The Whispering Night is here!

And an extra scene between #UghJay and Winnie 🌙

It’s here, it’s here! The Whispering Night is now in stores!

While it’s always exciting to have a book come out and finally know readers are consuming it…it also has quite a bittersweet taste when it’s the last in a series.¹

Still, I am really, truly excited for all you to finally see how this epic tale in Hemlock Falls wraps up.

We’ve got nightmares, we’ve got Dianas, we’ve got curses and mysteries and a weeklong festival just waiting for Bad Things To Happen.

So buckle up (no really, there’s a sequence during which you’re really going to want that seatbelt) and dive in!

There’s also another readalong happening, if you’d like to join.

Either way, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING! Thank you for supporting me—and for five years now, all the way back to when we first kicked off Winnie’s journey in 2019 with the first #ChooseWithSooz.

This series wouldn’t be here if not for all of you, so thank you. Truly, truly, thank you.

And of course, it’s not too late to buy the book still! Or get a signed copy from Schuler’s!

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Also, don’t forget my events this week!! My first is tomorrow night, and then I’m off to Miami for a panel + signing on Saturday!

November 20: Schuler Books in Grand Rapids, Michigan — event starts at 6:30 PM

November 23: Miami Book Fair — Panel at 4PM with signing to follow!

Now, onto that cut scene!!

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A snippet of the Winnie & Jay art in the Illumicrate edition of The Luminaries, by Ashley Mackenzie.

Of Capillaries & Kisses

Winnie has no idea how long she and Jay have been kissing on the Friday training grounds, only that they are interrupted by a loud hoot and clapping hands.

They lurch apart. Winnie is, for once, the person blushing all the way to her scalp while Jay is somehow completely unfazed. In fact, it’s as if being Lead Hunter has given Jay special skin capillaries that no longer expand in response to emotional distress—or at least capillaries that don’t expand where his hunters can see him.

“Regina,” he calls with a wave. “You’re at the third station. Franco, you’re number one. Millie, you’re at five.” He points at each bow, still looking utterly unashamed—even when Regina only continues her clapping and Franco joins in too.

More hunters are approaching now, though they are all just blurry masses with vague spikes coming off their bodies that might be limbs or might be tentacles. Winnie fumbles her glasses from her pocket.

Then wishes she hadn’t put them on as Regina, Franco, Millie, and eleven other hunters sharpen into laughing bodies now holding compound bows.

Jay glances at Winnie. “I’ll walk you to your bike?”

“I’d prefer that the ground swallow me whole, thank you.”

“Yeah, that’s beyond my purview.” He offers a wry smile, and Winnie finds herself scrutinizing his cheeks. Even the flush from their make out session has vanished. He looks cool as a cucumber in Colorado.

Winnie is suspicious of this because it goes against all anatomical requirements for human physiology. Then again, Jay is a nightmare. Maybe this has impacted his body’s mechanisms for thermal regulation. “How do you do that?” she demands as they cross the shooting range, aiming for the assembled hunters. More are arriving by the second, all captivated by Regina’s acted-out performance of how she found Jay and Winnie only moments before—complete with smoochy noises.

Yet somehow, despite his second cousin now hollering, “Get ’em, tiger,” Jay still isn’t blushing.

“How do you do that?” Winnie repeats once they’re past the hunters and almost to the door into the Friday estate. “Your face should be red right now—like mine—but somehow you’re pale as…well, pale.”

Jay crooks an eyebrow, his expression saying, I’m not sure I follow you, Win.

“We were just caught in a”—Winnie lowers her voice to a hiss—“compromising position, but you don’t look embarrassed by that fact at all.” Just uttering these words is making Winnie flush all over again, from her chest up to her hairline. She even has to shake herself a little, as Jay swings open the door that will take them into the estate’s basement.

“I have nothing to be embarrassed by,” Jay replies. “People kiss sometimes, Winnie. Including us.”

Rather than make Winnie feel less embarrassed, the including us part only makes her burn that much hotter. Like, it’s one thing to engage in physical intimacy… but quite another to talk about it. Because really, who talks about those sorts of things?

As if following her train of thought, Jay grinds to a halt. They are now standing beside the empty pool, and for the first time since they actually began their kissing, he frowns. First at the pool, then at Winnie. “Wait, you did want to kiss me, right? I didn’t force you into it or anything?”

Okay, so he was not following Winnie’s train of thought at all. “Of course, I wanted to!” she half-shrieks. “I told you I wanted to. I want to kiss you all the time. I want to kiss you right now!”

Jay’s frown deepens. Then dissipates like the forest mist at dawn. “Anyone in here?” he shouts. The question repeats at least six times as it ricochets out of the empty pool, against a series of closed lockers, and finally into the empty changing areas.

Then fast as the nightmare he is, Jay closes the space between he and Winnie and kisses her again. This time, her glasses are still on, but that’s okay because it is just so lovely to be kissed by Jay Friday.

And ah, there go all of Winnie’s capillaries at once. And her neurotransmitters too. And possibly the quantum particles of her soul as well. Expanding and swelling, as nature intended when confronted with physical attraction—

“Wait.” Winnie rips away from Jay. “You still haven’t told me why your face wasn’t red when we got caught. There should have at least been some residual flushing from the…well, kissing part.” There she goes again, lowering her voice like a Victorian maiden without a chaperone.

She really needs to work on that.

Meanwhile, Jay is still somehow not red in the face. Although he does look confused.

“How is this possible?” Winnie rolls onto her toes to study his cheeks up close. Then she places the backs of her hands against his neck. He feels hot, so why isn’t he showing signs of increased temperature? “Is it because you’re not…well, you know.”

“Human?” he fills in, seemingly unconcerned that someone might show up at any moment and overhear him.

“Yes.” Winnie pats her hands up and down his neck. He is definitely warm, and his lips have swelled slightly from increased blood flow. “I’ve seen you blush just because I looked at you wrong, so I don’t understand why you aren’t blushing now.”

“Because you’re looking at me right?”

She glares.

And he laughs, shaking his head. His hands come up to grip her wrists before she can pat him anymore. “Winnie, this is about as silly as your ongoing question about my make out spots. Can we just kiss and enjoy the empty locker room?”

“No,” she replies, and she means it. “This is now an avenue of open scientific inquiry, which means I’m going to need a tissue sample, a blood sample, a temperature reading, and—oh my god, what are you doing?” Before her eyes, Jay is unzipping his black hoodie to reveal a white t-shirt beneath.

He pulls off the hoodie. Then he grabs for the shirt.

“OH MY GOD,” Winnie screeches, clapping her hands to her eyes. Which actually just compresses her glasses against her face. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”

“If you need to inspect me, then inspect me.” Jay’s voice is shaking with laughter.

“Not like that!”

“Why, Winnie? Does it bother you to see me without a shirt?”

“How would you feel if I was walking around without a shirt?”

“Do you honestly want me to answer that question?”

“Ugh, Jay.” She snaps down her hands. There are smears on her lenses now.

And Jay is doubling over with laughter, his white t-shirt still on. “You,” he says between chuckles, “have got to stop saying ugh, Jay.”

“You’ve got to stop deserving it!” She wags a finger in his face. “You also need to get back to your hunters, Mr. I-Am-Supposedly-In-Charge. I will walk myself to my bicycle, thank you very much, and resume my scientific inquiry at a later time.” Winnie tries to twist away, but Jay catches her arm and whirls her right back to him.

His eyes are very gray.

“And when is this later time, Winnie Wednesday?”

“Tonight. Obviously.”

“With shirts or without?”

“Ugh—”

“Don’t say it.” He grins. “You’ll regret it as soon as it’s out of your mouth.”

“—Jay,” she finishes. Then, she smiles right back at him. “And I’ve got no regrets at all. One more kiss for the road?”

He doesn’t answer because he doesn’t need to. His lips meet hers, and all thoughts of science and capillaries leave Winnie’s brain.

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Thank you again for being here, friends. Don’t forget the readalong, and I’ll be back again soon!

💚 - Sooz

1. Although, as mentioned, I always leave myself little trapdoors for future spinoffs. JUST IN CASE. 😌 So…ya know. If you want more Luminaries, be sure to buy the book and get all your friends hooked too!