Welcome to Cup of Shadow, Tea of Dream

Well hello!

Welcome to Cup of Shadow, Tea of Dream. I’m excited you’re here, and I’m even more excited to be bringing the Shadow series to Substack.

So what’s it all about?

Shadow is a bubble world, born of a 3,000-year-old curse, and created as a prison for a Really Bad Guy - who naturally declared himself king and is still doing a terrible job of running the place. Sucks for him that the rest of Shadow’s population are ready for a freaking big fight over it.

The Shadow Series chronicles this freaking big fight over ten illustrated books, following Bloody Fairy Hippy Ishtar and her daughter Krysta from Shadow, to Greece, to Fremantle Western Australia and then Shadow again. You can find the series here - book 4 is due out early 2025.

The thing is, Shadow is bigger than the series. And it’s so much fun, I just had to find a place to explore the back stories, the in-between stories, the characters and their cultures - and that’s how I landed here, ready to share all this through short stories, pictures, cartoons, and anything the heck else that pops into my head along the way. I’d love for you to come along on this journey with me.

Wait, what? Illustrated fantasy? Cartoons?

Hells yes! When I was a kid I loved books with big beautiful complex art, and I loved comics. Now I’m an adult, I’m firmly of the opinion that adults should be allowed to have fun too. That’s why the series are regular novels, but they also have pictures, and cartoons at the front and back.

So…like what’s next?

So. Damn. Much.

I’m not sure what I’ll put up here first. Maybe a cartoon. Maybe you’ll meet my favourite Pixies, Doom and Gloom. Or a map, or monsters, or or …

(Hyperventilates)

Coming soon!!!

❤️ Nina xx