The Black Hand, vol. 44
(The next chapter of All Shall Mourn is out now! If you’d like to join up to read previous chapters, as well as discover behind-the-scenes info and take the chance to support my work, subscribe or follow the instructions here:)
Wine Wars
The French take wine very seriously. How seriously, you may ask? Very seriously.
Last year, a militant French winegrower group called the Comité d'Action Viticole (CAV), bombed the offices of the Regional Directorate of Environment, Planning and Housing in Carcassonne (in the south of France) in protest against increased costs and constraints on winemakers in the Aude region.
Holy shit! There were no casualties, as the offices were being renovated – a bloodless revolution, one might call it. But for real, can you imagine getting your office blown up over a wine war? Wild stuff. It’s like tulip mania in the Dutch Golden Age, or internecine conflict over donuts, or some other commodity that seems too innocuous to generate violence.
Can’t they sit down over a nice glass of sauvignon blanc and work it out? Apparently not. The Aude winegrowers' union leader, Frédéric Rouanet (I’m still getting over the phrase ‘militant French winegrowers’ group’ and now you tell me there’s a winegrowers’ union?? I freakin’ love France), was quoted in the news saying, "I do not condone this type of act but unfortunately it is likely to become part of everyday life, given the current wine situation." He doesn’t sound too sorry about it, does he? Piss off the winegrowers and you get what’s coming to you, I guess!
In fact, there’s been other action in South France related to so-called ‘terrorist winemakers’ – including a roadblock in which an entire tanker of red was emptied onto the road (I would’ve been out there with a big jug, I mean have you tasted French wine? C’est magnifique!). There was also an arson attack on a bottling line, not to mention bomb threats at a winemaking workshop in nearby Spain, where cheap wines are being trucked over the border and undercutting French wine prices.
So…that’s how seriously the French take their wine. Bring on the wine revolution, I say! Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité! Seriously though, French wine is amazing. When I went to France last year, the cheapest, shittiest bottle of wine on the very bottom shelf of the local supermarket (no kidding, it cost 3 euros) tasted better than the $50 bottle of wine I bought for a friend once I was back home. Drink French wine if you get the chance!
Welcome, 2025!
Friends, it’s a new year, and a new season of possibility. However bumpy the road ahead, for now, we celebrate the chance to start afresh and see clear-eyed.
Heading into a brand new year, I’m here to tell you that in 2025 you can do anything you want. This time is yours to shape. There’s a quote from one of the other newsletters that I subscribe to, although I can’t really remember where it’s from (Paul’s Tremblay’s dryly funny occasional missives, perhaps? Rusty Foster’s wisdom from Today on Trail? Lincoln Michel’s erudite musings from Counter Craft? Or maybe something else) but it goes: There are no rules. No one knows anything. It’s important to get creative. It’s important to try new things and not take yourself too seriously.
Let me just put that quote out on its own so we can look at it together:
There are no rules. No one knows anything. It’s important to get creative. It’s important to try new things and not take yourself too seriously.
I have this quote stuck up in big glow-in-the-dark letters near my writing space. As far as rules go, this quote reflects my only rule: that we should remind ourselves there are no rules but the ones we make. That nobody really knows how things are done. That creativity and originality and experimentation are vital for life as well as art. Above all, take some deep breaths and don’t get too stressed about it.
I’m writing this to you from a train carriage in India. We’re winding our way from Kolkata to Mughalsarai (Upadhyaya) past dry country in the state of Jharkhand. I’m releasing a book in a month and there is much to do. I’m also writing another book under contract (hooray!) and writing this newsletter and doing a bunch of admin stuff. When my partner suggested we go to India over the New Year, my brain initially couldn’t make space for it – omg, didn’t I have too much to do? But then I realised that India has wifi like everywhere else, that I can work on the road simply by bringing my laptop. Trying new things is important. Now here I am in this amazing country, and my writing has been more focused and I’m feeling creatively energised. It was a good call – and all I had to do was let go enough to take a chance.
Chapter 6 of ALL SHALL MOURN is out now
Travis looks around at how the interior of the Cool Room has been stripped.
Every small convenience from their last case is gone: There’s no extra desk, no coffee maker, no pencil holder, no carpet tiles. All that remains is a single wooden desk with a lamp, a heavy metal filing cabinet, one folding metal chair with a cushioned seat, and the hard old couch, which was obviously too awkward to remove. Travis finds the reduced conditions oddly poignant…
Only one more chapter to go before the book releases in February!! 😊
I’ll release Chapter 7 a day or two before the book arrives, so hopefully you can finish that chapter then grab your copy of the book and pick up where you left off.
Thank you to everyone supporting my work as a subscriber – it has been really lovely to see people jumping on board the newsletter, and I appreciate that you’re taking time out of your day to read my ramblings. There’s quite a lot of free stuff here in my newsletters for The Black Hand – especially if your interest is in macabre or crimey things – and I try to give updates about what I’m engaged with as well as recs for books and media that might be as interesting to you as it is to me.
If you’re a paid subscriber, there’s also a whole back catalogue of Nailbiters posts with various tidbits about my writing process, especially behind-the-scenes info about None Shall Sleep series, and about writing craft and the industry in general, in addition to deep dives into random things that catch my eye. I hope, once you’ve finished reading All Shall Mourn chapters, you’ll find other things to read in Nailbiters that float your boat. You might like to check out the post on Simon Gutmunsson’s character development, for instance, or this one on writing the final book in a series, or this one on researching historical fiction. I’m hoping to release more new fiction in Nailbiters this year, whether it be some of the adult horror book I wrote or something else.
If you’re not a paid Nailbiters subscriber, you can upgrade here using this button (or find clear instructions about how to upgrade here)
ALL SHALL MOURN is coming next month!
Honestly I can’t believe it – it feels like we’ve been holding our breath forever? And the next time I talk to you, the end of this insane story will be released.
The book officially comes out February 5. Digital copies are currently available for preorder (and this is the largest number of ebook preorders I’ve ever sold for a book, thank you all so much, that is wild). Paperback copies will be available immediately on the day of release. You’ll find them on Amazon, and – if I can make the upload interface work – through Barnes & Noble (you may have to ask your store to order them) and other places supplied by Ingram Spark.
If all goes well and there’s plenty of sales, I’ll figure out a way to get a hardcover and an audiobook edition of All Shall Mourn together. For now, I’m just thrilled that this book is actually going out into the world.
Events
Obviously I’m in India right now, so no events (I dropped into Kinokuniya Singapore and signed some books there, though, so if you’re in Singapore, grab a copy!).
But I’ve got some really awesome plans for later in the year – and I’m currently lining up events for 2025, so if you have a school, library, festival, podcast, Youtube channel, or something you’d like me to attend, please get in touch! I’m at elliemarney at gmail dot com, drop me a line anytime. I’ll be a little slow replying until February, when I get back to my desk, but I’m still checking email.
Folks have been asking if I’m doing a book tour to promote All Shall Mourn, and the answer is (alas) no – I don’t usually tour for a third book, and I’m also crunching pretty hard to hit my deadline. But if you’d like signed books, keep an eye out for them on my website over the next month or two. I’m also happy to send you a free signed bookplate, if that is your pleasure, so email me for details 😊
What I’m reading/watching/listening to
I’ve started and finished a number of unsatisfying books over the last few weeks, but then I picked up Blacktop Wasteland by SA Cosby, and I knew my dry spell had ended. Cosby is a masterful voice in noir mystery thrillers, and what seems like a standard story of an ex-getaway driver sucked into a classic ‘one more job before quitting’ situation is transformed into something intense and smart and real by some absolutely top-notch writing – the characters are living, breathing, and fascinating. Roxane Gay described it as “Fast and the Furious but literary” and I’d have to agree. At every turn, we’re hoping that Bug Montage makes it home safe to his family. Highly recommended!
As far as the tube goes, I’ve done a Monkey Man rewatch (obviously very timely), and I’m restraining myself from watching the first episode of the new season of Severance, because I promised my kids I’d watch it with them when I got home. That show is probably my most-anticipated TV event of 2025, so I hope they appreciate the sacrifice I’m making for them.
New theme on Instagram: Neon!
Social media is mostly a necessary evil rather than an enjoyable experience for 99% of authors, and so it is for me also. Although I don’t mind dipping into text-based socials like Bluesky and Threads, I’m not a natural video person so I find Tiktok a bit torturous, and Instagram is one of those things I can take or leave. Mainly I just feel kinda old on socials, but I bumble along anyway.
But I remain a very visual thinker and writer – I’m on the very far end of “seeing a picture in your head when writing” spectrum – and every year, I get a great deal of pleasure from finding a new visual theme for my Instagram. It’s kind of like redecorating your house, but without all the horrendous expense?
Last year was the year of GIALLO, and I got a kick out of planning out the visuals for that. This year, friends, the theme is NEON, so expect some popping colours and lots of 80s-style pinks and blues and purples (which seems very appropriate for All Shall Mourn). Anyway, hope you enjoy it!
That’s it from me for this month. I hope you rang in the New Year in a way most appropriate to you. I had a relatively quiet one, albeit in the frenetic environment of Kolkata. May your year be a delight, and may all good things find you!
Friends in Australia, stay cool and safe this fire season. Friends in the States, I send you strength, and the steadfast joy you need to sustain yourselves in uncertain times. If you’re in the UK and Europe, much love to you! Folks in my ARC team, I hope you’re enjoying being the first people in the world to read All Shall Mourn (amazing that people are finally reading it!).
I’m finishing this newsletter on the balcony of a little room in Varanasi, as the sun comes up over the Ganges River. Cars and auto-rickshaws are honking their horns in the street below. Someone is singing a religious mantra through the tannoy across the street, and people are lighting little fires down by the river as part of a ceremony. India is wild and strange and beautiful, and I hope we all have a little more of that wildness and strangeness and beauty in our lives over the coming year. See you next month!
xxEllie