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People often ask me what flavour of fantasy I write. The easiest answer would be “epic dark romantasy.” And when I say romantasy – I’m talking Capital F fantasy and Capital R romance. The true genesis of this red-hot genre that has recently been thrust into the spotlight with hugely successful series, like ACOTAR and Fourth Wing. Yet, the more truthful answer is rather more complicated…
I grew up reading the giants of fantasy. I adore sprawling worlds, ancient histories, impossible politics and mythologies that stretch back thousands of years. But, I also understand why many modern readers never make it through them.
Pages of history before anything happens. Entire chapters explaining kingdoms you’ll never visit again, simply because you need to understand these five facts in a backstory. Characters introduced only to disappear for another five hundred pages before resurfacing again.
For some readers, that’s paradise.
For many others…
It’s a wall.
A huge brick wall - one that makes them detach from the story, and look elsewhere.
And I didn’t want to build another fantasy wall.
I wanted to build a doorway.
Epic Fantasy Should Be Lived, Not Studied
I’ve never believed readers should have to earn the right to enjoy a fantasy novel. You shouldn’t need to memorise a family tree before Chapter Three. Or to have to keep a notebook beside you to remember twelve different kingdoms, before you’ve even met the protagonist.
In Threads of Fate, the world unfolds for my readers the same way it does for the characters. You begin knowing almost nothing. Then, chapter by chapter…the horizon expands. What begins as one village becomes a kingdom. One kingdom becomes an empire. One empire becomes a vast world.
I call it writing from micro to macro.
Readers become invested in the characters first, while learning about the world. Not because I’ve stopped the story to explain it all in excruciating, minute detail…
Why the Story Always Comes First
If I have to choose between another page of world-building, or another page with Aria and Evander and their dark obsession with each other…
I’ll choose the characters.
Every. Single. Time.
And I placed a huge bet that many of my future readers would as well.
The world exists to serve the story, not the other way around.
If history matters, you’ll encounter it because someone needs it. If politics matter, they’ll arrive because they change the choices my characters have to make. Nothing exists simply because I spent six months inventing it and disappeared down a pitch black rabbit hole and now feel obliged to include it, for posterity sake.
Curiosity Should Be Rewarded
That doesn’t mean my world in Threads of Fate isn’t deep. Far from it. There are histories stretching back thousands of years. Languages. Religions. Ancient civilisations, buried under the rubble. Decades lived, or even centuries for some characters, before readers even set their eyes on the very first chapter. But not every reader wants to deal with that while the story is racing forward.
So I’ve made a deliberate decision.
The novels tell the story.
The novellas explore the true depths of people within them.
If you simply want to follow the main saga…
You won’t miss anything essential by not reading the novellas.
If you fall in love with the world…
There are always more doors waiting to be opened for discovery.
And those inner glimpses in the novellas might just reframe the entire story for readers who are willing to invest.
Romance For Adults
The same philosophy applies to the romance. I wasn’t interested in misunderstandings or endless miscommunication. Characters refusing to have conversations that would solve everything in five minutes.
I wanted adults.
People shaped by duty.
Trauma.
Power.
Loss.
People intelligent enough to recognise themselves in one another, and dangerous enough to know exactly how to use that knowledge.
My romance isn’t built on flirting.
It’s built on mutual recognition.
On challenge.
Respect.
On becoming the one person capable of destroying someone…or saving them.
Sometimes both.
Nothing Comes Without Cost
If there’s one central theme running through every book I write, it’s this:
Everything meaningful costs something. None of the topics I have discussed in this series come cheaply. I don’t believe in consequence-free magic. Or consequence-free choices.
Every decision echoes.
Sometimes for generations.
Questions, Not Answers
People occasionally ask whether Threads of Fate is trying to say something.
It certainly is, at times.
But I’m far more interested in asking questions, than giving answers. Because great fantasy allows us to step outside ourselves. To examine and grapple with all these issues, without immediately retreating into the certainty of our own opinions.
I don’t expect readers to agree with me about everything.
But I certainly hope they think…
One Promise
I can make you one promise.
I will never underestimate you as a reader.
I won’t stop the story to lecture you. Won’t bury you beneath pages of exposition. I won’t ask you to memorise an encyclopaedia, before you even care about the people living in the world. I also refuse to dumb down the story for the sake of “the market” or what those in the know think will sell. In the words of Evander, “I trust my instincts in everything I do.” That line wasn’t just plucked from thin air. I know enough about reading markets and trends to be confident in my own forecasting skills.
I’ll simply open the door to big fantasy, and write what I was looking for as a reader.
As for the rest…
We’ll discover that, together.
