THE DAY IS HERE! Book two in the Eternal Library Series, The Tale That Twines, is finally available to the public in both paperback and ebook! Yaaaaay!
Paperback version of The Tale That Twines, book two.
The matching cover version of The Thread That Binds, book one, is also now available! I also still have a lot of copies of the limited Tabby-cover book for less if you’re on a budget.
Paperback copy of The Thread That Binds, book one.
If you missed the Kickstarter or pre-order period, you can now get The Tale That Twines directly from Numinous Spirit Press or various other places. Book one, The Thread That Binds, and the Threadbound Oracle, which ties in to the same universe, are also available in the same places as always (links are all in the buttons below).
(P.S. if you DID back the Kickstarter and never got a tracking email or are having any issues with your rewards, PLEASE CHECK THE MOST RECENT UPDATE BLOGS HERE and then follow the instructions based on your situation!)
If you’re not super familiar with the Eternal Library, it’s a cozy adult fantasy series about an intergenerational found family of queer magic bookbinders! Both books released so far center around the main characters’ journeys through an apprenticeship in Illumination—an ancient art of hand-crafted magical books that never die with age. If you are an artist, craftsperson, or someone who enjoys the arts, you’ll probably love the detailed and loving focus on the process of hand bookbinding, drawing, lettering, printing, papermaking, natural pigments, thread spinning, paintmaking, and more.
The thing about Illumination is that it isn’t just a physical craft. It requires spiritual growth and healing from the Illuminator if they want to succeed. In The Thread That Binds, Tabby and Amane deal with past family trauma and perfectionism through dreamwalking and cartomancy, while in The Tale That Twines, June struggles to recover from past traumatic memory loss through etheric cord reading. Every apprentice, despite being adults themselves (in their mid 20s to early 30s), has an older, wiser mentor figure (usually age 60+) there to guide them through the process, an aspect which is always a strong focus of the book.
The Eternal Library Series takes place in a secondary fantasy world similar to ours, but with IRL witchcraft-like magic that’s been turned up a few notches. They have magic technology (cell phones! computers! multispectral imaging!!) that may feel comfortingly familiar while still offering an escape from real life. Book one takes place in the equivalent of 2018 while Book two, a prequel, goes back to the equivalent of 1978 and all that entails for tech. Culture and history in the books tend to break away from that of real life into its own thing (this is not an alt-Earth!!), but still takes a little bit of inspiration.
Caspora, the Pacific Northwest-like country the books take place in, is a queernorm society without a cultural concept of gender, though gender does exist elsewhere in the globe! Rather than be one strict version of “androgynous,” Casporans are simply free to dress, look, act, and express themselves as they see fit without an assigned gender role. So you’ll see plenty of things we’d consider “gendered,” like characters wearing dresses or make-up, characters who have facial hair or breasts or other “obvious” secondary sexual characteristics, without that indicating anything other than their personal aesthetic preference or natural body type. Most of the characters in the Eternal Library series use e/em/eir(s) pronouns and, though they wouldn’t use the word for themselves, are effectively what we’d call agender and nonbinary.
(Obviously this situation is not every person’s dream, not even every nonbinary person’s! It’s just my personal fantasy that I hope other people enjoy. There are still characters with binary and trans identities in the book!)
Caspora also recognizes asexual and aromantic spectrum identities, and indeed, many of the main characters fall under those labels! Book one has aroace narrator Rhiannon and gray-ace narrator Tabby, who are in a long term queerplatonic relationship at the start of the story, as well as several secondary characters (AKA the mentors who are the MCs in the prequel haha). Book two has single narrator June, who is demisexual and demiromantic, as well as gray-romantic love interest Aeronwy and aromantic best friend Siobhan. Both books feature polyamorous relationships, another thing that’s normal in Caspora.
Caspora, not having gender, doesn’t really have words for gender-based sexual orientations, but other places in the world do, hence characters like Amane identifying as pansexual. Basically, everyone is queer in some way or another.
The first book, The Thread That Binds, doesn’t outright state that any of the characters are neurodivergent, but they definitely are. I didn’t discover that I myself am autistic and ADHD (combined acroynm = auDHD) until after publishing book one, so those experiences and traits were sprinkled in among the characters without recognizing what I was doing! I made up for this in book two by outright confirming that June (the sole narrator) is auDHD, while love interest Aeronwy is autistic. Both of them are also mentor figures in book one, and I’m going to confirm on the page later in the series that Rhiannon is also on the autism spectrum. Just throwing that out there now, haha. Tabby also clearly has cPTSD even if it isn’t mentioned by name, which also falls under the broad neurodivergent umbrella by many people’s reckoning.
There are multiple characters with physical disabilities, chronic illness, d/Deaf characters, and generally an air of inclusiveness by society for those things! Why make it a queer fantasy utopia and leave in all the ableism???
Before you read all this thinking it’s nothing but warm fuzzies, I will go back to the fact that the main plots of both books center around trauma healing. There is a list of trigger warnings in the front of both books and on the pages of my website if you want to check them out (links are at the bottom of this blog).
That said, I have been told that even those difficult parts of the book can be like a warm hug, because it’s clear that it’s going to be all right in the end, because people feel seen, and because there’s a strong element of encouragement and acknowledgement and care. I do my best not to cover up the dark reality of these things, which are based on my own experiences, while also maintaining a ray of hope. I’ve had therapists say they recommend my books to clients and others say they were partly inspired to write/research about the power of stories and art in healing! The best compliments EVER!
Then, of course, there is the Threadbound Oracle. I devised the Threadbound Oracle’s structure/system for the Eternal Library Series, though back then it was going to be a huge graphic novel series instead of in written prose. I wanted one of the main characters to be a Tarot reader, but since it’s a secondary fantasy world, I didn’t just want to throw Tarot in there with no explanation. I based the Threadbound Oracle somewhat off of traditional Tarot and also off of the characters and story themselves (though some of that changed over time as I completed the deck ages before I completed the first novel, lol) so that it could both exist in-universe and in real life.
The Threadbound Oracle in real life.
In The Thread That Binds, the Threadbound Oracle is a magic bookbinding/Illumination-themed deck that Amane specializes in and uses throughout her journey as a main character in that book. In real life, the real Threadbound Oracle illustrations feature the characters and places of the books! Very meta, I know. You definitely don’t have to read the books to use the Oracle, but it will help deepen your understanding of it.
These books, characters, and cards all come from deep in my heart, and it’s such a privilege to be able to share them with you all! I’m so pleased by the reaction and reception that the deck and book one have gotten since they were released in fall 2020, and now here in fall 2023, I hope you enjoy the next installment in the story. Your words of encouragement keep me going when times are rough in the creative process, or when I’m deep in self doubt.
This month I’ll be starting work on book three, The Flame That Sings, the second prequel which will be narrated by young Aeronwy. Aeronwy is my favorite character (and many other people’s from what I gather, hehe), so I’m SUPER STOKED for this one! It’s going to be EVEN LONGER than the first two books! Oops!! It’ll be at least two years before publication, but I’m planning to share updates along the way with y’all one way or another.
My current favorite drawing of young Aeronwy (left) and June (right).
If you read this far, thank you SO MUCH, and I hope that if you’re not already invested in the Eternal Library, that this has gotten you more interested! You can also read the back-of-the-book blurbs, the entirety of Chapter One from both books, and find links to where to get them here:
If you’ve already got the books and/or decks and want to support them more, TELL YOUR FRIENDS ABOUT THEM! Tell your followers on social media! Post reviews! Word of mouth is still the absolute best advertising even in today’s algorithmic hellscape.
Much love and peace to you all!
<3 Cedar