Chapter Thirteen: Cake! Cake! Cake!

Salutations,

In this newsletter, we bring you a whole new book—and a chance to celebrate with us and meet fellow bibliophiles later this week!

The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo is officially on sale—you can buy a copy here—and we’re launching her into the world this Wednesday, June 24, with an event at Seattle’s Elliott Bay Book Company. More details below.

We’re so excited about this book: we think Jade will surprise you and comfort you in equal measure, and we hope you save her up for a moment when cosiness is of the highest order.

In anticipation,

Rebekah, Rachel, Lara & Huw

Cake! Cake! Cake!

Among her other attributes, the heroine of Jade is a dessert connoisseur. She begins the book with a complicated scheme involving chocolate cake and progresses through sponge to trifle, with a great deal of tea, of course…

(Here’s a timelapse of cover artist Kim Nguyen hand-painting the cakes above, which feature on the back cover of the book.)

…which means that we’d love to hear about your favourite cake recipes, or the best cake you’ve ever had… or, failing that, the literary confections and indulgent delights you read when you need a sweet treat for the mind. Hit reply and tell us!

We’ll go first:

Rebekah made this pear and gingerbread upside-down cake the other day, which is an absolute banger of a recipe if you don’t mind converting from metric (and she says that “golden syrup” is about the same as “light treacle” for US bakers).

Publicity intern Wren recommends Third Culture Cooking; editorial intern Taylor says her comfort read is Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke (“all the smart literary people get mad when I say it’s better than Piranesi”).

Lara’s favorite dessert is Charlotte Druckman’s cacio e pepe shortbread (“it does really well at parties”) and her cosiest books are Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner and Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers (“bad behavior and good manners”).

Rachel says that Charlotte Druckman’s olive oil cake is way better than her shortbread. This dispute between her and Lara remains unresolved. She also likes 20th century travel memoirs, such as Full Tilt by Dervla Murphy (first published in 1965) or West with the Night by Beryl Markham (1942) or News from Tartary by Peter Fleming (1936). “There’s just something so delicious in reading about someone else’s awful travel logistics while not having to deal with any of the consequences,” she says.

Meet Jade Yeo (and fellow bibliophiles) on June 24!

Jade Yeo is out in the world—and we’re hosting a classic Homeward Book Recs party to usher her into the world, this time at iconic Seattle bookstore Elliott Bay Book Company!

We’ll bring cake and Jade; your job is to bring a book you love—and a friend with a book of their own. Be prepared to leave with a long list of recommendations. More information about the event here.

Can’t make this one? Mark your diaries for August 5; we’re hosting another event at Elliott Bay featuring author Zen Cho interviewed by Amy Hirayama, a Seattle-area writer and key member of arts collective CAM.

Drinking, pondering language, reviewing books

We’re thrilled that Bar Cart Bookshelf created a mocktail to pair with Jade Yeo—it’s called Artistic Education, with notes of green tea and raspberry! Get the recipe here and watch it being made here as the book is reviewed.

This gorgeous review from Felicia Davin riffs on Jade’s love of words—we learned that inscrutable comes from French and that aloof is a sailing word:

We love hearing from readers and booksellers alike—hit reply to this email to share your feedback. These are some recent thoughts on Jade:

“What a treat!” wrote Maura from The Ivy Bookshop. “Jade Yeo reads with the distinct humour of Bridget Jones and the self-assured confidence of Jane Austen’s boldest heroines.”

And Haley from Phinney Books wrote in to tell us that she’d just finished Jade Yeo and that it was “absolutely delightful and charming, and Jade was such a fun character with a distinctive voice. I would love to revisit that world if Zen Cho ever feels like writing a sequel!”

Things we read on the internet instead of doing anything useful

Comparisons as predictable as a the sunrise: a data analysis of similes in popular fiction.

GeoGuessr but with an extra dimension: time. It’s really difficult!

Critic and scholar Liz Bourke digs into why questions of Aragorn’s tax policy are really irrelevant to Middle-Earth, no matter what certain high-profile grimdark writers may think.

Australia is publishing books too quickly! (Well, it isn’t just Australia; has anyone read Yesteryear?) Industry experts worry low-quality books will put people off reading! If only we knew any publishers putting out high-quality books very slowly…

P.S.

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