COVER REVEAL!

Surprise! I have a new cover to share with all of you!

Surprise!! It’s cover reveal day!!!

I realize this is coming out of nowhere—especially since I’ve been so quiet this year. But the reason for the quiet was twofold.

1. I was under orders not to share anything until we had something definitive to share. (WHICH NOW WE DO.)

2. I’ve been hard at work. (More on that below.)

Onward first to the cover reveal!

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Murder Quartet Release Swap-a-roo

Many of you likely noticed that the Two for Joy release date of May 5, 2026 came…and then went zooming right by without an actual book release.

Long story short, we needed more time to get the covers set. And I’m so, so grateful to my team at HarperCollins for putting in that extra work, time, and cost to really bring the books in my upcoming series to life.

It’s never fun to delay a book, but the cover is absolutely, hands-down the most important element of a book’s marketing and promo. Humans absolutely judge books by covers!¹

Fortunately, since the Murder Quartet’s books (now called the Lakeside Murders) can be read in any order, we simply shifted the releases around so the wait isn’t too long for book 1…

So now Two For Joy will now be book 2, coming out next next July (2027).

And on January 19, 2027, Four & Twenty Blackbirds will hit stores!

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4&20 Details and (gasp!) Cover!!

Here are US pre-order links for 4&20. Just a reminder that all Murder Quartet books release as paperbacks and hardcovers on the same day! And hardcovers are a limited print run, so once sold out…that’s it. No more printed. Only paperbacks after that.

And just to entice you to pre-order, here’s the full synopsis:

Twin Peaks meets Riverdale in this thrilling, blustery, and romantic series starter from New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Susan Dennard.

Sing a song of sixpence, a pocketful of rye...

Wren Peters is a dancer, a math nerd, and a loyal member of her three-person dance squad, the Inseparables. She’s home on Blackbird Island for winter break, helping prep for the annual New Years’ Festival and trying very hard not to think about Archer Sullivan. The Sullivans and the Peters have been feuding families for generations, and Archer—with his annoyingly blue eyes and boring-nice-guy routine—is off-limits. Period.

But when Wren has a vivid, visceral nightmare about a man being chased onto a frozen lake, and then he turns up dead, she can’t help but be freaked out. Especially since her older sister and Archer’s older brother were the last ones to see the dead man alive—and now they have both vanished without a trace.

Four and twenty blackbirds, baked in a pie.

Forced into a secret alliance, Wren and Archer dig into the island’s buried history of old money and even older secrets. To complicate things, Wren’s dreams are getting worse. Strange visions keep bleeding into her waking life. And oh yeah, that crackling connection between her and Archer? That’s getting worse, too.

If Wren doesn’t start listening to what her dreams are trying to tell her, the killer is going to strike again. And this time, Wren will be the number one target.

And now—AT LAST— the US cover (don’t worry: the UK cover is coming soon!! 😘).

I love how all the little items are plucked right out of the story. I love how it’s got both a cozy, winter vibe…

And a pretty strong murder vibe.

The Two For Joy cover—which is also almost complete as well—is a similar design, but with summer vibes and items from Magpie’s story instead. It’s just such a perfect setup for conveying the seasons and…

MURDER!

I’ll share some sneak peeks for 4&20 soon!!!

AND PLEASE PREORDER, FRIENDS!!! Here’s the link again.² 😘

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Now About All That Writing I’ve Been Doing…

As mentioned above, I’ve been doing a lot of writing this year.

Like, a lot.

1. Sector Twenty-Six

First, I finished a book that I’m hoping you all will get to read sooner rather than later. It’s called Salt of My Enemy and is book 1 in the Sector 26 duology—an adult, WWII vibes dark fantasy/dystopian with monsters, a quarantine, and a heroine who is by far my most aggressive and abrasive yet. 😅

I’m working on the sequel already, with the hope of getting both books to you all as soon as possible.³

2. A Strange & Deadly Reboot

Then, in a huge surprise that I wrote about here, I wrote a completely new version of my debut novel Something Strange & Deadly. It’s literally not even the same book—so it’s not a rewrite or an edit.

It’s more like I took the same premise—Eleanor Fitt, is a high society lady on hard times in 1876 Philadelphia, who must turn to a ragtag group known as the Spirit-Hunters when her brother is taken by necromancer—and I just…

Well, I wrote it the way I write all books now. The true modern Sooz experience, since I’m now have 17 years of experience under my belt. I don’t write the same way as I did in 2009, as in my process of crafting a story is totally different…

And I also don’t write the same way in terms of my style, voice, prose, and scene construction.

You know a Sooz book when you see one, and this new book—which I’m calling simply Strange & Deadly—is absolutely a Sooz book. One I wasn’t planning to write, but that has proven to be an absolute joy.

I’m literally in the climax right now, and I only paused so I could pull together this newsletter…

So here’s to finishing before May is over! And here’s to (hopefully) handing that book off to readers soon too!⁴

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And that, my dearest readers, is what I’ve been up to and what you can expect from me in the coming year.

Again, please, please, please preorder Four & Twenty Blackbirds. I realize it’s still 7 months away from release, but having preorders truly makes or breaks a book behind the scenes. (There’s a reason we authors are always begging.)

Finally stay tuned for a UK reveal soon, for some 4&20 sneak peeks, and a Two For Joy cover as well…

Now as always: thank you for supporting me! YOU ARE THE ACTUAL BEST.

💚 - Sooz

1. Yes, I absolutely do—and you know you do too, particularly if it’s not by someone you’ve heard of before.

2. There will be signed copies available from Schuler Books, but they’re in the middle of updating their website—so no online orders at the moment. But once their new site is up, I’ll link!

3. Yes, this means exactly what it says. Offering the book directly to all of you.

4. You might be noticing a theme. I’ve lately become fixated on the idea of just GIVING you all my books. My agent (bless her) keeps reminding me I must eat. (Must I?) So I’m trying to figure out a balance of between “giving my wonderful readers everything because it makes me happy” and “making sure I can pay my mortgage too.” More to come on this!