you might know me as em, or @_bookbrat, which is where i offload pretty much every intrusive thought i have.

by day i work a corporate 9 to 5, legal secretary, assistant, whatever the day needs. by night, 5 to 9, i disappear into books. somewhere in the gaps i teach pilates, and i'm mum to a sweet, wild, funny two-and-a-half year old who runs my whole heart.

books have always been one of the things i come back to. from early adolescence, books like harry potter & twilight gripped me. and then there was the embarrassingly long stretch of nothing, one i think a lot of fellow readers who are in this resurgence of reading as adults experienced. until, i kept seeing two people on socials called feyre and rhysand, decided those were the stupidest names i'd ever heard, and read the first book in 24 hours anyway. bought the whole set the next day and never looked back. very on brand for a millennial i think.

but those bright books turned up in the hardest year of my life and pulled me back out of it. if you want those nosy details it's in the north star. it's most of why booklist means what it does to me.

this all gets built in stolen hours. 5am before the rest of my day demands everything else of me, voicenotes at every red light, scribbled notes… everywhere, nights that start late and end later. my husband has made his peace with coming second to my laptop. It's just me, creating the thing i always wished existed.

this is the most personal thing i've ever made.