Our website is live with some listings! Please consider one of the titles and bear with me as I make more listings--it's a task doing it all manually for SquareSpace, but allows me to more carefully curate!

Thank you all!

-Ryn

Today is the release day for the highly anticipated novel, It Looks Like You In the Dark by Mathilda Zeller. An expansion of her short story “Kushtuka” from the wildly popular anthology Never Whistle At Night (ed. Hawk & Van Alst), this book was chilling, fast-paced, and is absolutely perfect for winter.

We meet her main cast of characters quickly, which isn’t surprising in today’s landscape of literature. At least, certainly not for a lot of newer horror books! I love meeting the cast early on—it really helps me get invested in them and their plotlines as the story progresses. And Zeller does a great job in getting you invested in the Inupiat community that she has created in Alaska: the Kobuk River Valley. You learn about each of the young people at the center of the story and what drives them; who wants to stay and who wants to go and how they plan on making that happen. Everything boils down to what it always boils down to, no matter what community you’re part of: the money to make your dreams happen.

Then enters the white man. And he seemingly has the answers to all their problems. He helps one young man with college, gives our FMC a job, seemingly is helping the community. I gotta say, I really love how Zeller makes me hate him from the get-go. Nothing about him feels comfortable from the moment you meet him on the page. He’s an awful capitalist who thinks he knows a little something something about Native culture and how to survive in the Alaskan state, but he’s got several things coming to him. And if you’ve read the short story “Kushtuka”, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

Without going into too much detail and ending up spoiling things for you all, I give this a “run-and-buy-it” rating. You’re going to want to read this one, curled up with a nice mug of tea (or hot drink of choice), covered up with your favorite cozy blanket while the air gets colder out. Like I said, this is absolutely perfect for winter, and I highly recommend.

I’ll be going to see the launch tonight at Bucket ‘o’ Blood in Chicago. Will you be seeing Zeller on tour?

We have officially been approved for our LLC! Now all we have to do is file the DBA, which will be $50 and then publish the notification in the newspaper for $175. If you want to help contribute, please check out our webpage!

Thank you all!

-Ryn

Hey, y'all! We were able to file the LLC today, so one step closer to being able to list our own books on our own website!

If you'd like to contribute to the assumed business name filing (which is approximately $250), please do so by visiting the link our home page!

It'll take 10 business days for the secretary of state's office to process the LLC application, but we're getting there!

Till next time!

-Ryn

Hey, y'all! Wanted to pop in and give you a list of upcoming releases we're excited for! We are so close to being able to list books on our site--we're getting the LLC and everything this upcoming week!

Upcoming releases to watch for!

• It Looks Like You in the Dark by Mathilda Zeller (SO GOOD)

• What Feeds Below by Tatiana Schlote-Bonne (PLEASE OMG)

• Lethal Kiss by Taylor Grothe (SERIOUSLY)

• Victorious by VE Schwab (THAT ENDING!)

• Something Followed Us Home ed by Cynthia Pelayo (BROOOO)

Please consider ordering your copy from us!

Till next time!

-Ryn

If you like Christmas, Victorian stories, and governesses gone wild...boy do I have the story for you! Read on to see what I loved about Victorian Psycho.

WHAT WORKED (for me!):

• Characters

  • Winnifred was hilarious

  • So were the kids

  • The parents were so funny too

• Setting

  • This felt so humorous Gothic lol

• Pacing

  • Perfectly paced for how short it was!

• Twist

  • While I did kind of see it coming, I love the way it unfolded!

WHAT DIDN'T WORK (for me!):

• Honestly? I DNF'd the first time I tried to read but that was a me issue not a book issue. I think this works well!

Thank to my dear friend Anny Wilkes for sending this my way, and to Naomi (of Boozhoo Books) for convincing me to retry it!

Till next time!

Let's have a rebrand, shall we?

After much thought and discussion, we've decided to leave Two Stories Bookshop behind as a name and rebrand as BONES & BROOMS BOOKSHOP. With our shift to the horror genre, this feels more appropriate and catchy!

We do have to re-register our business with the county clerk, and then we'll have our website up and running by the end of the October. If you want to help put money towards the registration costs, please either purchase books from our Bindery.org page or do a direct donation to Ryn on Venmo (username rynwerns91).

Thank you all so very much for bearing with us through this journey; I'm looking into pop up events now!

Alright, I admit. The last post was melodramatic. I was going Through It.

We do need help to get some supplies for pop up shops in the new year though, so if you could please order from us on Bookshop.org or through Libro.fm that would be amazing! I also accept donations via Venmo/Zelle.

Supplies needed:

• Table runner with our logo

• Stickers

• Bookmarks

• Stock (though this will come much later!)

Right now for the top three items, our cart is $302 for one table runner, 200 stickers, and 200 bookmarks. If you donate, you get a sticker and bookmark for free!

Thank you all so much for your help so far. My dream is not dead. This bookstore WILL happen!

Till next time!

-Ryn

So we had a pretty big order cancellation within the past few days via Bookshop.org and it has me wondering if this is even feasible anymore. I don't know if I should give up on this little dream of mine. Everyone who has contributed so far, I thank you so so much, but we just don't have the traffic that I'd hoped and with that cancellation, we lost out on a lot of sale money.

I'm trying to be transparent. Maybe it's best if I put my focus elsewhere for the time being and stop trying to be a business owner. I have books to write, a book being released next year, and a degree to finish. Not to mention a full-time job.

Sorry for the sad post, y'all, it's just kind of disheartening.

Hope you're all doing well!