Greetings friends and enemies,

You Are Fatally Invited season is in full swing, in more than one way, and I am HERE for it. This book was written to be read during Fall, so I wish ARCs upon anyone who so desires. I finally have a breather between deadlines, so while Book 2 is with my editors, I am reading, assuring my friends I’m not actually dead (anymore), and scheming about Book 2.

Writing this newsletter has given me a new empathy for Ms. Jennings in Sense and Sensibility, when she comes rushing over, breathless and with her skirts hiked up, ruddy-faced and desperate to share The News with whomever will listen. So many things have happened that I simply must tell you. So pull up a chair and have a cup of tea with me, we’ve lots to chat about.

I know we’re halfway through November (?!), but October was full of so many wonderful, wild, overwhelming things, and I’m just now coming down from the high (and exhaustion) of it all. Let’s start with what’s new with You Are Fatally Invited.

Publishing Update

Last month, my UK trip started with the most amazing day in London, with wonderful back-to-back publishing events. I got to meet my lovely foreign rights team, have delicious Indian food and bottomless chai with my agent, meet my lovely UK team, and wander around Penguin Random House. The day culminated in a themed event for You Are Fatally Invited, where I got to meet booksellers and influencers—readers, actual, real readers, of my book!

The event was held in the Drawing Room of the British Film Institute in Central London, which was a DREAM. To enter the room, you had to go through a sliding bookcase door?? My brilliant marketer set up the room to look like J.R. Alastor’s office, with props like fountain pens and skulls and candles and even books from each of the authors in You Are Fatally Invited.

And the readers! People dressed thematically, flew in from a couple of countries, and one reader shrieked when she saw the authors’ books and dashed over to see them. I got to hear theories and suspicions and favorite lines, and it just… well. For someone who types a lot of words on the regular, there aren’t many I can say to describe what it was like. Just that it meant the world.

And then it was onto Scotland.

Writing Update

The current project consuming my brain and sanity is Adult Thriller 2, affectionately nicknamed “Dark/Adult Inheritance Games” (coming March 2026 from Bantam/PRH). This book, man. Writing it has been the ‘work’ part of author life, when it’s not all inspiration flying out of my fingertips and pretty sentences ribboning through the air like the sweet scent of fresh bread; instead, it’s been like scrabbling at the bottom of the barrel and getting splinters stabbing under my fingernails. Writing is an amazing, magical process, but if you’re serious about it, there will be times when you have to draw forth words that just do Not want to come out. Alas, most writers don’t have the luxury of having writer’s block, because, well, deadlines.

But at long last, I think I know what this book is trying to be. Happy sigh.

… Now, if only I hadn’t had to write most of it between 10pm - 3am each night, after gallivanting around the Scottish Highlands. I’ve harped on this a lot, in the vein of Captain Jack Sparrow’s “Did everybody see that?? Because it will not be happening again.” But we did it, folks! It only took one emergency brainstorm session with author friend Mikayla Bridge (forever in your debt x), several pages of my beautiful notebook (that I had to cut up because I forgot to bring notecards), and the slow decline of my cognitive functions (sleep who is she). See? Easy.

But then, I found myself in a castle with ~45 other writers, for five days of talking craft, sharing our stories, and giving and receiving incredible support. It could not have come at a better time, and I could not believe the sheer amount of creativity that was in the room when we were all together. Writers are a special breed of people. The ability to see possibility in the tiniest things, to create art by turning life and pain into something beautiful, is truly magic.

We feasted, we danced, we wrote. It couldn’t have been more perfect.

Then the day after I arrived back Stateside, I submitted my fourth rewrite to my editors. It’s been three weeks now, and I’m starting to feel recovered enough to start thinking about the next round of revisions. But in the meantime, I’m getting a head start on some of the articles I’m writing for some pretty fantastic publications and journals as part of promotion for You Are Fatally Invited. I’ll be sure to shout about them when they’re out there!

What I’m Reading

When I’m on deadline, my reading level tanks, going from on average 20-25 books a month to… maybe 5 - 10? So in recent days I’ve been subsisting on audiobooks, which I can blitz through whilst doing my daily things. Tis lovely.

On audio, I reread The Hazel Wood books by Melissa Albert—her skill with prose is second to none—and discovered Rachel Hawkins’ The Villa, which was a deliciously summery dual-timeline mystery with off-the-charts Italy vibes. I also savored my slow, sweet time through Tana French’s The Hunter, which is another prose masterpiece I couldn’t bear to rush. I’m also nearly finished listening to Mother-Daughter Murder Night by Nina Simon, which is a delightfully written California-coast mystery.

Next up on my list are a few I’ve been saving for a chill moment where I can really sink into them (finally, now!): Stephanie Garber’s Spectacular, Isabel Ibañez’s What the Library Hides, an early copy of Adrienne Young’s A Sea of Unspoken Things, Paula Hawkins’ The Blue Hour, and Chris Whittaker’s All the Colors of the Dark. I’ve been looking forward to each of these for months.

Stray Heart from Beneath the Floorboards

This isn’t so much a stray thought that’s been lurking beneath the floorboards of my brain—instead, it’s a treasure box (toolbox?) full of them, because my “For Writers” section is now live on my website!

Here, you’ll find a FAQ section on publishing, my biggest advice for new writers, and a heap of my query tips. This is the result of several years of research, chatting with other authors, and hearing other writers’ experiences, and I’m deeply hopeful it will be a fantastic tool for querying writers. I am not the first to say many of these things, and I won’t be the last—so no promises that anything here will be Revolutionary—but I’ve done my best to put explanations for everything.

I’m particularly proud of the “Questions for the Agent Call” section, which not only has a boatload of things I’d recommend you ask any agent offering to represent you, but also explanations for why you should ask, and what to look out for. Back when I was querying, I kept finding suggestions on what to ask agents, but I can’t remember finding context for these questions—extensive explanations on why the questions are important, and what to look for in an agent’s answers (aside from, like, the obvious). I am sure there are some wonderful resources that do exactly this that I just couldn’t find, but whatever the case, here’s my thinking when I recommend these questions. Take whatever is useful, but know that there are exceptions to every rule—again, my word isn’t gospel.

If something here is helpful, please do let me know! I put this together for YOU, anyone with questions on where to start with publishing or querying, so hearing what’s been useful means the world to me. And please do feel free to share and repost screenshots, etc, far and wide—I feel strongly about keeping this information FREE, because when I was querying I couldn’t afford to pay to learn any of this, and you shouldn’t need to. I just ask that anything that you all share from here is attributed to me—all rights reserved, and all that.

The link below will take you to this magical place (toolbox? Treasure box?):

AND LASTLY… The Cover Reveals

At last! The cover reveals I’ve been promising!

Behold, may I present to you the Hungarian cover for YOU ARE FATALLY INVITED, courtesy of my Hungarian publisher General Press:

I’ve always been partial to having red on this cover—it’s always struck me as a red cover book—and I love how menacing the visual effects make it. The Hungarian edition will release March 2025.

And now for the second cover, the lovely Italian version of YAFI, from Editrice Nord:

Look at it! The Clue map, the damask pattern, the symbols from the book… Stunning. I love everything about this cover, and can’t get over the baseball bat and spider and fish and everything else, all of which are significant objects from the book. The Italian edition will release in February, alongside the US and UK editions.

There are more things that I’d planned to share in this newsletter, but I’ve definitely kept you long enough; thank you for listening to me prattle on and thrust pictures of Scotland across the table at you. If you have any questions about writing or publishing—or want to chat about any of the books I’m reading!—do respond to this email, or use the Contact form on my website! I have several in-person events (!) coming up next year, the details of which are coming together soon, so I suspect I’ll be popping by for another chat before too long. But until next time,

Yours Fatally,

Ande Pliego

Author of YOU ARE FATALLY INVITED (Penguin Random House)

www.andepliego.com