These Marvelous Beasts is Here!

Yes, friends! It’s true. These Marvelous Beasts is available, as of this moment, in paperback. What is These Marvelous Beasts? Well, it’s the whole Frost & Filigree series in one pretty little package. Okay, maybe not little. It’s about 440 pages long! So if you want to sit down and digest the entire series as one big novel, that time is now.

Why read this series? Well, late last night on Twitter I did a kind of 10 reasons why and, there. I did my homework ahead of time. Always feels good.

A thread by Natania Barron 🦄✨

Here’s a list of 10 things you’ll find in THESE MARVELOUS BEASTS.

ELEVATOR PITCH: Think League of Extraordinary Gentlemen but with witty monsters.

eBook preorder: (amzn.to/38ldMVI)
Paperback out now: (amzn.to/367Gwzn)
Hardcover coming SOON!

Very queer love stories. This is an #ownvoices tale, and it’s straight from the heart(s) of my characters. And me. 🏳️‍🌈 #queercommunity #LGBTQIA

Sappho, but of course. I just love the little lovebirds behind them.

2) Vivienne du Lac. She’s a sylph. And a fashion designer. She advises both Jeanne Paquin and the House of Worth, and writing her wardrobe is my favorite thing ever. For Vivienne, there is never any reason for “dressing down.”

Whenever I think of Vivienne, I think Boldini.

3) A very curmudgeonly lamia named Nerissa who steals most of the scenes she’s in. In one instance she sees a human and decides, on-site, that she’d like to maim him and let him linger “in long, red-ribboned agony” should she have the chance. She also hearts Vivienne (see above)

This is an actual lamia sketch, and I have to say — it does look a bit like I imagine Nerissa in her wilder human form.

4) A very complicated fellow named Worth Goodwin who starts out as a Questing Beast and ends up… something else. No spoilers. He has terrible fashion sense and adores reading newspapers. He also used to adore Vivienne, but then he adored Yvan who had his heart ripped out

Definitely the kind of thing Worth would have worn in the 1830s — however, imagine the color scheme in chartreuse.

5) Adventures! Across! Three! Decades! The first book takes place in 1912. Then we go to 1923, then to 1932. That means fashion fun! Christabel (one of our heroic monsters) get very excited about pants. Seriously folks, the excitement never stops.

I don’t know what Kalzana was, but it probably killed you.

6) A dwarf named Alma who can shed her limbs to escape attack. I don’t think I have to sell this part any more than I already have. (Image here CC BY SA, all other public domain, natch…)

7) So many monsters. Bleakness voids, vampires, Napoleon Bonaparte, and frog monsters who spit nasty burrowing tadpoles, just to name a few!

8) Locations, locations, locations! New York! London! Cairo! Spain! The Hebrides! The Underworld!

9) So. Much. Banter. And Vivienne… well… she doesn’t love Christabel so much. But they get over it.

“Now that you bring it up, parading about a pert hussy with less class than a Boston donkey was not the ideal first impression after this dreaded absence, no.”

10) A story about friendship, found families, and the boundless power of love. For all the adventure and wit, the derring-do and whatnot… that’s what these stories are about. #ownvoices stories have a lot of layers, and this is, in some ways, the most important to me.