Lately, my tastes in genre and reading have changed a lot! I am reading darker and creepier, and this post delves into some of those books and how it has impacted my writing too (spoiler: DARKER!) 🙂
Reading grimdark and other creepy fantasy books!
Over the last two years, my reading taste has really been changing rather drastically, which has been an interesting experience. I have been leaning much darker, and into adult fiction mostly.
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First, I started reading a whole bunch of very slim international literary fiction. And that was all I wanted to read for about six months. Then I started getting more and more into reading about history (non-fiction and memoir, which was very new for me!) and for the past year I have been steadily reading mostly crime / mystery fiction (detective noir is my FAVOURITE!) and also I have been gobbling up fantasy books. The darker a fantasy book is the better, the more gritty and creepy the world is, the better! I am so fascinated by world-building and obsessed with reading about unique and strange new worlds.
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This photo is of GODBLIND by Anna Stephens. I believe this one is considered to be quite #darkfantasy or even a little #grimdark which are both genres I very much enjoy. You can also see our #GameofThrones collection on the shelf behind it, and the last big book by George R.R. Martin was read and re-read by both myself and my husband so many times that it has now been taped up with stickytape to stop it absolutely disintegrating. Haha.
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I enjoyed reading Godblind, and have been delving a lot into darker fantasy lately, like #JoeAbercrombie and #RebeccaRoanhorse and #R.FKuang and enjoying discovering new dark worlds.
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Not surprising then, that I have been writing differently lately too, and delving into creating much darker fiction myself, set in new weird worlds. I am both nervous and excited to share more about my dark fantasy fiction in the future. It is a big change for me, and I’ve loved writing it. I should have a few little bits and pieces to share over the next few months as I figure myself out 🙂
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My writing space
I am lucky enough to have a study, which is where I write all my fiction … and over the holidays I re-arranged everything to fit in a new desk. the ‘new desk’ is actually just our old kitchen table, but I used to use my grandmother’s old-fashioned and absolutely beautiful writing desk, but seriously, old stuff isn’t always the most comfortable. So now I have upgraded to our old kitchen table? Mmmh.
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Anyway, after spending many hours rearranging everything, I am convinced my writing space looks much worse and much messier than it did before, but at least I will now be able to sit at it more comfortably than before. and I suppose that is the most important thing!
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What a mess, right? Haha. Oh well. Chaos suits me.
Took a walk over the weekend and found some pretty oleanders. Nice. This is me. And them. 😸
THANK YOU FOR READING
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PJ Nwosu writes dark mystery novels set in epic fantasy worlds.
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A vast, rotting city set aflame by Purge House.
A crowd gathers in the shadow of the Red Palace to watch the pyres burn.
A bitter ex-soldier infiltrates the city’s greatest gold house, determined to locate the slave he seeks.
Diem Lakein might not like what he finds.
Welcome to the Red Kingdom