#k ancrum

[starrlikesbooks]

HELLO

Can I tell you about a book with

art heists entirely fueled by spite and complicated father/son dynamics

soft gay touch starved yearning

teens who want to save each other, who are inherently good and full of love

tragic yet hopeful love that you have to believe will be enough

a Greek mythology inspired plot because it's GAY ICARUS

remember this poem that went around tumblr?

it's basically this vibe but for a FULL NOVEL and you will feel so many things

[kaylapocalypse]

I'm so chuffed to share the cover of my next book THE CORRUPTION OF HOLLIS BROWN with you all!✨

Written in the same vignette format as THE WICKER KING and ICARUS, Hollis Brown is another tale from your favorite girl set in the wilds of the Midwest about a boy and his ghost. This cover was designed by @mishko.co (https://mishko.co) in collaboration with the Harper art department. We were aiming for kind of an older style of YA horror novel. Very early aughts summer slasher vibes for this Monster Romance.

Expected publication March 25, 2025!

[paladinbaby]

tell me it’s okay

excerpts from hansel, richard siken / vive, vive, traci brimhall / to g, after the party, caitlin bailey / three moments in paris, mina loy / giovannis room, james baldwin / the wicker king, k. ancrum / journal of a novel: the east of eden letters, john steinbeck / vespers, louise gluck / least of it all, natalie wee / toast, ep100, welcome to nightvale

[Image description: a collection of ten texts mostly on backgrounds.

1:”Why make a map? Why do anything at all? Not how, because hows are easy, series or sequence, one foot after the other, but existentially why bother, what does it solve? Well, if you don’t need to, don’t. Wouldn’t that be great? Just don’t make anything. The world is full of things already, the world is vast and wide and full of grace, and you will always be given the benefit of the doubt. Except that isn’t true now, is it? Fact is, the world is full of things that are trying to kill you. We do not walk through a passive landscape.”

2: “God, God, what do I do after all this survival?”

3: “I wonder / what it would have felt like to / have a choice, to choose love, / to hold anything with both hands. / It’s taken me this long / to say I want I want I want,”

4: “I have belonged to you since the beginning of time.”

5: “...perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition.”

6: “‘Worried about…me?’ ‘Well, yeah.’ ‘Oh.’ Jack sat there for a while. ‘I like it,’ he admitted. ‘You can keep doing it if you’d like.’”

7: “But I do feel strange-almost unearthly. I’ll never get used to being alive. It’s a mystery. Always startled to find I’ve survived.”

8: “I know what you planned, what you meant to do, teaching me to love the world, making it impossible to turn away completely, to shut it out completely ever again- it is everywhere; when I close my eyes, birdsong, the scent of lilac in early spring, scent of summer roses:”

9: “I kneel into a dream where I am good & loved. I am good. I am loved.”

10: “And love isn’t a fact. It's a hunch at first. And then later it’s a series of decisions, a lifetime of decisions. That’s love.” End ID.]

[ace-artemis-fanartist]

My bookmark art for @rainbowcrate's March box; "Be Gay Do Crime".

Icarus

Junker Seven

[alwaysthcarcrash]

thinking about icarus pouring an 800 dollar bottle of wine down the drain for helios

[bensbooks]

Upcoming in 2024: Icarus

Icarus Gallagher is a thief. He steals priceless art and replaces it with his father’s impeccable forgeries. For years, one man—the wealthy Mr. Black—has been their target, revenge for his role in the death of Icarus’s mother. To keep their secret, Icarus adheres to his own strict rules to keep people, and feelings, at bay: Don’t let anyone close. Don’t let anyone touch you. And, above all, don’t get caught. Until one night, he does. Not by Mr. Black, but by his mysterious son, Helios, now living under house arrest in the Black mansion. Instead of turning Icarus in, Helios bargains for something even more dangerous—a friendship that breaks every single one of Icarus’s rules. As reluctance and distrust become closeness and something more, they uncover the bars of the gilded cage that has trapped both of their families for years. One Icarus is determined to escape. But his father’s thirst for revenge shows no sign of fading, and soon it may force Icarus to choose: the escape he’s dreamed of, or the boy he’s come to love. Reaching for both could be his greatest triumph—or it could be his downfall.

Icarus is a romantic queer retelling, set for release on March 26!

[bookcub]

these are all book I have recently read I never wrote a proper review for

[myriad--starlings]

reading a scene that's so homoerotic it literally takes your breath away. dear god. good lord. and their names are Icarus and Helios. im unwell

[authorsshipzutara]

K. Ancrum ships Zutara.

Explore her works on GoodReads and Storygraph.

Website: http://kancrum.com/

[evenstarfalls]

Bravest thing Jack and August ever did was not moving across the fucking country. Imagine going to the grocery store and everyone there knows you spent several months institutionalized after burning down a building for your secret boyfriend

[someonelookingpraediti]

Currently (re-)Reading...

The Wicker King - K. Ancrum

I'm so obsessed with this book. When I first read this, I loved it, but I kept wondering if it would be as good if it didn't have all the decorative pages and playlists and drawings, etc. I didn't know if the story would have held up on it's own, if I hadn't been so distracted by how beautiful the book is.

Reading it again, I realised - it doesn't matter. This is a mixed media book. It was written specifically to include mixed media. The playlists and the recipes and the doodles are as much a part of the story as the words.

I'd never say, "this is a great story, but would it hold up without the middle three chapters?" So why should I expect this book to hold up without mixed media elements?

By the way, the story is totally amazing. August and Jack are everything to me, they've got such an intense relationship. I want to sink into the pages. And the fantasy elements to a completely non-fantasy story are so, so good.

I am 1000% going to be making a "The Wicker King" perfume for my Etsy shop. I get the feeling it'll be one of those fragrances that never sells, but that will make me so happy to wear.

[kaylapocalypse]

Forgive me if you’ve already talked about this but if Angus is the ‘Icarus’ of the story does that mean that Icarus would be Ariadne/Theseus, and Helios the Minotaur, trapped in the labyrinth of his own home?

I know your book isn’t an exact retelling of the myth but I was just curious if that parallel was intentional?

It's okay! This is a great question! Its kind of twofold.

On one hand, I enjoy and have seeded the interpretation that Icarus is exclusionary to the mythos and exists as a normal high school kid drawn into it non-consensually. His rejection of all elements of the characterization of the original Icarus and disgust towards the mythologization of himself and their situation is very stark and I'm surprised so many people (largely adults) don't notice it. He rejects it in Luca and Celestina when they act like he's mysterious, he rejects it in Sorrel who praises him for giftedness (citing that he's not talented he just has practice), he rejects it from Helios (even when Helios is saying things like "I was born for you", Icarus's assessment of the situation is that they need each other right now and its more realistic that once they leave their respective traumatic situations, they'll settle into friendship) He is a stark realist and his Dreams are minute and achievable.

But ultimately, I wanted him to be looked at as the Daedalus of the situation, as reflected in the re-written myth at the back of the book. Aside from just rejecting his moniker, Icarus is an extremely careful child. He haunts the narrative with warning. He's doing dangerous things, but he's not reckless, he's careful and is the only one in their situation who is behaving with deliberateness. There is a helplessness to Icarus's situation, being someone under the care of the actual Icarus. How little control he has as a minor and his eventual choice to try his best to flee the narrative. There is mirrored horror in Daedalus turning back to see where his son went and there are feathers on the waves, with Icarus in the hospital understanding that Angus will not change and is about to reap the full criminal impact of the history of his crimes.

The end call that's off page with Mr. Black is also important. Angus and Icarus have been flying together for so long, but this moment where their paths divide is one that Angus experiences alone, and Icarus experiences in Aftermath. Because, as Angus is the Icarus of the story, biting the bullet and just picking up the phone to have a conversation that's been on ice for almost twenty years, is the breaking point where he know his wax is melting and he's starting to lose height. His recklessness has a consequence and he's choosing not to grab onto Daedalus's heel as he tumbles to the waves.

Its not a one to one comparison, but honestly, I'm happy with people thinking either.

Helios as the Minotaur is fun! As he is trapped in the labyrinth of his parents marriage (as represented by his home and the rooms within it, decorated by either his mom or his dad) and also this completely inconceivable backstory between Angus and his own father. That is so above his head that he has no real way of understanding how it plays a part in the darker parts of his own life. Much like the Minotaur lol

[packofd0gs]

HONOR THY KING.

[richincolor]

Title: Icarus Author: K. Ancrum Genres: Contemporary, Romance, LGBTQIA, Thriller Pages: 382 Publisher: HarperTeen Review Copy: Review copy provided by publisher Availability: Available now

Summary: Icarus Gallagher is a thief. He steals priceless art and replaces it with his father’s impeccable forgeries. For years, one man—the wealthy Mr. Black—has been their target in revenge for his role in the death of Icarus’s mother. To keep their secret, Icarus adheres to his own strict rules to keep people, and feelings, at bay: Don’t let anyone close. Don’t let anyone touch you. And, above all, don’t get caught.

Until one night, he does. Not by Mr. Black but by his mysterious son, Helios, now living under house arrest in the Black mansion. Instead of turning Icarus in, Helios bargains for something even more dangerous—a friendship that breaks every single one of Icarus’s rules.

As reluctance and distrust become closeness and something more, they uncover the gilded cage that has trapped both their families for years. One Icarus is determined to escape. But his father’s thirst for revenge shows no sign of fading, and soon it may force Icarus to choose: the escape he’s dreamed of, or the boy he’s come to love. Reaching for both could be his greatest triumph—or it could be his downfall.

Review: [Icarus contains scenes of physical and verbal child abuse and mentions of past intimate partner violence. There are also some intense scenes of violence between an unrelated adult and a teenager, as well as underage drinking, smoking, and drug use.]

I went into Icarus expecting a thriller based on the publisher’s summary. And while there are multiple scenes of excellently done high-tension thievery, Icarus is a far more character-focused work than I anticipated (and a wonderful one at that). You’ll be spending far more time with our protagonist in high school than sneaking through the Black house. I was not at all disappointed by the discrepancy, but I just wanted to flag that for other readers who may be interested in the book.

Icarus, our protagonist, has lived most of his life in service of his father’s elaborate and time-consuming revenge scheme. He has built himself a distant, calculated life, one carefully engineered to prevent others from seeing anything other than what he wants to project. Author K. Ancrum excels at exploring the emotional toll that maintaining that distance requires and does a masterful job of developing Icarus’s relationships anyway. There are multiple scenes where Icarus’s acquaintances from school prove themselves to be true friends or even just capable of seeing who Icarus is, when his father is incapable of it. Icarus’s romance with Helios is one of the main drivers of the book, but the love Icarus’s friends have for him is of equal importance to the story, and I adored Celestine and Luca in particular.

Icarus and Helios are a fantastic pair, and I was very happy with how their relationship developed. The way they slowly opened up to each other and revealed their secrets was wonderful, and I loved their moments of emotional—and physical—connection. The looming threat of Helios’s abusive father, Icarus’s father’s obsession, and Icarus’s eighteenth birthday combined to heighten the tension around them as they got to know each other. Some of Ancrum’s best work was in quiet scenes between Icarus and Helios, and by the end, I was desperate for the two of them to escape their fathers together.

Recommendation: Get it now if you like character-focused books. While there are great thriller/heist elements in Icarus, author K. Ancrum’s work shines in the titular character’s development. This introspective book explores characters’ relationships in lovely and surprising ways, and Icarus’s friendships are just as important to Icarus’s arc as his romance with Helios. I am definitely interested in picking up K. Ancrum’s other work after finishing Icarus.

Extras: The Art of Icarus (twitter thread)

K. Ancrum discusses her latest novel ‘Icarus’

Q & A with K. Ancrum

[alwaysthcarcrash]

icarus - k ancrum

[readtilyoudie]

Many young people, perhaps like you, find themselves being forced to carry something they never imagined would be so heavy, with no one around to support them. It must be said that they are rarely ever at fault for the multitude of ways they choose to bear that load. Even if they are destructive. They are not “failing”; someone has failed them.

The Wicker King (The Wicker King, #1) by K. Ancrum