A Glimpse at What Comes Next

3rd August 2025

Dear Reader,

I fear you are at a disadvantage! I want to share my next project with you before I have even published my first. Mean of me, I admit!

One of my favourite stories from Honeyed Myths is Widows-Fruit, a short story about a forest that lures the innocent with its fruit, drives them to madness, and takes their lives. It is cooler than it sounds, I promise! And because I love it so much, I have started growing it into something bigger: a novel. I am still deciding whether to place this excerpt at the end of Honeyed Myths, but either way, I wanted to share a glimpse with you.

From the roots of Widow’s Fruit grows something new:

A father fled the orchard.
But the rot did not sleep.

It spreads now, slow and hungering, driving men to madness.

The story is not over.

This is how it begins:

At four and twenty years old, Anya had never seen the rot, not for herself at least.

She had heard the stories. Everyone had.

They drifted down from the northern passes with the snowmelt, carried in the mouths of half-mad soldiers and hearthbound grandmothers, each tale worse than the last. Forests that hungered. Fathers who pressed pillows to small faces. Wives who strung themselves from trees, fruit glistening on their mouths.

But Anya had only ever seen the aftermath: villages empty of sound, doors nailed shut from within, and a silence so deep it seemed to press against her teeth.

So when the king came to the outpost, they all knew why.

The rot was spreading again.

I would love to hear what you think. Should I include this in Honeyed Myths? Where would you like the story to go? And if you are writing your own stories, please share them with me too.

Thanks for reading,
Jess x