Cover Reveal for When Among Crows!

my first real foray into fantasy

HELLO, I am thrilled to share an (early!) cover reveal for When Among Crows, my next book*! Out on May 14th, 2024!

*Actually, it’s a novella, but it’s also 40,000 words, so it’s got some heft.

Spoiler Alert: I am…obsessed with this cover.

!!!!

This art is by Eleonor Piteira, who is…amazing, and perfectly captured the feeling of this story (and Dymitr!). And big thanks to Katie Jane Klim at Tor for getting us here, too.

This isn’t an official summary, or anything, but let me tell you what it’s about. When Among Crows is about a knight on a holy mission to kill monsters, a mission he’s so committed to that he split his soul in half to do it. For ~mysterious reasons, he travels from the old country to Chicago in pursuit of Baba Jaga, a legendary (and dangerous) witch who always takes more than she gives. But he needs help to find her. Enter Ala, a zmora who feeds on fear and the carrier of a deadly curse.

Without telling Ala what he really is, Dymitr offers her a bargain: if she helps him find Baba Jaga, he’ll help her break her curse. Desperate, she agrees, and over the course of one day, the two of them risk life and limb in Chicago’s monstrous underworld… but Dymitr’s motives— and his secrets— may pose the greatest danger of all.

A few things about this book:

• The title comes from a (probably infrequently used) Polish saying: “Kiedy wejdziesz między wrony musisz krakać tak jak one,” or “when among crows, you must caw as they do.” (The equivalent is “when in Rome, do as the Romans do.”) The story is primarily about creatures from Polish folklore— though I of course took quite a few liberties— and as I am a first generation American who never learned the language, my uncle was kind enough to check my Polish to the best of his ability. Dziękuję, Uncle Stan.

• Last summer I proposed a summary for a completely different novella to my editor, she was on board, I tried to write it, and then… I ended up writing this instead— almost in a fever dream, unsure of why it was suddenly the only thing I could work on and whether anyone would ever want to publish it. Big thanks to my editor, Lindsey Hall, for receiving “oops, I wrote this contemporary fantasy with strzygi and banshees and wraiths instead!” with enthusiasm. Though I’ve written things with fantastical elements before, this is the first purely fantasy work I’ve ever tackled, and I absolutely loved the challenge of it.

• It has a playlist:

• And a Pinterest board:

  

• There’s a lot to love about the cover, but let me show you one of my favorite little bits:

It comes out May 14th, and I can’t wait!

<3,

V