Assaph Mehr 📚⚔️🕵️👻🏺🏛️🤖
LightNews LightNews
banner
assaph.bsky.social
Assaph Mehr 📚⚔️🕵️👻🏺🏛️🤖
@assaph.bsky.social
2.8K followers 2K following 600 posts
Author of Murder In Absentia, an historical-fantasy murder-mystery in a quasi-Roman Ancient World (see http://egretia.com); Mad genius behind http://TheProtagonistSpeaks.com
Posts Replies Media Videos
Pinned
assaph.bsky.social
Assaph Mehr 📚⚔️🕵️👻🏺🏛️🤖 @assaph.bsky.social · Dec 7
Since it's been a while & I met a lot of new peeps here, some introductions are in order!
Here you'll find Bookish stuff:
* I read & review novels 📚
* I write some too 😉
* It's all about fantasy, mystery, & history
* The occasional nature pics, history & archaeology tidbits, and rants against 🤖
🧵👇
assaph.bsky.social
Fun fact: when I need to (re)build writing habits (happens far too often as I get distracted 😅) I make myself write one sentence every day. For me, it's the act of doing something daily that opens up the gates to more writing and faster progress.
"I worked on my WIP today." "But you only added one sentence." (Picture of Mr Incredible working at his desk) "Progress is Progress."
January 11, 2026 at 10:54 PM
assaph.bsky.social
Too much buzz recently on something that's not worth the mental anguish: egretia.com/2026/01/07/a...
Amazon, DRM, Piracy, and a stress-free new year
Amazon just made purchased ebooks downloadable as ebook and PDF, and I’ve been hearing a lot of concerns. Here’s why you shouldn’t worry. The two key concepts you have to understa…
egretia.com
January 7, 2026 at 1:05 AM
Reposted by Assaph Mehr 📚⚔️🕵️👻🏺🏛️🤖
sarablake.bsky.social
I haven't been hanging around Bluesky much for a while, and my pinned post was wildly out of date!
The Nexus Season One: Unseen World is COMPLETE now!!
And the full season "binge box" is on preorder now!

storyoriginapp.com/universalboo...
mockup image of a boxset of books, the complete 9 book novella series The Nexus Season One: Unseen World by Sara Blake
January 2, 2026 at 1:44 PM
assaph.bsky.social
I got to write that story! Well, close enough 😉 Our next anthology will feature Felix dealing with cursed cheese... 🧀🤣
TYROMANCY is the practice of predicting the future with cheese (Ripley's Believe it or Not)
January 5, 2026 at 11:58 PM
assaph.bsky.social
Looking back on 2025
egretia.com/2025/12/31/2...
2025 in Review
As usual, here are my reflections on the year just gone. The short version is that I have made progress in writing (multiple shorts), though everything else… leaves a lot to be desired. Let&#…
egretia.com
December 31, 2025 at 1:52 AM
assaph.bsky.social
😂
what studying languages is like latin: words like 'yes' and 'no' aren't important. memorize these 3000 different ways to talk about killing people though because you will use them greek: hello naughty students it's participle time egyptian: ancient pictionary french: pronouncing every letter is for chumps german: let's combine every other word together to create the U L T I M A T E F R A N K E N W O R D mandarin: lol whats a verb tense spanish: LOL WHAT ISN'T A VERB TENSE english: welcome to hell
December 28, 2025 at 8:02 AM
assaph.bsky.social
Someone made a comment about my previous post on commas, which reminded me of this 🤣
German: we have strict language rules French: we have complex language rules Spanish: we have rules, but they're easy English: wait, you have rules for your language?
December 16, 2025 at 7:09 PM
assaph.bsky.social
A, B, and C can happen at the same time 😂
if you see a writer frowning intensely as they work, they are probably: a) having an internal struggle over where commas go b) in the midst of killing off a character c) realising they spent four hours of research to write 1 sentence d) not working, they are on twitter
December 16, 2025 at 4:12 AM
assaph.bsky.social
Laughing way too hard at this 🤣
kimoramay-deactivated20170907 I was told recently about a school that was shamed into changing its school motto. The motto was "I hear, I see, I learn." Nothing wrong with that per se. Unfortunately the motto was in Latin, and the Latin for "I hear, I see, I learn" is "audio, video, disco". wonderfulworldofmichaelford What the fuck that's the best school motto ever change it back copperbadge Your yearly reminder that "I learn through suffering" can be translated into Latin as "Disco Inferno."
December 14, 2025 at 10:51 AM
assaph.bsky.social
Always true 😜🤣
A picture of the cover of Murder In Absentia by Assaph Mehr, quoting the protagonist Felix saying "Calculating people's horoscopes is tedious, but at least cleaner than haruspicy."
December 14, 2025 at 3:48 AM
assaph.bsky.social
Short version: A silly read for when you’re in the mood for a thoughtless romp, entertainment without demands.
egretia.com/2025/12/10/b...
Book Review: Just One Damned Thing After Another, by Jodi Taylor
This came up in the comments following me post on historical fashions, and looked like a fun read at a time I didn’t want anything heavy. What to Expect Expect a crazy roller-coaster of crazy…
egretia.com
December 12, 2025 at 9:40 AM
assaph.bsky.social
Which is why my novels go deep on Fish Sauce 🤣
sandersstudies Every time an English-speaking fantasy writer wants to throw in an umlaut it's like I gotta stop you right there. JRR Tolkien can do that. You are not JRR Tolkien tho. sandersstudies Tolkien did many things for and to the fantasy genre but unfortunately too many people agave taken on his ideas of culture, lore, and language, but executed extremely lazily (compared to him) what-even-is-thiss I think when you're worldbuilding you need to focus on what you're interested in. Because Tolkien is one of the fathers of modern fantasy, people think they need to focus in on what he was interested in, which was linguistics and long lists of historical events. But if you're not into that, it's gonna show. When I'm worldbuilding I tend to focus on political structure and local mythology because that's something I'm interested in irl. If I tried to come up with a million conlangs like Tolkien did I'd be bored and stressed out of my mind and my writing would be worse. If you're interested in economics, focus in on that. If you're really into historical hairstyles, or sports, or transportation, or lost media, focus in on that. Make that interesting. It'll make your world better than throwing in nonsense words you don't care about. sandersstudies ^^^ exactly. Tolkien was extremely knowledgeable in linguistics, which was why he was able to produce languages that were feasibly real (and even claim that the text itself was a translation, which comes with its own quirks, especially in the appendices). But if you're not extremely knowledgeable about linguistics (or willing to become so very quickly) then any fantasy language you try to build is either going to add nothing to the story or be riddled with improbability.
December 11, 2025 at 6:44 AM
assaph.bsky.social
A year since release, and I still love it 🥰📚
[Five yellow stars at top] Mystery, intrigue, supernatural curses, and inevitable violence. The plot is excellent, and the story arc progresses smoothly from cliff-hangers to dead ends to yet more suspenseful scenes, all nicely paced. I found the escape through the sewers particularly enjoyable (for me, though clearly not for the characters involved!). The narrative involves mystery, intrigue, supernatural curses that actually work, interpersonal relationships, and (since this is modeled after Rome) the inevitable violence. I shall also mention both a compelling court scene and a clear sensitivity to the plight of women in this ancient setting. -- Lenny Cavallaro (Abslom) [Book cover shown on right side:] IN VICTRIX [Award seal: "With introduction by Harry Turtledove, grandmaster of alternate history"] A STORY OF TOGAS, DAGGERS, AND MAGIC By ASSAPH MEHR
December 9, 2025 at 1:52 AM
Reposted by Assaph Mehr 📚⚔️🕵️👻🏺🏛️🤖
fantasyfaction.bsky.social
Today @kitvaria.bsky.social reviews @assaph.bsky.social's Murder in Absentia - JI 🐉

"The combination of historical inspiration, original fantasy touches, and a wry but capable protagonist makes this a memorable read."

fantasy-faction.com/2025/murder-...

#booksky
The book cover sits in the center of the image. The cover shows a man with a long brown beard facing to the left. He is wear a gray robe and hood. Behind him is the outside of a Roman-style temple with rough columns with striations of reddish brown. On the top corner of the temple is a griffin with wings out stretched. The background of the image is a stone texture similar to the temple's columns.
December 7, 2025 at 12:07 AM
assaph.bsky.social
Utterly true - what a nice observation :)

#writerslife
December 5, 2025 at 6:13 AM
assaph.bsky.social
Authors appreciate fans too 😊
just_fuchsia Ok fun fact I'm kinda a character in a book. The ever so wonderful @assaphmehrauthor has written a series called Murder in Absentia. Im in the third book. I had no idea until I read it. It was a truly beautiful surprise. Go read them! [Image shows an Amazon product listing with "Shop Amazon holiday gifts" banner, a 4.5-star rating with 170 reviews, and the book cover for "MURDER IN ABSENTIA" by ASSAPH MEHR]
December 4, 2025 at 2:44 AM
assaph.bsky.social
Authors appreciate fans too 😊
December 4, 2025 at 2:43 AM
assaph.bsky.social
This is so true 😅
#writerslife #indieauthor
(Minute 1) I need to figure out how to describe this room (Hour 2) Jesus, I need to learn more about medieval cornices (Month 5) I need to learn Aramaic so I can visit southeastern Turkey and read primary source manuscripts from the 11th century on cornices (my spouse) THIS IS FOR A SHORT STORY
December 4, 2025 at 2:40 AM
assaph.bsky.social
We don't do it for money*, we do it for fun!

* Not real money, anyway.
November 28, 2025 at 8:02 PM
assaph.bsky.social
Tonight's protagonist interview :)
📚
theprotagonistspeaks.com/2025/11/28/a...
Athena (of The Orichalcum Crown, by J. J. N. Whitley)
Dear readers, tonight with us is a young princess, talking about exile, dragons, and lost family members. Tell us a little about where you grew up. What was it like there? I grew up in the palace. …
theprotagonistspeaks.com
November 28, 2025 at 5:14 AM
assaph.bsky.social
Short version: A fun read in this long-running urban-fantasy police-procedural series. Worth a read if you want an light adventure without much commitment. If you want to start in beginning (or have missed a few in between) check my previous reviews.
egretia.com/2025/11/26/b...
Book Review: Stone and Sky (Rivers of London #10), by Ben Aaronovitch
I’ve been following this series for a while (mainly the novels), and it’s pretty decent. What to Expect Another police-procedural case for Peter Grant, working for the “Special As…
egretia.com
November 26, 2025 at 7:33 AM
assaph.bsky.social
Ah, yes, the first short short mystery for Jack - the ultimate crossover of ghosts and puns 👻
November 24, 2025 at 9:56 PM
assaph.bsky.social
This resonates 😅
The Creative Process: a picture of a timeline with: work begins, fuck off, PANIC, All the work while crying, deadline.
November 24, 2025 at 1:33 AM
assaph.bsky.social
A fun and informative exercise, for both civic duty and writing 🧑‍⚖️📚
egretia.com/2025/11/12/j...
Jury Duty
As a devoted reader of my novels*, you know that as Felix or Jack get called to court on occasion, in their pursuit of dealing with offenders. I do love writing a bit of courtroom drama, Cicero lon…
egretia.com
November 13, 2025 at 8:08 PM
assaph.bsky.social
Real life jury duty and how it translates to writing fantasy police procedurals 😉
egretia.com/2025/11/12/j...
Jury Duty
As a devoted reader of my novels*, you know that as Felix or Jack get called to court on occasion, in their pursuit of dealing with offenders. I do love writing a bit of courtroom drama, Cicero lon…
egretia.com
November 13, 2025 at 3:28 AM