iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Anyway guys I am reading something very outside my normal and if anyone is looking for an extremely horny book about gay tennis players then In Your Court by Kit Haley should be in your basket. It's a refreshing change from my usual, though I'm clearly not cut out for this much banging

A book cover featuring an illustration of two athletic and near naked men kissing. One of them has a tennis raquet

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CL Hellisen @clhellisen.com · 21h

getting my last prints finalised for FantasyCon -- see you there, i am excited to have work in the art show for the first time!

A selection of digital paintings, mostly around femmes and fish

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CL Hellisen @clhellisen.com · 29/09/2026

I'm calling it for today. Will work on it again tomorrow (well, when I'm not at the dentist)

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CL Hellisen @clhellisen.com · 29/09/2026

Book 26 Harrowmark - Deva Fagan If you love The Witcher and Dragon Age Origins and a rag tag crew of people thrown together to fight monsters in a shattered world, this is the book you are looking for.

Book cover for Harrowmark by Deva Fagan - an indigo background with gold edging, and a star shaped blue eye.

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CL Hellisen @clhellisen.com · 28/09/2026

Spent the morning making art because I need some extra pieces for Fantasy Con and currently hate everything I've ever made, such is the creative life. NOW TEA AND WORD HACKING

digital painting of a girl underwater in kelp

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CL Hellisen @clhellisen.com · 26/09/2026

Look ffs This, after 3 flights of stairs It's a gd vat door

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CL Hellisen @clhellisen.com · 24/09/2026

The Shape of Monsters is finally out in print and ebook from Tor UK! If you're here for a dark gothic fantasy with all the broken people, twisted dynamics, mages, murder and monsters then you have gone through the correct door Get it now from your favourite bookshop

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CL Hellisen @clhellisen.com · 23/09/2026

GUYS I HAVE CREATED THE WORLDS WORST UNBOXING VIDEO! There is nothing polished and filtered and uh...well-groomed about this one. It's the realio dealio

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CL Hellisen @clhellisen.com · 22/09/2026

I have not DMed the author of this lovely review of The Shape of Monsters to find out what gave them the ick because LMTY I KNOW ALREADY 😂 Hands up if you also know (no spoilers)

An absorbing exploration of the many complicated ties and facets of sibling relationships, the psychology of always letting the monsters in (mentally and in this magical place physically) and marriage as possession

One very specific element of this story gave me the ick!!! Which was a real shame because otherwise I loved this book… truth is if I hadn’t been so engrossed in the deeper elements of this story I might’ve had to dnf but I kept reading and overall it was a fascinating tale of smouldering magic, siblings and fate ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (could’ve been a five if not for …dm if you need to know).

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CL Hellisen @clhellisen.com · 21/09/2026

REMEMBER KIDS It's only cannibalism if both parties are human. Otherwise it's just lunch.

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CL Hellisen @clhellisen.com · 21/09/2026

because some folk like Ilea from The Shape of Monsters, and because I am trawling through my art files for Reasons, have this sketch i just found

A digital art sketch of a pale person with white hair and blue eyes, they are wearing a dark cloak type thing

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CL Hellisen @clhellisen.com · 20/09/2026

Not the best day I've had, but at least I bagged another Wemyss Cat! Now comfort-watching 4 Weddings and a Funeral because I cannot resist the charm of a floppy haired baby Hugh Grant

A large brightly painted sitting cat statue

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CL Hellisen @clhellisen.com · 20/09/2026

Book 25 The Haunting of Avis Lovelock - @mkhardywrites.com's delightful novel of a haunted mentalist who is hired to disprove the haunting of a ship before it is sold. A sapphic story that goes in some unexpected directions

The cover for The Haunting of Avis Lovelock by MK Hardy. A lovely illustrated cover with the text in a rich yellow script over a vast ghostly old fashioned cruise ship surrounded by planchettes

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CL Hellisen @clhellisen.com · 20/09/2026

Book 24 These Broken Little Worlds - @emfaulds.com excellent second collection - dark sff stories shot through with love and hope. Faulds is one of our finest short story writers and more people need to read her work.

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CL Hellisen @clhellisen.com · 20/09/2026

Book 23 Exquisite Decay - @xanwriter.bsky.social's extremely queer YA cyberpunk retelling of The Picture of Dorian Gray. And I very much enjoyed - I'm a sucker for the cyber-hedonistic aesthetic, the non-binary prinxes, the cruelty of humanity, and the flicker of revolution

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CL Hellisen @clhellisen.com · 17/09/2026

It's ONE WEEK to go before The Shape of Monsters is out in print! I am so amped for readers to meet Aleks, Vai and *evil grin* my sweet innocent precious Ilea. Come join @heatherpalmer.bsky.social and me at Blackwell's in Edinburgh at 7pm on Thursday the 24th September!

Cl Hellisen: The Shape of Monsters in conversation with Annabel Campbell (sadly she can't make this,but the wonderful Heather Palmer is taking her seat)
Thursday 24th September, 7pm

And a picture of me in a stripy top, with the red and dark purple cover of the Shape of Monsters with its creepy stag head

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CL Hellisen @clhellisen.com · 16/09/2026

While the print edition of The Shape of Monsters is only coming out this month, the original audiobook with narration by the incredible Omari Douglas (Black Doves) is shortlisted for a British Fantasy Award for best Audio Work (Fiction) I love an excuse to go to the banquet!

The 2026 British fantasy Awards Shortlist best Audio Work (fiction)

The Shape of Monsters - CL Hellisen, Omari Douglas
The Tiny Bookcase
Podcastle
Pseudopod

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CL Hellisen @clhellisen.com · 15/09/2026

It's not long til FantasyCon, and here's where I'll be, including a Very Exciting Double Launch with @annabelcwrites.bsky.social because for some reason we write tonally different books about voids, dragons, idiot over-powerful mages, and women who are Done With Everything

Promo post for fantasy Con Glasgow CL Hellisen

Friday 8pm Women's rage in Horror
Saturday 10 am What Makes a Monster
3pm reading
Sunday 12 pm Launch with Annabel Campbell - the Void Dragon and CL Hellisen The Shape of Monsters
1 pm Creating Likeable Unlikeable Characters

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CL Hellisen @clhellisen.com · 15/09/2026

I'm sitting in a sun beam and drinking delicious coffee mmmm yes

Interior of a coffee shop with hat stand, book shelves and couch

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CL Hellisen @clhellisen.com · 14/09/2026

Vai is an iced zoo biscuit Clearly. I'm Team Aleks is a broken wholesale biscuit

Biscuits with brightly and badly iced white silhouettes of animals on bright coloured icing

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CL Hellisen @clhellisen.com · 14/09/2026

The coming month is going to be busy for me! Hopefully I'll catch some of you at one (or more) of these events

book promo post foe The Shape of Monsters by CL Hellisen.

Text is pale yellow on a deep crimson background, and reads:

Where to find me

Thursday 24th September – Blackwell’s Edinburgh
Friday 2nd October – Waterstones Sauchiehall Glasgow
October 9-11 – FantasyCon Glasgow
Saturday 24th October – ComicCon London

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CL Hellisen @clhellisen.com · 11/09/2026

I've been having some issues with my vintage skate sharpener, and lmty, when engineering people see old machines that need some loving repair they get very exited (and helpful) it's so fun (my beautiful baby for reference)

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CL Hellisen @clhellisen.com · 10/09/2026

OK NO MORE SUCKING THE JOY FROM LIFE Look at these precious babies instead

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CL Hellisen @clhellisen.com · 08/09/2026

Sixteen days to go until The Shape of Monsters

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CL Hellisen @clhellisen.com · 07/09/2026

It's impossible to take pics of the house jungle because of the window, but the plants are looking happier than they were 🙃 I did discover that the delicious monster had put anl massive aerial root into the banana's pot though.

Part of a living room, basically covered in plants.

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CL Hellisen @clhellisen.com · 07/09/2026

Today has been Pay Attention to the Plants day; my poor plants survive despite me, I'm very much a brown thumb human. However this plant has lived 5 years so that's good going for me. Before and after

A plant. I do not know what it is but it has outgrown its support stick

The same plant, now with bigger stick and refreshed pot and some little green friends for undergrowth. I do t know what they are either.

Also a sad dog.

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CL Hellisen @clhellisen.com · 06/09/2026

18 days until The Shape of Monsters comes out in print from TorUK! I am so excited for people to read my queer gothic fantasy -- pre-orders are up! www.panmacmillan.com/authors/cl-h...

promo pic of the novel The Shape of Monsters by CL Hellisen - a dark red book with a dark blue stag's head full of stars and dripping blood, the title and author name are in gold.

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CL Hellisen @clhellisen.com · 05/09/2026

And a wee vid of the red arrows as they arrived

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CL Hellisen @clhellisen.com · 05/09/2026

I didn't take many pics because a) mobile phone and b) I prefer watching, but here is a grainy pic of the red arrows over the sea

Some planes with red, grey, and blue smoke in formation against cloudy skies. Arran is a grey shape on the horizon.

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CL Hellisen @clhellisen.com · 30/08/2026

Yesterday I bagged up and framed prints for the British Fantasy Con art show while watching World Con panels...con crossover!

Some prints in plain black frames, on a chair in an office with book shelves behind. The front print is of an orange seahorse with what looks like prayer flags, flying above the ocean

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CL Hellisen @clhellisen.com · 29/08/2026

Timeline cleanse. Be less like me and be more like Cupar, whose only thoughts are about naps and food

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CL Hellisen @clhellisen.com · 22/08/2026

Post a picture that should be an album cover.

A figure in a rainbow coloured shirt stands on a pier at night

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CL Hellisen @clhellisen.com · 20/08/2026

This British Fantasy Con in Glasgow will be the first one where I have prints of my work for sale. I'm busy humming and hawing over which pieces, but I think this one is a definite

a painting of a person looking down,t heir hair flying up. There's a rainbow streak in their hair

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CL Hellisen @clhellisen.com · 19/08/2026

Just finished Exquisite Decay - @xanwriter.bsky.social's extremely queer YA cyberpunk retelling of The Picture of Dorian Gray. And I very much enjoyed - I'm a sucker for the cyber-hedonistic aesthetic, the non-binary prinxes, the cruelty of humanity, and the flicker of revolution

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CL Hellisen @clhellisen.com · 19/08/2026

Anyway look I also write books and I have a new one coming out in print next month. It's all the things I love - family trauma, twisted sibling relationships, lush queer weirdness, total idiots with magic, and the downward spiral of power. Pre-order The Shape of Monsters from your fave bookshop!

The Shape of Monsters by CL Hellisen - a crimson book with the silhouette of stag's head and antlers. The silhouette is filled with starry dark skies, and traces of red flesh hang like ribbons from the prongs.

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CL Hellisen @clhellisen.com · 19/08/2026

My friend just sent me this and never has my nail been so hit on its little head. Now I'm going to comfort myself with an affogato

post by stynalane

it reads: The problem with people being able to read the books you've written, is that when they talk to you in person they expect you to say writery things.

I don't know how to explain that my mouth and my fingertips have vastly different vocabularies.

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CL Hellisen @clhellisen.com · 15/08/2026

Good moaning Saturday people. It's barely six weeks until The Shape of Monsters is out in print! Hope to see folk at Edinburgh, Glasgow or Fantasycon events, but if you're sadly not based in Scotland, you can also preorder the book from your fave bookshop - www.panmacmillan.com/authors/cl-h...

A book graphic showing CL Hellisen's The Shape of Monsters with acted cover and a dark stag head and antlers. It has a dark gothic feel.

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CL Hellisen @clhellisen.com · 13/08/2026

So Scotland was cloudy for the eclipse, but here's a video at full (that is, 95%) cover.

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CL Hellisen @clhellisen.com · 08/08/2026

My broken bathroom is getting some much needed renovation done, in the meanwhile, here is a zen picture down by the water because I needed to go find a place to pee (Not by the water omg. I went to a coffee shop on my walk)

Some yellow wildflowers, the firth of forth, and a spit of land with the forth rail bridge in the distance

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CL Hellisen @clhellisen.com · 30/07/2026

Two months to go now, my fellow woke cannibals! (ps it's only cannibalism if both people are human so...anyway) Preorders are go, and I suspect you can still grab an ARC from PanMac if you are a reviewer! www.panmacmillan.com/authors/cl-h...

Trope filled image with the cover of The Shape of Monsters by CL Hellisen.

Around the red and purple cover with its dripping, star-filled stag head, are the words toxic sibling relationships, raising the dead, creepy gothic house, magic is a curse, bound monsters, feral non-binary anti-villains, fast burn fuckery slow burn falling

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CL Hellisen @clhellisen.com · 30/07/2026

Book 22 Dark Castle, White Horse - Tanith Lee Two short novels, The Castle of Dark and Prince on a White Horse, showcasing the different styles Lee could do. The one - richly gothic and sumptuous, while the other was more a surreal pastiche of fairytales, threaded with very british humour.

A black and green cover for Dark Castle, White Horse by Tanith Lee, with a green throne curtained in black, with a skull image on the back of the seat

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CL Hellisen @clhellisen.com · 22/07/2026

Better pic of just the tart

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CL Hellisen @clhellisen.com · 22/07/2026

Tea was a roasted veg and tofu tart with a salad of carrots, apple, walnuts and greens.

A white plate with a veg tart and a salad

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CL Hellisen @clhellisen.com · 21/07/2026

Tonight's tea was a salad eaten in the garden. Brown rice and sorghum, cucumber, spring onion, butter beans, pomegranate, pistachio and fake Mediterranean chicken from Aldi's veggie range. The dressing was garlic cloves, fresh parsley, fresh mint, a lot of lemon juice and olive oil

A colourful salad in a white bowl, with a red and white dishcloth

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CL Hellisen @clhellisen.com · 21/07/2026

Pre-order The Shape of Monsters online at Waterstones now for a discount - that's a neat 25% off! Modern gothic fantasy where two siblings are about to return to an ancestral home and summon a monster. Dark and mythic, complicated family dynamics, queer disasters @portyliterary.bsky.social

An info graphic showing a 25% discount for pre-order for the Shape of Monsters from Waterstones, between 21-24 July, online only. Pre-order with the code SUMMER26

When a magical fire destroyed their family as children, Aleks and Vaira Kercheval escaped. Born to a world where power was everything, they’ve hidden from it all their lives. Then a letter arrives stating that Vaira has inherited Aubrey House, a decaying Gothic mansion full of dark, wild magic.

The estranged siblings haven’t spoken for years. But together, they return to their ancestral home, where crossing the threshold plunges them into a realm of shadows and ancient feuds. As the pair are drawn into a war between rival mages, the powerless Aleks accidentally summons and binds a monstrous prince from the Void – a creature of immense power. His gifted sister must learn to unleash her inner fire as the lines between human and monster blur. But can they survive the darkness that is to come?

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CL Hellisen @clhellisen.com · 20/07/2026

seems to be dependent on whether the word came via Cantonese or Mandarin. Cool!

Its appellation derives from its Chinese name 荔枝. Pronounced laih jī in Cantonese, this is the source of its English pronunciation “lie-chee” – unsurprising given the plant’s southern Chinese origins, as well as early Cantonese-speaking migration.

While the reconstructed Middle Chinese pronunciation would have been lei tɕie (akin to “ley-chee-eh”), modern-day Mandarin lì zhī supports the alternative English pronunciation “lee-chee”.

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CL Hellisen @clhellisen.com · 18/07/2026

winner winner chicken dinner (It's a book shop and coffee place in Dunfermline called Twice Told Tales)

Some books I have bought and also a coffee

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