Melissa Caruso
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melissacaruso.bsky.social
Melissa Caruso
@melissacaruso.bsky.social
4.1K followers 320 following 2.7K posts
Fantasy author (THE TETHERED MAGE, THE OBSIDIAN TOWER, THE LAST HOUR BETWEEN WORLDS, etc). Tea drinker, larper, mom. Swordfights in ballgowns. THE LAST SOUL AMONG WOLVES out now!
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melissacaruso.bsky.social
Aurora tonight in Massachusetts!
In the sky above suburban nighttime backyards, a cloud of glowing pink aurora is crossed by a band of green
November 12, 2025 at 2:06 AM
melissacaruso.bsky.social
I'd just showered so ignore my hair situation 😆
Me taking a smiling selfie in front of a lovely autumn pond withred & gold fall foliage and a cloudy sky mirrored in its waters
October 28, 2025 at 10:20 PM
melissacaruso.bsky.social
Lupa was more interested in sniffing around after geese than in the view of course
A terrier looks over her shoulder on the bank of a pond that reflects a cloud-studded late afternoon sky, with rust and gold fall foliage in the background
October 28, 2025 at 10:18 PM
melissacaruso.bsky.social
From my dog walk yesterday
A bright yellow tree before a mirror pond reflecting a late afternoon sky, with late fall reds, browns, and yellows on the trees on the far side of the pond in the background
October 28, 2025 at 10:17 PM
melissacaruso.bsky.social
I got my hands on the Illumicrate alternate covers for TLHBW and TLSAW and aaaaaaahhhh, just LOOK at them!!!!!!!!! The art by @lilittwang.bsky.social is so gorgeous and dreamy, and they have rainbow foil!!!!! 😍
October 27, 2025 at 3:01 PM
melissacaruso.bsky.social
Had a lovely woods walk with Lupa today
A white dog on a leaf-littered path through golden autumn woods
October 20, 2025 at 10:29 PM
melissacaruso.bsky.social
This weekend I met Dutch. Dutch really needed skritches. SO MANY skritches. This is the look he gave me when I briefly paused the skritches to take a picture of his lovely face. (Don't worry, skritches immediately resumed afterward.)
A white/grey horse in a stall cranes his neck at a comical angle, pressing his pink nose to the bars, eyes wide, begging for more skritcehs
October 20, 2025 at 4:21 PM
melissacaruso.bsky.social
Lupa wanted my daughter’s spot on the couch but didn’t get it so now she’s sulking
A ridiculous lump of a terrier, all tucked in weird a red blanket with her head on a fancy pillow, trying to look deprived and failing
October 12, 2025 at 4:52 PM
melissacaruso.bsky.social
I kind of like this picture I took of Lupa on our dog walk the other day because it looks like she's about to spring into action
In the background, a pond reflects a cloudy sky. Trees surrounding the pond are just starting to change to autumn colors. In the foreground, a terrier stands looking poised to spring into action on a sort of stumpy hummock.
October 11, 2025 at 2:38 AM
melissacaruso.bsky.social
Aaaaahhhhhhhh my UK paperback copies arrived abcs they are SHINY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!🤩
October 10, 2025 at 4:44 PM
melissacaruso.bsky.social
Recently finished and really enjoyed CITY OF OTHERS by Jared Poon! A wondrous but grounded fantasy Singapore, fantastic characters, m/m romance, adventure, overworked civil servants, flawed magical coping mechanisms, saving the world while dealing with office dynamics, a ghost cat, and more!!!
My hand holding a proof of City of Others by Jared Poon
October 8, 2025 at 4:58 PM
melissacaruso.bsky.social
My copy of NORTH IS THE NIGHT arrived and it’s an absolutely GORGEOUS special edition with illustrated end papers that is worthy of the incredible mythic snowy underworld quest vibes of this epic and beautifully written sapphic fantasy! 😍
October 6, 2025 at 5:23 PM
melissacaruso.bsky.social
Lupa needed to be tucked in four consecutive times when she was settling on the couch to watch my husband play video games last night
A very silly terrier mix with a black eyepatch is tucked in on the couch with a blankie
September 23, 2025 at 7:07 PM
melissacaruso.bsky.social
There's also a GORGEOUS Waterstones special edition with foil and sprayed edges aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!! 😍 (ships from UK)
www.waterstones.com/book/the-las...
Same book but SHINY GOLD FOIL!
September 23, 2025 at 2:44 PM
melissacaruso.bsky.social
Of course, you can get it in paperback in the US, and regular hardcover in the UK (UK paperback to come)! I absolutely adore this incredible cover by the amazing Lisa Marie Pompilio!!!
Hand holding the US paperback of THE LAST SOUL AMONG WOLVES. The cover features a couple of lanterns, one with a silhouette of a badass woman with a sword in it, and a wolf with a lantern its mouth Hand holding the UK hardcover! Same cover design
September 23, 2025 at 2:42 PM
melissacaruso.bsky.social
So I was busy going to WorldCon and moving my kids into college right around release and I have not yet yelled properly about how excited I am about the many wonderful ways you can read THE LAST SOUL AMONG WOLVES!!!! I am LOSING MY MIND over some of these!!! Here's a thread!
Four editions of THE LAST SOUL AMONG WOLVES on a table: 3 hardcover, one paperback. Most are kind of a dark teal/green and gold, but one is purple. Two have sprayed edges and foil!
September 23, 2025 at 2:38 PM
melissacaruso.bsky.social
This is a great time to escape into a book and ALSO an absolutely critical time to support the kind of books you want to keep seeing in the world by showing publishers they can still sell!

Here are some of my favorite escape reads pubbed within the past year or so—what are yours? (More in thread!)
Cover of The Gentleman and His Vowsmith by Rebecca Ide Cover of The Maid and the Crocodile by Jordan Ifueko Cover of The Two Lies of Faven Sythe by Megan E O'Keefe
September 22, 2025 at 4:06 PM
melissacaruso.bsky.social
This is one of the many ways Lupa lets me know when it's time to get off my computer and play with the dog

If the chin rest + eyebeams method is somehow ineffective, she'll escalate to subtle threats like slowly nudging a laptop toward the edge of a table while maintaining eye contact
A white terrier with a black eyepatch, her snoot in glorious closeup, rests her chin on the arm of your POV recliner and deploys powerful eye beams
September 21, 2025 at 2:35 PM
melissacaruso.bsky.social
Lupa thinks you should try to take her squeaky tennis ball. Come on, just try
A white terrier mix with a blakc eyepatch squeaks a squeaky tennis ball while giving the camera a kind of hopeful mischievous sideye
September 19, 2025 at 2:06 PM
melissacaruso.bsky.social
Swords & Fire readers! I've made the prologue & epilogue stories/vignettes on my Patreon (www.patreon.com/MelissaCaruso) available individually. They answer some questons about what happens after the end of The Unbound Empire. Here's a thread on what they are and how best to get them!
Graphic showing the covers of the 3 books in the Swords & Fire trilogy (The Tethered Mage, the Defiant Heir, & The Unbound Empire) over a flaming bird
September 18, 2025 at 5:08 PM
melissacaruso.bsky.social
There are a couple of great sales of my books going on this month in the UK!

Audible has THE LAST HOUR BETWEEN WORLDS (with incredible narration by Moira Quirk!) at £3.99! www.audible.co.uk/pd/The-Last-...

And the Kindle edition of THE OBSIDIAN TOWER is 99p! www.amazon.co.uk/Obsidian-Tow...
Audio cover for THE LAST HOUR BETWEEN WORLDS Cover of THE OBSIDIAN TOWER
September 17, 2025 at 3:06 PM
melissacaruso.bsky.social
August was wildly busy so I'm playing catchup on sharing THE LAST SOUL AMONG WOLVES news!

Here are a couple of trade reviews (mini-thread):

Booklist called it "Knives out with a magical twist"! www.booklistonline.com/products/980...
Cover of The Last Soul Among Wolves
September 17, 2025 at 2:38 PM
melissacaruso.bsky.social
May you enjoy something in your day as much as Lupa enjoyed this stick
A white terrier plays tug with a big stick. She looks very pleased with herself and there is a little gleam of mischief in her eye.
September 12, 2025 at 2:56 PM
melissacaruso.bsky.social
Sometimes you need a picture of a dog rollying joyfully in a grassy field in the late afternoon sun
The post mostly says it all, but I genuinely am not sure what her legs are doing in this picture. They are everywhere, up in the air, flailing in a tangle of ecstasy
September 11, 2025 at 6:23 PM
melissacaruso.bsky.social
I struggled with this for many drafts before getting inspired to solve both problems by opening with a woo woo voicey hey look at my cool worldbuilding (brief) opening before getting into the boring party part, which in turn let me get to the murder faster.
It's easy to fall into the wrong world. It happens most often to children. Their grip on reality is loose to begin with, and when their imaginations wander, sometimes body and soul will follow. I've seen it happen. One minute the kid is there, playing in the dirt and whispering to themselves, and the next they've slipped down into an Echo. You have a tiny window, maybe five sec-onds, where they go a little transparent around the edges; if you spot it in time and you're fast, you can catch them. Otherwise someone like me has to go in after them, and that's dangerous work. Adults can fall between worlds, too, though it's rarer. If you stumble into a spot where the Veil is frayed or torn, you may suddenly find that all the familiar things around you have gone strange and wonderful. Since Echoes are confusing, you might not be sure when it happened or how to get back. Echo retrievals were always my favorite part of the job. In my years as a Hound, I'd rescued dozens of lost kids and a good handful of adults. I was the only active guild member with a perfect success record. When I brought them back home through the Veil between worlds, they all got this same dazed look at first—as if wandering through bizarre reflections of reality had changed them, and
September 10, 2025 at 4:15 PM