My Surprisingly Pleasant Trip to the Torture Chamber

An update on my latest research trip, for Paid Subscribers only

Hello, Beautiful Paid Subscribers! I am so grateful for your support of Continuous Small Treats and my ongoing writing projects, so I wanted to share some photos I took on my trip in April 2026 to the UK and Spain.

My next book, THE HAMMER & THE ROSE, is under contract from Dutton and will be published in 2027 or 2028 (assuming I finish writing it this year! Wait, no, I will. I have to!) This new book takes place almost entirely in England, thus the research trips. It’s a historical novel based on the true story of Queen Elizabeth I and her personal physician, who was a woman known as the Doctress. In the 1580s the Royal College of Physicians accused the Doctress of witchcraft and, despite the protestations of THE QUEEN OF fu*king ENGLAND (!?!!!) she was convicted! My novel is about what happened after that.

As I told my publisher, THE HAMMER & THE ROSE is about the history of medieval witch trials and how they eventually led to the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

Here’s some images from the trip: