll be doing a national* tour to celebrate the ANZ release of Wandering Wild! (*Perth peeps, see note further below!)

In absolutely gobsmacking news, the Melbourne event sold out a couple hundred tickets in the space of what felt like a blink (and the same for the second allocation), so unfortunately we’re at capacity for that event. I’m definitely feeling the love from Melbourne folks! *Teary eyes*

All other cities still have some tickets remaining, but PLEASE NOTE they’re selling VERY fast and only have LIMITED numbers left.

All the details and the ticket links for each location can be found by clicking here.

I always get asked a bazillion questions about events, especially about signing limits and photos and gifts and things like that, so here are some important answers for you:

Lastly on the tour news, if you read the above, you’ll know I’ll be giving away some limited edition art prints for every copy of Wandering Wild that I sign while on tour — I haven’t shared this art publicly before, and I’m not going to yet, since I want it to stay a surprise treat for now, but here’s a sneaky look at it (and a full look at the back):

I’m so excited to see you all and celebrate this special (to me) book with you! The countdown is on!!!

PERTH: I’ve been getting inundated by your sobs, but have no fear, I’m heading your way VERY soon. I can’t say when/where yet (though some of you maaaaay have figured it out *winky wink*) but I promise I haven’t forgotten you! It’ll be my first time back in WA since 2019 — which means before the entire Prison Healer series released (and before Weapon, too, I think, plus before Kaldoras, so that’s 5 books, or 6 including Wandering Wild!!), and I am SO excited to see you again and sign all your books! Details coming as soon as I’m allowed to share them!

SIGNED COPIES — LAST CHANCE

I headed into QBD headquarters last week to sign all the pre-ordered copies of Wandering Wild (and a few spares for any pre-orders between now and release), so this is your LAST CHANCE to grab a signed copy of this book. (I also signed these ones in a pink Sharpie, and they look SO PRETTY!)

You can pre-order your signed copy by clicking here.

And if you missed it on socials, here’s a fun time-lapse clip of me signing 750 books in 14 seconds, thanks to my trusty QBD helpers! (I’ve had a few people ask me why they were allowed to sign the books with me, so to clarify, they didn’t sign anything! They just opened the books and slid them along and moved them to/from me, with others packing the books out of boxes and into boxes. There was a whole production line happening! This is quite standard when it comes to bulk signings like this — having lots of people helping make things happen! Teamwork for the win!)

UK SALE

For any interested UK readers, The Prison Healer has been chosen for the Kindle Monthly Deal which means the ebook is only 99p for the month of April! Bargain!!

WANDERING WILD IS COMING TO THE UK!!!!!

Staying on the UK for a moment, I’m thrilled to confirm that Wandering Wild has been picked up by Bonnier Books’ newest YA imprint, Ink Road, which means it’ll be releasing in the UK, woohoo! Even better, you’re not going to have to wait! It’s coming out on the same date as the US/CAN release — May 20! Woohoo again!!

For any interested UK readers, you can pre-order your copy by clicking here.

USA/CAN PRE-ORDERS NOW AVAILABLE

Lastly on the Wandering Wild front: if you’re in the US/CAN territory and want to grab a gorgeous hardcover edition of this book, then pre-orders are now available from the following places (and I’m guessing elsewhere? These are just the links I know of!):

B&N || Bookshop.org || Amazon || BAM!

GIVEAWAY! GIVEAWAY! GIVEAWAY!

I was wrong above — this is the last mention of Wandering Wild for this newsletter, and it’s a fun one because it’s a GIVEAWAY!

I have 4x physical proof/ARC/early copies of the US/CAN edition that I’m giving away and this is open internationally! (I’ll also be signing and personalising these!)

This giveaway is running until Tuesday April 22nd at 5pm AEST and you can enter by filling in the form here.

DYMOCKS TOP 101 LIST = ALL THE FEELS!!!!!

I can’t believe I’m writing this, but you guys made ALL THREE of my series hit the Dymocks Top 101 list — and not just that, but ALL THREE ARE IN THE TOP 12!!! And, even wilder, The Prison Healer landed at number 2!!! OMG!! What even is that!!! I mean, just look at some of these other books on the list, and imagine my utter shock when I was told the news!!!

Truly, I can’t thank you enough for loving my books so much and making this happen! I’m a ball of feels!!

To check out all the other amazing titles on the full 101 list, head to the website here — and remember that everything on this list is under the “3 for the price of 2” banner for the entire year! Woo!

MY NEXT FANTASY SERIES:

Sooooo, I know you’re super keen for news on this, but alas, there’s still no announcement yet — but this is actually a good (?) thing, at least technically speaking, since everyone’s aiming for a Big!Splashy!Announcement and that kind of thing takes planning. Plus, we’re giving Wandering Wild some time in the spotlight before everything switches back over to fantasy for me, which is a clever strategy from my publisher(s) and agent, even if it’s definitely left me at siiiiiiiiiigh-levels during this waiting period, since I just want to start talking about this book! (Like, you have no idea how much I want to be talking about it!!!)

AND AND ANDDDDD!!!!

We have a very nearly finished cover for it and IT IS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL THING I’VE EVER SEEN!!! It’s not even finalised yet, but I keep opening it on my laptop and phone just to stare at it in wonder — I genuinely turn into the embodiment of the heart-eyes emoji every. single. time. I truly can’t tell you how much I love it!!! (No, but seriously, I can’t tell you, since I’m not allowed to talk about the book yet. Ugh. Hopefully soon!!)

I mentioned earlier that I’ve just finished the second round of larger structural edits (which was partly combined with some line edits), so depending on how those turned out, we might have another smaller round of the same, or we might just jump straight to line edits, or perhaps right to copy edits. I’m honestly unsure, though the one thing I do know is that I love this book and these characters and this world SO MUCH — and you’re likely going to be hearing that from me on repeat once I can start talking about it. But on the flip side, I’m also looking forward to sharing just how challenging this book has been from a craft perspective. It’s by far my most ambitious book to date, and it’s really stretched me as a writer in a lot of ways that I can’t wait to discuss. It’s also been one headache after another (ooof), since so much of it has to be ::clever:: and I would describe myself as “creative” over “clever,” so that certainly made things tricky. But as they say, if you don’t grow, you rot. And I’d rather not rot, thankyouverymuch. (Also, I have no idea where that saying comes from. Google credits the founder of McDonald’s, so let’s go with that.)

That’s all I can share about this fantasy book for now, but I’ll leave you with a sneaky teaser of the phenomenal artwork that Dominique Wesson is continuing to create for this book (none of which I’ll be able to share with you in full for a while. But when the time comes, it’s going to blow your mind). This is just a cropped part of the background from one of my favourite scenes, and I am OBSESSED:

Q&A: THREE OF YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED

Q1. Will your next books always have females as the main characters?

“Always” is a very strong word, kind of like “never”, and you should never say never — just as you should probably never say always. And besides, I actually have already written books from male POVs, or at least partly. My We Three Heroes book is made up of three (large) novellas, two of which are in male narrative voices (one from Jordan’s perspective, one from Bear’s). Same for Kaldoras being written from male POVs (Aven, Niyx, and Jordan).

Then there’s my upcoming book, Wandering Wild, and it’s written in dual POV, so it’s one chapter from the male lead, and one from the female lead.

So to answer this question, I already have books that have males as the main characters. And going forward, this is something I’ll continue to do, if and when I feel the “voice” of a book is better suited to be written from a male POV.

Q2. Why do you put all your romantic relationships through a long slow burn?

I despise insta-love in books. I always have. That said, insta-attraction and/or insta-lust, I absolutely adore. There’s something magical about two people meeting (or reuniting) for the first time and having that spark of awareness that you just know is going to build to something amazing. But insta-love? Blech, no thanks. I mean, I know from a theoretical perspective that it (apparently) can happen in real life, but to me, it just reads so unrealistically. I need the characters to work for it — I need there to be development for them as individuals and also for their relationship arc. The stuff they go through, together and separately, is how they deepen the bond between them, and that just makes the payoff when they finally get together all that more explosive, you know? So I’m a big fan of slow-burn romance!

To be fair, a lot of this reasoning is also that I write and read mostly YA fantasy, so I also struggle with instances where there’s a big, dramatic, high-stakes thing happening (eg. a villain about to do something Very Nasty) and that high-stakes thing takes a back seat to the insta-love romance, like with the main character being worried about what she’s going to wear on a date or what so-and-so really thinks about her, when the fate of the world is resting on her shoulders. I feel like there should be some priorities, you know? But that’s just my opinion! A heap of people love reading insta-love stories, and that’s the beautiful thing about books being subjective — to each their own!!

Q3. Favourite snacks?

If you’re asking about writing snacks, I don’t do those, since when I’m in the writing zone, I don’t snack at the same time. But if you just mean in general… hmm… I mean, chocolate is the easiest answer here, right? Yum!! I’m also really low in sodium at the moment so I’ve been craving salty things as well — things like roasted/salted fava beans have been a tasty addition to my snacking diet of late, as well as salted cashews, etc.!

Do you have any questions you want me to answer in an upcoming newsletter? Comment them below!

Lynette Noni

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