The holidays are upon us! Merry Jólabókaflód 📖☕❄️

Jólabókaflód is the Icelandic tradition of giving and receiving books on Christmas Eve, and drinking hot cocoa and reading and being cozy together. It's just the kind of tradition I love best, so that's what I'm celebrating!

If you are desperate for gift ideas, it's not too late to give signed copies of my books! Just go to www.ravenbelas.co, order the books you like, and in the notes tell me the name to sign the books to, and their address. I will sign the books, wrap them in pretty paper, and ship them directly to the lucky recipient. The SALE aspect is that this point, getting the books there by Dec 25^th will mean more expensive shipping, so I will eat that expense to get your gifts to your loved ones! 🎁📦📬

Here’s some of the wrapped books I’ve sent in previous years, to show you how lovely the results are:

If you have any questions, hit “reply” and I'll be happy to answer them! 

You can also use Amazon, if you prefer. They are still offering delivery by Xmas day for paperback, but of course ebooks and audiobooks are very safe bets! (And a reminder: we are on ALL audiobook platforms except Spotify.)

On Sunday the 15^th, I was back at Pandemonium for their Holiday Faire. It was a chaotic day, so I didn’t get as many great images as the Halloween one, but I still met some really cool people, and got word of the series out to more of the geeks, nerds, and other wonderfully unconventional folk of the Boston area.

Sadly, my spine issues have ramped up again, so while I do love interacting with bookish and/or geeky people, I had to grit my teeth as the hours of the event passed and my pain got worse and worse with each of them 😬🤕😵

I had ordered up a batch of bookmarks to hand out with each book I sold, and of course I ordered more than I actually sold, so I still have a batch of them. They are lovely: good weight, glossy, double-sided, and I had so much fun with the layout!

I thought, why not send these out to people who didn’t get a chance to get them for free before? So if you would like one, reply to this newsletter, and I will get one right out in the mail to you—there’s time enough for USPS to deliver it before you open the books waiting for you under the tree (or wherever your gifts are placed.)

I do want to thank each and every one of you. For so many things! For buying my books (often multiple releases, or in multiple formats) and supporting my efforts to make writing a self-sustaining career for me, for staying subscribed to this newsletter and reading my ramblings and putting up with my efforts at learning email marketing, and for clicking over to paid links to support me or videos on various social media. I put off doing a newsletter for so long, but actually, knowing you are reading these, that I have a core of caring and supportive friends like you—it means this newsletter does more for me than promoting my books. Thank you so much for being the best newsletter subscriber—and friend—that a writer could ever hope for! 💝

I did some images with Santa I took a few years ago, before the books had the new covers. I now have to go through and update the covers on all the images (Santa and I are both too busy this year to reshoot it! 😂) and that’s a project for this week, so I won’t bother you with an email once I get them done, but if you want to see them all they’ll go up on my IG and FB and Tiktok later this week. Here is one without the updated covers, so you can get a hint of the silliness…

I started the Cool Yule Holiday Playlist long before there were playlists. I got into jazz and blues junior year of high school, and for one Christmas I was gifted with the Jass Records “Santa Claus Blues” compilation CD, and it quickly became my most important holiday tradition. I would cook holiday meals listening to that album, and decorate the tree, and wrap gifts. It was the perfect sound of my holiday: no Mariah Carey or WHAM! or other Mall Xmas songs!

But there were a limited number of songs on the CD. (Although I do have the original CD in a box somewhere, it was ripped to my computer and has been carefully put into every phone since, so I never have an Xmas without it!) Once the option of playlists came into my life, I added more songs to the original ones, and now I have ten solid hours of holiday tunes (now expanded to include other genres that I think nicely fit the musical theme) that will take me through cooking, tree trimming, and wrapping.

If you are looking for something a bit different this holiday, I’m sharing a bit of my world with you 💖

(Or Spotify, if you prefer🎄)

There won’t be another newsletter until the New Year, so I hope you all have PERFECT holidays, no matter what or how you celebrate. Until next time, be good or be good at it! 😘

💭 I'd love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: drop me a note 📨

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