Danai's Dispatch: January 2026, a debut year

Welcome to Danai's Dispatch, where I pop into your inbox once a month whenever something exciting happens, bearing gifts: VILE LADY VILLAINS updates, writing resources, short story and book roundups, and exclusive giveaways! Thank you for reading. If you haven’t subscribed already, please consider signing up below.

Allegedly, it’s been January 2026 for a while now.

Come on in, fellow villain.

Shake the snow off your clothes and sit by the fire. The Swedish forest all around us is quiet as a coffin these days, deceptively serene under its heavy shroud of snow. Which is ironic if you consider how very much not serene 2026 has been so far—for us as a family, and for humanity as a whole. But the only way to not go completely mad (at least for me, your methods may vary) is to turn to art, and to animals. Pet more cats, feed more birds, read more books. And speaking of books…

2026 is the year Vile Lady Villains will be out in the world, and in your hands.

I’ve been working on this weird, queer book since 2021—slowly at first, as a bizarre idea I didn’t know how to shake or shape. I tried to make it a short story, then a novella, and failed on both counts. Then in 2023, when I was already 2 years on submission with various projects and was getting so many “almost” yesses that all ended up being “nos”, I said, sod it, and decided to write Vile Lady Villains instead. Back then, it was called “The Milk of Human Kindness”, after one of my favorite lines from Macbeth, but I felt it didn’t do the other half of the story, the Klytemnestra half, justice. So, Vile Lady Villains was born. I’ve been posting on social media about this book since I started writing it, so now that it’s finally debut year part of me feels exhausted already and like everyone is sick of hearing me talk about it… but I’m also getting humbled by so many people who are now JUST discovering it! Keep yapping about your books, folks. It’s the only way.

So here are the Vile Lady Villains publication dates to keep in mind:

UK: April 02, 2026, from Michael Joseph (PRH UK)
US: May 12, 2026, from Union Square & Co (Hachette)
GR: June 2026, from Anubis Books

VLV IS NOW AVAILABLE TO REQUEST ON NETGALLEY (UK and US)

If you can’t wait until April/May/June and want to help me spread the world about my stabby sapphics, I have some good news: Vile Lady Villains is now available to request on NetGalley! (If you don’t know, NetGalley is a website where you can make an account and request advance copies in return for honest reviews.) You can request it both on the US and the UK site, using the buttons below. And please, if you’ve read Vile Lady Villains already leave a review on NetGalley and/or Goodreads. It really helps.

Note: the US one features a temporary cover which, as you can see, goes on a different direction from the UK one. Can’t wait to share the final US cover soon!

PREORDER VILE LADY VILLAINS IN THE UK/US

I sound like a broken record, I know, but preorders help so much!

Cool things that happened since last we spoke:

Arguably, the closer we get to the publication of VLV, the less unrelated cool things I’ll have to share. But for now, here are some glimmers that keep me going:

• I closed my first full year as an assistant literary agent on a very happy note, as we sold CRACKS IN AN OCEAN OF GLASS by the amazingly talented Kristy Park Kulski to Boozhoo Books at Bindery. I can’t wait for everyone to fall in love with this haunting, rain-drenched book when it comes out in 2027!

• Emily C. Hughes’ Jump Scares included Vile Lady Villains in 2026’s New Horror Books

• LGBTQ Reads included Vile Lady Villains on their “Most Anticipated LGBTQ+ Adult Fiction: January-June 2026 

• I’m going to be part of a Stars and Sabers anthology! It’s a romantasy anthology called “Of Starlight and Roses” publishing in October 2026, and some very cool peeps are participating. I can’t tell you much about my story yet, but I CAN tell you it will involve Greek myth in some shape or form. There’s already a Goodreads page to keep track of it.

• There are also some more exciting news about Vile Lady Villains I can’t quite tell you yet, but what I can tell you is that we made some gorgeous swag and I’ll be doing a giveaway of a signed copy and swag bundle in the upcoming weeks, exclusively for the readers of this newsletter. So stay tuned!

Some fellow 2026 debuts I’m super excited about

I’ve been incredibly lucky to be part of a super supportive 2026 cohort (if you’re on Instagram, follow @2026debuts) and one of our fellow authors made a website for all our books. Please visit it, there are so many ridiculously good books coming out this year! Here are some I’m particularly excited about, from the first half of 2026:

• The Book of Blood and Roses by Annie Summerlee Sapphic romantasy where a vampire falls in love with a vampire hunter? Yes please! Out now.

• All We Have is Time by Amy Tordoff I’m a sucker for time travel stories, and this upmarket speculative about a time traveler who meets an immortal woman sounds super intriguing! February 24.

• The Iron Garden Sutra by A.D. Sui This author’s short stories never fail to impress me, and “A death monk on a mission to perform final rites and a group of academics are sent to explore a thousand-year-lost generation ship” sounds exactly like the weird science fiction we need more of. February 24.

• Robbie McNeil’s Hit List by Brianna Heath A quirky, queer, crime-filled mystery following a contract killer who breaks all her rules when she is hired to kill someone who doesn’t exist. March 24.

• The Geomagician by Jennifer Mandula A paleontologist who uses fossils to wield magic, in a fantasy that sounds adorable and with just the right dose of academia for my tastes. March 31.

• The Celestial Seas by T. A. Chan “Ishara Ming is the sole survivor of a spacefaring whaler destroyed by the Ballena, a legendary sentient spacecraft that haunts the darkness between stars.” This is the year of queer Moby Dick in space and I’m so here for it! March 31.

• The Café of Infinite Doors by Zara Marielle “One evening, a magical café appears after a nasty fight.” We all need sanctuary spaces right now, so this found family fantasy about a café that works as a portal sounds wonderful. April 28.

• Between Sun and Shadow by Laura Genn “Hades and Persephone reimagined on a tidally locked planet, for fans of queer romance, mutant superpowers, eccentric robots, and speculative tech”. May 05

• An Inheritance of Lies by Rebecca A. Carter “To safeguard her future, Alexandra hatches a plan with the aid of a dashing stranger to fake an engagement and claim what’s rightfully hers […] forced to embark on the fateful voyage to England aboard the RMS Lusitania. Where nothing is as it seems.” May 05.

• Sublimation by Isabel J. Kim “The border cuts you in two. When you immigrate, you leave a copy of yourself behind. One person enters their new country, the other stays trapped at home.” Oof. Let me tell you, as an immigrant this hits me right in the feels. June 02.

• Love, Gods & Sinners by Camille Chong “Set in an alternate futuristic world, where descendants of ancient magical clans don secret identities and do battle on the streets of Singapore.” June 11.

• The Bloodweaver by C. N. Kuster “In a world where some can manipulate life with a single touch, siblings fight on rival sides, forced to reckon with the choices that led them there.” June 23.

• A Prince Among Pirates by Katie Abdou OFMD fans, this one’s for us! “With an arranged marriage looming and the confines of white wigs and stiff decorum closing in, Kit is desperate to escape a life that feels completely wrong for him. His solution? A wildly impulsive decision that lands him aboard the Deliverance, a galleon captained by the infuriatingly charismatic Reggie Sharpe.” June 16.

• Visit 2026 Debut Books to find your next favorite read!

  And hey, you’ll find Vile Lady Villains there too.

Thank you for weathering this January with me

When shall we two meet again, in thunder, lightning or in rain? Perhaps, in the next instalment of this dispatch. So I hope you’ll subscribe, if you haven't already! And maybe help my ravens spread the word by sharing it on your social media?