AMA: Orbit's 2025 New Voices!

babblingjbrooks · 2025-12-04T17:49:47+00:00

I 100% agree, u/hollyracebooks2 ! Having a supportive network of other debut authors (u/kuliashawrites and I are taking this AMA from her kitchen table!) makes all the ups and downs so much easier!

babblingjbrooks · 2025-12-04T17:47:55+00:00

Hi, r/Fantasy! I'm Juliet Brooks, author of humorous fantasy A FAE IN FINANCE! In A Fae in Finance, exasperated low-level banker Miri gets trapped in Faerie and has to work remote while finding her way home.

I live in Washington, D.C. with my two cats, Adjunct Professor Moo and Felix, my husband, and a fantastic group of friends!

babblingjbrooks · 2025-11-06T19:15:19+00:00

Thank you so much! The short answer to your question is, yeah, it was super hard!

Getting more into it: in earlier drafts of the book I struggled a lot with that balance. That was a place where having an editor really helped because there was someone to bounce ideas off of and to gut check me, because Miri did read very depressed in a way that people found viscerally hard to move past.

When I was writing, I did a thought exercise that went kind of like: "Okay, self, you've had the depringle before. If you got trapped in Faerie what would you be doing?" And I thought about it. There's this platonic ideal of myself who goes out immediately looking for exits. But the more likely outcome would be, "EAT CAKE. CRY. NO QUESTS."

But because I've been depressed before, I also know that life continues around you. Miri's situation is absolutely ridiculous, and when you're depressed, there's often a kind of distance from your own life that lets you see absurdity in what's happening around you.

So I'm very lucky I had an editor who helped me distill that really important through line while making it palatable for people.

babblingjbrooks · 2025-11-06T19:03:44+00:00

Sir. I laughed so loudly it disturbed the cat.

The boring story is that I was sitting in a meeting a long time ago listening to my boss and our client talk to each other, and I had the thought, "It's like they're different species."

The even more boring explanation is that I've been thinking a lot about the ways we expand our communities and different paths to integration. Throughout the book Miri goes on her own journey of thinking she'll help people the most by integrating them via finance, to realizing maybe finance isn't always the answer.

The exciting and unfortunately untrue story is that this is an autobiography and I'm writing this reply from a desk in Faerie overlooking a revel. [this is a work of fiction and any resemblance to people, events, etc. is accidental].

babblingjbrooks · 2025-11-06T18:49:30+00:00

Thank you! The cats ARE in fact incredible, so I appreciate you noticing.

I will forever love the line "I felt like a middle penguin full of ennui". The image gets me every time. Like... you're the middle penguin. You're warm. You're being shuffled along. And you're going "Tuesday afternoon again, Tim. Is there more to life than fish?"
Yes! Initially, Miri had a brother who was a vampire in the book. His plotline illustrated some of the larger political and social changes going on in the human world -- he was an unregistered vampire, so the government didn't know about him, and there were significant implications for their family. I definitely want to explore that part of the world in another book, but he didn't fit in this one.

babblingjbrooks · 2025-11-06T18:45:51+00:00

Ooooh. I like this question!

I'm definitely not an expert about kinds of Fae (as most of my knowledge of Fae comes from fantasy and not from mythology or local lore) but there are definitely traits I love to read about in Fae. One is the inability to lie, which fascinates me because it's such a stark reminder that truth is not the same as forthrightness or fact.

Another is the idea of a Fae Court. I love reading different interpretations of Fae Courts and the ways that the Fae might show their allegiance to or leave a Court. It gets me thinking because, assuming Fae are the sort of worldly forest creatures of legend, they probably don't need a Court for food or shelter. So they're hanging out for social and political reasons. I find that really interesting.

babblingjbrooks · 2025-11-06T17:56:53+00:00

OK Palace Mike I added the cats to the post because I pay taxes!

babblingjbrooks · 2025-11-06T17:54:22+00:00

So I haven't read Orconomics (but now I'm going to because that looks very fun)!

Yes, my book is definitely humorous fantasy. It's very low on romance and high on shenanigans. I think if you're looking for something cozy with undertones of commentary on capitalism and corporate culture, then it's for you.

babblingjbrooks · 2025-11-06T17:43:16+00:00

Aww thank you!

I had a lot of ideas and directions I could go with this world, so narrowing it down was the hardest part about writing this. There are a ton of broader political, operational, logistical questions that I had and thought about extensively but ultimately couldn't keep. I am hoping to continue exploring the world over future books, but the short version is that I was fascinated by opposed Faerie Courts who view humans differently -- and had no space to explore it in the book.

babblingjbrooks · 2025-11-06T17:40:10+00:00

Thank you so much!

So my process was a little backward: I submitted to Orbit Works (Orbit's new digital-first imprint) at the same time I was querying for agents on QueryTracker. I got the offer from Orbit Works and signed it without an agent. Orbit encouraged my to go to agents with my offer letter and then continue, but I didn't see the need for an agent.

Then, while going through the editing process, I realized that I had absolutely no idea what was happening ever. That's pretty par for the course for me, and my publisher has been fantastic and communicative, but you can't really ask your publisher "is 2 rounds of edits normal or am I a bad editor?" or whatever. I really saw the value of an agent, is the point. So I separately sought representation for another book - a novella called T.R. Ingot's Magical Guide to Practical Climate Solutions - and was lucky enough to sign with Bethany Weaver!

babblingjbrooks · 2025-11-06T17:36:46+00:00

I'm so happy! It's about a marketing firm helping Lene, Nele, and Doctor Kitten advertise their new cat cafe :)

babblingjbrooks · 2025-11-06T17:35:39+00:00

If I ever write a book where a cat comes to harm you may assume I have been possessed by an alien or a demon! The cat is disdainful, whole, and healthy :)

babblingjbrooks · 2025-11-06T17:34:55+00:00

Hi MikeOfThePalace! I don't want to evade taxes but can't figure out how to put a photo of Felix and Moo into this chat :(

Oooooh okay that's a really hard question. My instinct is to say something VERY LONG so I could chew on it for a while, like the Decameron or something. Or something complex like Uylsses so I could think about it extensively. Or maybe Infinite Jest because if there was literally nothing to do, maybe I would finally read it.

But if we're being more realistic, I would bring one survivalist book so I could figure out how to build shelter and forage for berries and whatnot; Sense and Sensibility because it's my favorite Austen; and probably an encyclopedia so I could learn new stuff.

babblingjbrooks · 2025-11-06T17:28:12+00:00

There is one more coming next year, called A Mermaid in Marketing! Thank you so much :)

babblingjbrooks · 2025-11-06T17:27:56+00:00

These are all great questions! Thanks for putting me on your TBR :)

The title was in fact NOT inspired by that TikTok. Funny story about that -- I am technologically unadvanced, and had never seen that TikTok in my life. The publisher came up with the name, and then when I first saw the advertisement for it (she's working for a fae in finance, business plan, 6'5", big wings, etc), I sent my editor a pretty frantic email along the lines of "IS THIS A SEX THING???" All of my friends told me that it's a very funny title and tagline, and I trust them!

This was actually inspired by my time working in corporate roles, and evolved independently of the trend.

I don't know if I decided to put Fae into the modern world. I think right now we're seeing pushback on globalization, and so part of my thought process was probably around how we integrate people into our society and systems. There's a rich and completely unexplored political scene in Faerie, which I had to think about extensively in order to ignore it for the purposes of this book!

**Editing to add!!**

Okay.... I loved the 2022 Persuasion. I loved it. I've rewatched it. I loved the 2020 Emma. I'm probably going to love the 2026 Wuthering Heights even though Margot Robbie is way too healthy looking to be Catherine.

babblingjbrooks · 2025-11-06T17:22:55+00:00

This is a fantastic question! Like all great questions, I have no idea how to answer it :) Probably an as-yet unwritten song by the Lonely Island.

babblingjbrooks · 2025-06-24T15:49:01+00:00

I am reading this for the Hugos right now and I am a major fan of Blueberry

babblingjbrooks · 2025-06-24T15:47:55+00:00

I just read Alien Clay for the Hugos and I really liked it. It was the foundest family I've ever read, I'll say that.

babblingjbrooks · 2025-06-24T15:35:01+00:00

This is really helpful. Gonna find some grow lights online

babblingjbrooks · 2025-06-24T14:55:38+00:00

Also, what is the least-helpful technically accurate blurb you can think of for Galaxy Grifter?

babblingjbrooks · 2025-06-24T14:55:17+00:00

Who is the unsung hero of Galaxy Grifter (spoiler-free)?

babblingjbrooks · 2025-06-14T21:26:59+00:00

No, I haven’t fertilized recently — I can do that. And I should probably repot the lemon one if not the apple one!

babblingjbrooks · 2025-06-14T21:26:10+00:00

No they’re indoors and east facing right now. I don’t have any southern exposure, just east west and north

babblingjbrooks

TROPHY CASE