Take the “Waters of Versailles” cure!

CD705BB0-1279-4611-A3E6-503A5977A6B9Kelly’s Tor.com novella “Waters of Versailles” will be out next week, on June 10th. It will be available for free reading on the site, as always, but you can also advance-order your very own keeper copy in the Kindle store, via iTunes, from Barnes and Noble, Chapters Indigo or from OmniBooks.

Kelly was working on this story in the months before we decided to leave Vancouver, and on through the stretch when we were, literally, in transition. It was a intense and freaky time, as we scrambled to figure out how to get ourselves and the cats across the country. Even at the height of the chaos, there were mornings where we would get up, walk the mile or so to Kafka’s, on Main Street, and spend a couple hours there drinking espresso and working at their beautiful communal project tables. We were still getting settled, here in Toronto when she finished the novella. Despite a massively multilayered upheaval on our homefront and in our working lives, Kelly didn’t put a foot wrong with the writing.

Sure, I’m biased… but Ellen Datlow says it makes her cry every time she reads it.*

“Waters of Versailles” is historical fantasy, and Kelly sometimes describes it as a story about “sex, magic, and plumbing.” It is also about deciding who you are going to be–about trimming away the frills and focusing on what matters. It is funny, sexy, heartbreaking, and frightening by turns. The backdrop of the palace and courtier culture is rich, beautifully researched, and–just to make it extra rich and delicious–infused with magic.

In other news, it has a gorgeous cover, by artist Kathleen Jennings.

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*And all you people who want to sell to Ellen, I bet you want to know what makes her cry. My darling, that’s what.

New Story by Kelly – The Three Resurrections of Jessica Churchill

Clarkesworld, February 2014, containing "The Three Resurrections of Jessica Churchill" by Kelly Robson.

Clarkesworld, February 2014, containing “The Three Resurrections of Jessica Churchill” by Kelly Robson.

Clarkesworld Issue #101 is live, with stories by Nicola Griffith, Greg Van Eekhout, Gwendolyn Clare, Kristine Kathryn Rusch… and Kelly! Her story is called “The Three Resurrections of Jessica Churchill,” it’s an absolutely bloodcurdling SF piece, and I hope you’ll all go read it immediately. (And also post glowing comments on the CW site while simultaneously tweeting it far and wide, and buying up Worldcon supporting memberships so you can nominate it for Hugos and her for the Campbell.)

Yes, I’m wildly partisan. So what? I may be superproud, but it’s an effing great story. You won’t be sorry you read it.

If you’d like to know more about how this particular story came to be, check out Kelly’s blog post here. If you want to see what other treasures she has in store for you this year, at places like Tor.com and Asimov’s, the full list is here.

For those of you who live in Toronto who might like to hear Kelly read, and to bask in her deservedly infectious joy at her 2014-2015 writing achievements, she’ll be appearing at the ChiSeries Toronto reading on  Feb. 19th, 8pm at the ROUND Venue at 152A Augusta Avenue in the Kensington Market.