Excerpt from The Otherwhere Post by Emily J. Taylor, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Shucking off her boots, she sidled into the stained shop chair and opened her latest journal until the spine made a satisfying crack.

She drew a contented sigh through her nose.

Regardless of her complicated feelings toward scriptomancy, Maeve kept up with journaling. At first, she used it to record the black thoughts about her father that wouldn't let her sleep at night. But she eventually grew to need the calming feel of parchment against her palms. Now it was the only piece of her past that she wasn't willing to part with. Her life often felt like a violent ocean tossing her about, but writing gave her a foothold. A moment to catch her breath.

Mr. Braithwaite thought it strange she had so much to say with ink, considering she volunteered so little with her mouth, but on the page, her words always spilled out in a torrent of meticulous lettering.

Maeve dipped a quill into a thimbleful of lampblack ink, then filled pages with her hopes for her trip south, including a detailed description of her future perennial ­garden—­nestled against a sloped yard, like her aunt's garden in Inverly, with each flower carefully chosen to attract bees and butterflies. The outside world faded as if she were in the clutches of a spell, her presence trapped between quill and parchment.

Her eyes snapped up at a rumble of thunder. The sky had darkened to pitch. Time to go. Maeve locked the shop, then started the long walk back to her flat.

Clouds smothered the moon. The dim gas lamps lining Alewick's main avenue barely illuminated the streets. She flipped up her collar to shield her neck from the wind off the ocean.

"You there!" someone shouted.

Maeve spun to face a hulking silhouette carved by lamplight. A man with a saddlebag slung across his heart. His grizzled beard twisted in the wind, and his black cloak billowed around him, a storm made corporeal.

There was nowhere to ­run—­they were alone together on the street.

The man strode toward her, and Maeve backed away until her heel caught on a cobble. She braced herself, expecting him to pull a knife.

He held up an envelope instead.

Maeve blinked in surprise. "You're an otherwhere courier."

"I am," he said in a voice ­half-­swallowed by the wind. "This is for you. It's one of the letters from after the doors burned. Seven years late, but hopefully it will still mean something."

The envelope was old and tattered and entirely blank.

But it couldn't be for her. "Are you positive you have the right person?"

He grumbled and forced the letter into her hand. She tried to give it back, but he shook his head. "Like I said, it's for you."

Maeve nodded in disbelief. Everyone knew otherwhere couriers never delivered a letter to the wrong person. It simply was not done. Regardless of the facts, it seemed impossible that the letter was for her; she'd thought everyone who knew her had been lost in Inverly. This envelope, however, meant that she might be wrong.

She paused at the thought. All the letters posted after the Written Doors burned were from lost family members trying to find one another.

Tears sprang to her eyes, and a confusing tide of emotions moved through her: surprise, pain, then a sharp longing that caught her off guard. It slipped beneath her breastbone, pressing like a blade against her heart.

A black wax seal sat on the envelope's fold, embossed with a ­bead-­eyed pigeon holding a scribing quill in its sharpened talons: the emblem of the Otherwhere Post.

"Goodnight, miss," the courier called, then slid into the night.

Not wanting to waste another second, Maeve severed the seal, cracking the pigeon at the neck. She scrambled to unfold the letter.

Excerpted from The Otherwhere Post by Emily J. Taylor. Copyright © 2025 by Emily J. Taylor. Excerpted by permission of G.P. Putnam's Sons. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.