#1. Here’s your warning. I’m sharing some NSFW fan art for Breathless below. So, DON’T be pissed at me when your boss or your kids walk behind you and you get caught scrolling indecently. I warned you!
The art I’m sharing is from an amazing artist on instagram, and you should def check her out at feesh_neesh and neesh_ipb_quarantine. She also posts a ton of super cool Ice Planet Barbarian fan art.
But more on that below.
#2. (TW: adoption trauma/grandparent death/sadness)
I’ve been pretty sad lately because I’ve been doing EMDR therapy and as a result, I really feel like I’ve been processing my ancestors’ trauma which sounds crazy? But like in a very literal way. As an example :
The other day I was stuck in the car for a few hours, alone, and I couldn’t get the story of my grandfather’s adoption out of my head which is something I haven’t thought about in years.
He almost never spoke about his own adoption and I only knew the story at all from piecing together bits and bobs of information I collected as a kid. But it was so strange how STRONGLY I was connecting to it the other day. As if it had happened to me.
There are two specific instances in my childhood that informed my understanding about my grandfather’s adoption.
The first was when I once caught him reading a book about a fellow adoptee’s journey towards finding their biological family in my family’s living room. He was sitting on the cream colored couch in front of our built in book shelves. He had the book open in his hand, his gray, bushy brows furrowed, a look of intense concentration on his face.
I had never seen him read a book before, and I also had never seen the book he was reading before (and I knew all the books we had on the bookshelf.)
“Why’re you reading that?” I asked.
“Because I’m adopted,” he answered.
I was shocked. I had no idea. When I asked my mom about this later, she confirmed but was tightlipped about the whole thing.
Then years later, when we were visiting my grandparents for Christmas, my grandmother and I were sitting on the couch in her living room with these large, sepia colored photo albums opened between us. She pointed to a small black and white photo of a little boy.
“This picture was taken the day your grandfather was adopted. He was four years old,” she said.
And that’s when he said, “I don’t remember a single thing before that day.”
I asked him why not.
“Because things were too bad to remember.”
And even though I was just a kid, I somehow knew exactly what he meant.
As the years went on, I managed to squeeze droplets of information out of the adults collectively and fill out the story more completely. And this is where I couldn’t let it go in the car the other day. This was the thing I couldn’t stop thinking about.
Because, my grandfather and his older brother were adopted to the same family together. But they also had a baby sister. And she wasn’t adopted with them.
Because my grandfather had no memories before the age of four, he couldn’t remember her, but he knew she existed because his older brother remembered.
It was only years later that I realized why he was reading that book. It was only years later that I found out how he’d been looking for his little sister —who he didn’t even have a single memory of—his whole life.
And he never did find her.
When I tell you I was actually sobbing in the car (luckily, I could still drive) Just racked with this unavoidable feeling of devastation about the whole thing.
And honestly, part of me is like, was this just my brain taking the opportunity to punish me with horrible feelings because I was stuck in a car for hours and unable to use my usual methods of emotional escape and distraction?
Or was I feeling some kind of ancestral pain that had been haunting the ether of the family line for centuries, just looking for a place to rest, finally finding a vessel or a soul ready enough to process it?
Obviously it’s a sad story, but what I was feeling was so much more than sadness.
I don’t know.
And I don’t know what happened to my grandfather’s sister—my great aunt—either.
I’ll never know her name, where she lived, what she did with her life, if she was able to live a life at all. But whatever happened to her, I hope there was the smallest inkling in the back of her head that someone was desperately looking for her.
#3. Enough of that. And now: Breathless fan art
And now my fave…
I love the beautiful details, the surrealist elements, and the trippy 60s Playboy illustration vibe. I’m thinking…Special Edition Cover??? A hardcover with a dust jacket? A foil cover? What do you think?
Anyway, don’t forget, you can order Breathless here!
Sorry to any friends/followers who have already seen me post this stuff a million times. It’s just so cool, and I’m so honored to have another creative make something inspired by my work. There is really so much talent out in this world, sometimes it makes me want to cry.
Interestingly enough, this isn’t the first time I’ve received fan art. Way back in the day when I used to use a writing critique site, another artist happened to be reading my chapters and she made fan art as well!
The book was called Hot Like Hell and it was a gender swapped story about Satan (who I named Lucille) and the premise was: what if the devil was actually the good guy and God just executed a very effective smear campaign?
Then the MC, aka the devil, is trapped on Earth and trying to get back to hell (which is actually paradise, but nobody knows that because of propaganda) and she falls in love with a lawyer…because he’s a devil’s advocate.
Listen, I was just starting out, so give me a break. Anyway, here’s the art below.
The Female MC wore a lot of Hawaiin shirts because Hell has a very balmy, tropical climate in the book.
I think I might still have this manscript somewhere…
#4. Last and most importantly, I’m participating in The Love Archives anthology for Palestine.
All proceeds will go to Operation Olive Branch to help Palestinians escape their current ongoing genocide. Pre-order here: https://books2read.com/TheLoveArchives.
Please consider supporting Palestinians and a free Palestine any way you can!
Participating authors below…definitely will find many of your faves!
#5. I’m still working on getting my signed copies purchasing for Breathless set up! I swear, I thought I was going to be able to do it a lot faster, but no...
#6. Okay love you byyyeee
Socials:
Full Length Novels:
Novellas:
Also somehow I always link something incorrectly at least once in a post, oops sorry about that! I think I fixed them all?
xoxo
Cat
I absolutely love your author newsletter.