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Danai's Dispatch: May 2026, villains are visible

In which we ponder on what it means to debut a book nowadays, and VILE LADY VILLAINS is now out in the US as well

Author

Danai Christopoulou
May 19, 2026

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.

May we be blessed with more weird, queer books

Greetings, fellow villain.

Let me begin with an apology: my book came out in the US last week with Union Square & Co, and I’m only writing to you now. Life has been weird. The “post-debut drop” (a cute term for the not-at-all-cute depression that follows publishing your first book) is real. It’s such a bizarre feeling, this little paper rectangle becoming the culmination of so many years of work, so many hopes, so much heartache. I’ve been so grateful to have indie bookstores on Instagram tagging me in their “New Releases” posts, and to have author friends send me pictures of my book in bookstores — especially since I live so far away from everything. But there’s also an accompanying “now what” feeling with all this. After all this work, after all this hope, it’s done and my book is out there. One drop in a bucket of so, so many books that come out in the US market.

One very weird, very queer drop in a vast, often bigoted bucket.

So now what? Now it’s up to you, fellow villain. You can buy Vile Lady Villains, you can yap about it on social media, you can tell your friend who you think would enjoy a book about stabby sapphics. You can ask for it from your local library. You can make some noise about it, and I hope you will, because I’ve found that the noise the authors ourselves can make for our books doesn’t amount to much without structural support. Bestsellers don’t usually happen organically; there is a well-oiled publishing machine behind them, pushing them to a wide audience even before publication time. And that’s not a critique on the talent, or the hard work it takes for these authors’ books to become bestsellers! All power and kudos to them! But often, this is a marketing decision that happens during acquisitions, and everything follows from there. It may come as no shock that Vile Lady Villains is not a bestseller. The terrain, especially in the US, is so much harder with books from LGBTQ+ and marginalized authors right now.

But I hope together, we can make it a seller. A book that stands proud on the shelf, a book that can find its audience of queer weirdos (like myself). And mostly, I hope all queer books can find their audience because literature gets so much richer that way.

Reminder: The exclusive Ink & Edge with spredges!

ICYMI: my US publisher partnered with the good folks at Ink & Edge for an exclusive edition with badass sprayed edges! I mean, swords and skulls, what more can you ask for? It’s still available, and the 50 first will also get a signed bookplate by yours truly.

Reminder: We have an audiobook and it’s amazing

Also ICYMI: The Vile Lady Villains audiobook is now available everywhere, and I’m so frigging proud of it and of having a Greek narrator for Klytemnestra/Claret’s voice and a Scottish narrator for Lady Macbeth/Anassa’s voice! I will forever push back on this weird idea that Greek myth (or fantasy, for that matter) characters need to sound “British” for some reason. Why would it be more “authentic” for Klytemnestra to have a British accent? But don’t get me started on the many, many ways the British have co-opted the Greek myths (and the Greek marbles), or how everyone is happy to remove Greeks from the conversation entirely when it comes to movie adaptations (cough, The Odyssey) as long as the protagonists look a certain, white-washed and Anglo-washed way…

Anyway, Kat Kourbeti, the amazing narrator for Klytemnestra, wrote some thoughts about her experience narrating Klytemnestra in the Vile Lady Villains audiobook, as a Greek person, reading a book that touches upon Greek myth by a Greek author (me). You can read it here: https://darthj.uno/portfolio/vile-lady-villains/ 

Because my US publicity team are superheroes (Kippen, Alexandra, thank you so much for all you do!) we’ve managed to get Vile Lady Villains featured is some very cool places I’ve always dreamt about. Some of these places even let me write essays:

The Nerd Daily: I wrote an essay about The Importance of Writing Female Characters that Refuse to Shrink Themselves and why Vile Lady Villains was only written after I learned that it’s okay to take up space.

BookRiot: I was featured on the May 14 newsletter where they gave me the chance to talk about Vile Lady Villains, and other books that mix horror and romance really well!

Hasty Booklist: I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Ashley Hasty, where I talked about Vile Lady Villains, my favorite books and the book characters I’d love to be friends with!

Some more “pinch me” features:

Smart Bitches, Trashy Books: Book Beat: Gay Fantasy, Villainesses, & More

Thank you for screaming 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?

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