Author News

New Deal! More Books! 🎉

I may have not-so-subtly mentioned that I was writing a fantasy romance and teased the fact that I might have news soon, and guess what? That time is now!

I’ve been sitting on this news for months, and I am extremely delighted to announce that I’ve sold a new Beauty and the Beast-inspired romantasy duology to Avon! 🎉

A Publishers Marketplace Deal Announcement: Author of POLARIS RISING and HUNT THE STARS Jessie Mihalik's SILVER AND BLOOD, pitched as a Beauty and the Beast-inspired romantasy filled with magic and otherworldly creatures, where a beautiful woman with untapped power agrees to brave the dark woods to kill a deadly monster but soon discovers there is more to the forest and its beasts than what she expected-including a powerful, scarred, and strikingly handsome mage, to Tessa Woodward at Avon, in a six-figure deal, in a two-book deal, for publication in 2025, by Sarah Younger at Nancy Yost Literary Agency (world English).

Here’s the text:

Author of POLARIS RISING and HUNT THE STARS Jessie Mihalik’s SILVER AND BLOOD, pitched as a Beauty and the Beast-inspired romantasy filled with magic and otherworldly creatures, where a beautiful woman with untapped power agrees to brave the dark woods to kill a deadly monster but soon discovers there is more to the forest and its beasts than what she expected-including a powerful, scarred, and strikingly handsome mage, to Tessa Woodward at Avon, in a six-figure deal, in a two-book deal, for publication in 2025, by Sarah Younger at Nancy Yost Literary Agency (world English).

I once again get to work with the fabulous Tessa Woodward, the editor for my previous books, but this time I’ll be on the Avon side of the publishing house rather than the Voyager side, which just means they’re positioning it more as romance rather than SF/F.

Unlike my previous trad books, both books in this series will follow the same couple and end in a HEA—at the end of book two. I’m not going to be too mean at the end of book one, but there is a lot of plot left for book two, which I’m writing now.

Now for the bad news: it’s coming in 2025, and I don’t have an exact date yet. I know that seems like forever away, but it’ll give me time to write the second book, and hopefully they’ll come out fairly close to each other. (Don’t hold me to that, since I have exactly zero control over it, but I’m crossing my fingers.)

Remember that snippet I shared a while back? It was from this book, and I can’t wait for you to meet Garrick and Riela!

There’s a magical castle (with a library!), a mysterious wolf, and of course, a handsome, cursed mage who’s more than he seems.

But, then again, so is she. ;)

Silver and Blood is very loosely B&tB inspired, because it kind of started out that way, then went its own direction, so don’t expect a faithful adaptation. But a lot of the elements are there, so if you’re a fan of B&tB, you’ll probably like it. And if you’re not a fan, you might still like it. :)

Here’s another tiny snippet as a reward for making it this far. 💕 It’s unedited and subject to change.


I glanced at the lake. Even if I could safely get down to the water, which was doubtful, it probably wasn’t any safer to drink than the water from the pipes.

If I understood my magic properly, then I could’ve purified the water in the lake, or pulled it directly from the air. Frustration shadowed my steps. I’d turned aside a literal flood to save my village, but the simplest magic eluded me.

I sighed. I had two options: drink water from the pipes and eat food from my pack, assuming I could get to it, or find the mage and ask him about the water and the kitchen. Pride argued for the first, but I steeled my spine and turned back to the scullery door.

I rounded the corner and paused in surprise.

The wolf and the mage stood in the shadows of the kitchen garden, their eyes glinting. I approached cautiously, not sure which of them was the bigger threat.

“I was just heading inside to look for you,” I said when I was close enough that I didn’t have to raise my voice.

The mage’s eyes flickered over me, then his brows drew together in a scowl. Moonlit magic pulsed and a heavy cloak draped itself over my shoulders. It was a lovely deep gray and far finer than the cloak I’d left behind in my bedroom. With the thick fabric wrapped around me, I could no longer feel the cutting bite of the wind, and warmth began to thaw my chilled skin.

“Do not become ill,” the mage demanded, his tone curt. “Healing is draining.”

“Are you the one who healed me last night?” I asked.

He nodded once, sharply, then turned toward the door. I reached for him before I thought better of it. My fingers closed around the firm muscles of his forearm, hidden beneath the long sleeves of his tunic, and a little zap of awareness darted up my arm.

I let go with a gasp, but his expression remained unreadable. He tilted his head, turning his scars away from me. “You should not be outside after dark. The castle is protected, but the forest is persistent.”


Now I’m off to work on book two. 😘

Buns & Roses Tickets!

Richardson Adult Literacy Center presents Buns & Roses
Romance Tea for literacy. Keynote: Alka Joshi, author of the Japur Trilogy, The Henna Artist, The Secret Keeper of Jaipur, and The Perfumist of Paris.

October 22, 2023, Doubletree Hilton, Richardson, TX

Tickets for this year’s Buns & Roses Romance Tea for Literacy are now on sale! The afternoon tea is on Sunday, October 22 in Richardson, TX, which is just outside of Dallas. I’m hosting a table (along with a ton of other fabulous authors), so if you want to come drink tea with me while supporting a charitable cause, get your tickets quick because there are only seven seats left at my table.

The ticketing website isn’t the most intuitive, but I think this link will take you directly to the page to buy tickets. Once you buy a seat at an author’s table, you can also add on a “VIP package” to attend a reception on Saturday evening to meet the authors and hang out.

Mostly, it’s a fun weekend filled with romance readers and authors that also supports a good cause. I hope I’ll see you there!

Thank You!

A photo of me at BookPeople holding up a copy of Capture the Sun

Thanks to everyone who celebrated Capture the Sun‘s release with me this week! 🎉🎉🎉

Release weeks are always a little stressful, and this one was no exception, but seeing everyone’s excitement makes it all worthwhile. 😍

I signed the BookPeople preorders on Tuesday, so hopefully those will be going out soon, if they haven’t already, and I have an in-person event on Sunday at 7PM, so if you’re local to Austin, come see me!

Jessie Mihalik, speaking and signing CAPTURE THE SUN. June 25 at 7PM at BookPeople in Austin.

I’m not expecting a big crowd, so we can hang out and chat and you can ask all your burning questions about books, Diablo IV, or why it’s so darn hot here this week, and I’ll do my very best to answer or at least make up an entertaining story. :)

I’ll also bring the last of my stickers and bookmarks for people who get books signed at the event!

After Sunday, I’ll be done with release stuff, and I plan to lay on my couch and stare at the ceiling for a day or two to recover, lol. After that, I might work on Chira’s story and see if I can get it unstuck. Yesterday, I reread what I have so far and it’s good, if a little angsty. So! Many! Emotions!

My fantasy romance is with my agent, so once she looks it over, I’ll know more about what I should do there. It’ll likely need an edit before it goes out on submission to publishers, if that’s what we decide to do, otherwise it’ll need an edit before I self-pub it. Then I’ll have to write the second book. So many ideas, so little time.

But it was nice to have a release week where I’m not on deadline. 🥰

If you’re not going to be able to make the BookPeople event, and you want to ask questions, there’s a spoiler/discussion thread. Please don’t drop spoilers in the comments anywhere else, since I know a lot of people haven’t been able to read yet.

Have a great weekend, and I hope I’ll see some of you soon!

Capture the Sun is here!

Capture the Sun is available now! www.jessiemihalik.com

Your patience has been rewarded—Capture the Sun is now available! 🎉

Get your copy!
Signed books from BookPeople
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Apple Books | Google Play | Kobo | Bookshop

I hope you all enjoy reading Lexi and Nilo’s story as much as I enjoyed writing it. It’s a little different than the first two books, in that it starts with a bang (😏), and the road to happily ever after is a little bumpy, but don’t worry, they get there eventually!

And you’ll get a peek at the rest of the crew, too, so you can give everyone one last farewell. And this is farewell, at least for now, but you never know what the future holds. Fingers crossed Netflix picks it up, and it becomes a massive success and my publisher starts knocking down my door for more books. (To be clear, there is approximately zero percent chance this will happen, but I can dream!)

If you’d like to talk about the book in person, I’m doing a signing at BookPeople on Sunday, June 25 at 7PM. Come see me! It’s totally free to come hang out and hear me speak, but if you’re able, please buy the book from BookPeople to support the store.

I’ll put up a spoiler thread post after this one, so please hold your spoilery questions until then. :) Happy reading!

Edit: UK folks, it seems the paperback release has been pushed to August 17. I don’t know why, but multiple retailers have that date, so if you want a paper copy you’ll have to wait just a bit longer. I’m so sorry!

Hunt the Stars is a Goodreads Choice Finalist!

HUNT THE STARS is a Goodreads Choice  2022 nominee for Best Science Fiction!

Thank you so much to everyone who voted in the first round! As far as I remember (which, admittedly, isn’t far), this is the first time I’ve had a book listed at all, and to be in the final round with SF titans like Muir, Scalzi, Corey, and the others is truly an honor.

If you feel like voting for Hunt the Stars, you can do that over on Goodreads site from now until Dec 4. If you voted last time (thank you!) you can vote again because this is a new round.

My chances of winning are approximately zero, but extra publicity is always welcome, and maybe a new reader or two will find my books while going to vote for someone else. 😂

In other news, the weather here is doing its typical Texas thing. Yesterday was 82°F and completely lovely. We opened all of the windows in what is probably the last hurrah before we have to shut everything up for cedar allergy season, because cedar pollen is already starting to show up on the allergy reports. Bleh.

Then the temperature dropped into the thirties overnight and the high is in the fifties today. Plus the wind howled ALL. NIGHT. LONG. Go home, weather, you’re drunk.

Actually, come back with yesterday’s weather. After a scorching summer and a cool/gray last couple of weeks, yesterday was perfect.

But today is a good day for soup, and I have a bunch of extra potatoes from Thanksgiving, so potato soup it is! Mmm, soup. And even better, it’s not Thanksgiving leftovers. I’m Thanksgiving’ed out.

Until next year. 😂