Lynn Strong | Cozy fantasy author

@lynnstrong.bsky.social

3529 Followers 2520 Following

Addicted to words. Used to be paid by the column-inch. (You can probably still tell.) Gleeful flipper of all the tropes. Queer, disabled, neurospicy thespian. Indie author of Chai and Cat-tales. (About to commit a trilogy.) https://lynnstrong.com

Chai and Cat-tales by Lynn Strong
The Improbable We can Do Today by Jon Dixon, with gorgeous cover art of the main characters and their cat working at a medieval desk by candlelight. URL in the image: https://mybook.to/8Vmo1O
Chai and Cat-tales by Lynn Strong
"How did you see that if this grand scheme of yours isn't leading straight into disaster?" the Archmage grumbled. "Thirteen kittens, four cats, Kamil, Darshan, your guards, Grandmother, the goat, and Thatmolly, all sitting in the garden in front of my unfortunately horrified Chamberlain," Faraj admitted with a sigh. "I do feel badly about taking advantage, but the poor man is so very helpful when it comes to focusing my foresight on cat-related mischief-making."
Shai Vishal, a weary, kind priest in a white draped cloth with silvering streaks in his hair and beard and big Tired Dad energy, gently pets a very happy little brindle tabby kitten in his arms.
Social media referrers: Bluesky had 30% of visitors and views. Reddit (r/cozyfantasy) had 30% of the visitors and 50% of the views. Facebook, Instagram, and Threads all lagged badly on the visitors and views front. That's one in the eye for the "conventional wisdom" about where to spend your social media attention as an author.
Bluesky is around 60% of the visitors and views social referrers today. Instagram is 17% visitors/ 12% views, Facebook is 12% and 10%, and Reddit is 12% and 17%. (Rounding may add up to over 100%, and this is morning stats; the afternoon may change.)
a very small but vividly green bunch of rose leaves against a sycamore-leafy and assorted-planty background
A domestic shorthair cat with tawny golden fur, brown forehead stripes, dark marks along its nose reasonably similar to a desert lynx, and coronal dark and light rings around its eyes. (The image crops off the top of its ears, but I imagine Kamil has Maine Coon-like tufts)
A caracal cat with a sandy-buff colored coat, long ears with black tufts, and facial markings
A weather forecast with an unnervingly sharp line between greens I'm used to seeing and blazing magenta I have never seen on a forecast before but which looks Bad
Chai and Charmcraft's print proof: A chonker of a book on a soft gray sweater
A shiny-eyed black cat strikes a dramatic pose under a sparkling rainbow labeled "Violence." An imaginary book title reads "When Violence Actually Is The Answer, by Someone's Adorable Cat." The blurb says "If you ask a cat what to do, 'break things,' 'knock things over,' and/or 'murder something' are usually as high on the 'fun' list as 'sleep adorably in the most inconvenient place possible.' This book will investigate Why Are Cats Like That, as soon as the author manages to extract the cat from the warm laptop keyboard yet again." Imaginary links and metadata tags follow.
In which Meta AI argues that Pi Day (3/14) in 2026 is actually Valentine's Day (2/14) because something something leap year something marketing something hallucinogens in the stolen water something
99 cents for Haroun and the Study of Mischief: Two Very Good Boys might like to fight crime... if there has been a crime other than their fashion sense. "Sometimes you need a romp. This line slayed me, for all the times I've felt overwhelmed and still kept going: 'We are who we had available.'" --Rachel Unger on Bsky. https://lynnstrong.com/books/haroun
An ebay listing for Chai and Cat-tales that costs significantly more than it costs new?
Chai and Cat-tales: Three magical Middle Eastern cozy fantasy novellas by Lynn Strong
Without the lure of either food or anything resembling coin, she wasn't sure how far depravity alone would get her with a flock of good priests who so eagerly fed kittens. Still, she'd taught Ashar and Kalyani nearly everything the two of them knew about throwing themselves into a venture headlong, twisting about midair, landing approximately on their feet, and looking like they'd meant to do that all along. They weren't bad at it, for humans. But Hira was confident she was better. After all, she'd been born with it. She was going to dangle human-style fetish-lures in front of the priests of Upaja, with absolute confidence. They could not possibly be offended that she thought they were depraved enough to be tempted. And if they were offended, she would not apologize; a cat was always correct, and a cat always meant to do whatever had just happened.
Najra took a breath. Faraj didn't even need to be a prophet to know he absolutely could not survive whatever was going to come out of her mouth, regardless of whether it had to do with his youthful wistings or with a charming companion of night-blooming jasmines whose hand might lack rings. "No!" he yelped. "I mean yes, I mean of course not, I mean— all of the ways they could read that are— um."
Cozy Up with Adventure Fantasy
Free clean cozies and romance books Feb 1-28: Cozy and sweet free books!
Sweet Romance Freebies
Massive Romance Book Fair: Paranormal, Fantasy, and Sci Fi Free for a Limited Time
Free Political Intrigue Romantasy from 16th Jan to 15th Feb
Chai and Charmcraft: A magical Middle Eastern cozy fantasy by Lynn Strong. Contains nearly absurd quantities of kittens and entirely absurd quantities of recipes. Not sure whether to say "I'm sorry" or "You're welcome."
Chai and Charmcraft: A Magical Middle Eastern Cozy Fantasy by Lynn Strong
A shy round middle aged brown man with silvering curls and a soft beard, anxiously holding a tea glass and saucer, wearing lavishly gilded Mughal Era silks
Chai and Charmcraft: A Magical Middle Eastern Cozy Fantasy by Lynn Strong. A smiling round middle-aged man with curling silver-stroked hair in golden silk robes holds a glass of chai and a saucer, with a golden-eyed gray cat looking at him from the window through which we see a cityscape at the edge of sunrise.
Haroon and the Study of Mischief by Lynn Strong: A grey saluki and a black cat peer curiously around the edges of a gold-inlaid arch, in front of the deep blue silhouette of a cityscape at night with a sparkling trail of magic.
Books 40, 41 and 42 on the Amazon LGBTQ+ Fantasy Bestsellers list: Feral (The Wrong Alpha Book 2), Chai and Cat-tales, and Cocoa and Classes.
Three cats stare rapidly through the chicken wire and pine 2x4 cage an enterprising human has built around their Christmas tree
Wireless Technology in Portable Monitor Built-in battery and no cables required, keeping your desk clean PORNITOR (with a very gray looking and not at all questionable laptop next to a wireless monitor and a black and gray cell phone, all of which are displaying very vanilla images)
Chai and Cat-tales by Lynn Strong
Chai and Cat-tales: Three magical Middle Eastern cozy fantasy novellas by Lynn Strong. Featuring a ridiculously adorable brindle kitten with the most hopeful little kitten face and big shiny eyes.
Pretzilla soft pretzel bread: Our original pretzel bites, 36 count. $7.49, buy it again.
Two centuries-old reed sandals of styles remarkably similar to modern beach shoes, courtesy of some vultures and National Geographic
Feminist Fantasy: Down with the Patriarchy October 1st-31st
FaRoSociety's Free Cozy Fantasy Romance Sept 15 - Oct 14
Kobo Plus Fantasy and Sci Fi October 1 to 31 on Bookfunnel
Find Free Cozy Fantasy Reads - October edition (apologies, I can't read all the titles to list them)
"Both is good" from El Dorado
Haroun and the Study of Mischief by Lynn Strong: A happy gray saluki dog and a wide-eyed black cat peer around a golden arch in front of a night-time cityscape with a trail of magical sparkles wafting into the sky
Photoshop window with a yawning kitten doing an impressive job of standing on a cityscape
Chai and Cat-tales: Three Magical Middle Eastern Cozy Fantasy Novellas by Lynn Strong. A hopeful brindle kitten looks out through a sparkling swirl of steam from a golden teapot under an intricate arch background.
Himmas kassa, an early ancestor of hummus, with several herbs and nuts and olives and pistachios included. Photo from Sherry's Kitchen.
An unglazed clay kulhad with texture around the rim, near full of the milky brown chai being poured from a sturdy metal kettle.
An Egyptian woman's galabeya from an exhibit, very brightly colored and patterned, without a hood.
A large stone building with cream, orange, and black stripes running across the facade and spanning the windows -- the reception hall of Azem Palace in Damascus, Syria, using ablaq technique (18th century).
Three glasses of deep red karkadeh (and a few splash drops)
The deg donated by Emperor Akbar to the shrine of Moinuddin Chisti. It's still used today, but it takes a lot of people to manage it! People climb entirely inside it with a ladder to pass buckets of food upwards.
Priye: A fluffy brindle kitten with big shiny eyes and tricolored tabby striped fur.
A modern recreation of the medieval Egyptian sock with intricate patterned stripes in two shades of indigo blue on white cotton. WOW. (I am not sure of the knitter's name because of the friend-of-friend path through Celia's Dicord by which this photo was passed along.)
12th-century cotton sock, found in Egypt. The knitter of this sock started work at the toe and then worked up towards the leg. The heel was made last and then attached to loops formed while knitting the leg. This practice allowed the heel to be easily replaced when it wore out. (Wikipedia)