A Matter of Oracles Is Out!
Technically, it came out yesterday. 😇
Here’s the blurb:
After graduating, Tilōno is excited to begin her career as a librarian, hoping to focus on life sciences research support — her passion. But when she receives news of her appointment, she finds herself summoned to the Hall of Oracles, a secure collection that holds many centuries of texts collected from oracular sites around the world. Just as she is starting to settle in, a reference question leads her into the stacks to find precious books sabotaged and pages missing. To solve the mystery and safeguard the Hall’s critical collections, Tilōno must join forces with Tilsa, the Hall’s inexperienced new director. Together, they must navigate their differences to unravel the truth of what happened.
A MATTER OF ORACLES is a hieropoeic speculative novella that explores the transition to adulthood, the power of libraries, and the importance of mentorship. Readers who enjoy conlangs, non-Earth settings, and ancient deities may enjoy this story.
Here is a link to the Google Books page, which seems to be showing a lot of info about locating print copies. You should be able to find the ebook from most major platforms.
The perils of releasing a book while also having a full-time job is that yesterday, I had a last-minute-scheduled teaching session in a class. It primarily focused on teaching seniors how to use Zotero with Overleaf for their linguistics projects, so it did not require a lot of prep on my part, but it was still a lot on top of all of the other things at work, including attending a two-hour Belonging workshop.
The library context I work in is very different, in other words, from where Tilōno works. I experience a hint of her world whenever I’m in a special collections context, as the security protocols surrounding the collection are about the same as what they are in Tilōno’s work assignment at the Hall of Oracles. I sent out an announcement in one place before heading to the office and proceeded to run around for much of the day.
If you enjoy the book, I encourage you to review it on Goodreads, Amazon, Kobo, or wherever you feel most comfortable leaving a review. The Village of Strong Branches could also use some reviews. I have heard it said that A Matter of Oracles is a more fun novella read, which could be attributed to the fact that it started as a novella and was not adapted from a too-long short story like The Village of Strong Branches was.