I saw a post tagged "To Steal A Fae Throne" and was mightily intrigued. Is this an upcoming book? Is there a release date?
OH YES. I've been meaning to tell Tumblr about this!
Steal a Fae Throne is my current WIP: a quartet of fae romantasy novels titled Winterking, Springwolf, Summerbride, and Autumnthrall - retelling some of my favourite dark myths/fairytales. The series title is a reference to some of the ways I'll be flipping the time-honoured "stolen brides of the fae" trope on its head. What if the fae king stole a human to be his bride, and she ran a successful coup on him?
There is no firm release date at present, but I hope Winterking will make an appearance in the second half of 2026.
This is a project that has been on my back burner for quite some years as I have slowly gathered the necessary inspiration and thematic material. While romantasy isn't exactly well known as a genre for its thematic richness and subtlety, I've been spending a lot of time over the past 12 months meditating on how themes of love, desire, and passion are all used in the Song of Songs and the other writings of the Christian scriptures to express God's love for us as humans, and how human romance can be an expression and outpouring of that divine love to others.
CS Lewis and Joy Davidman explored some of these themes in their magnificent book Till We Have Faces, and when I'm at my most ambitious (and most delusional) I have dreams of writing something that holds some of the same significance. Let's be honest: I won't. But I'll do the best I can - and I'll be drawing on the Song, Till We Have Faces, and Edmund Spenser's wonderful The Faerie Queene along the way.
While these will be the most romance-forward books I have written so far, they'll still be no/low spice, and some of them will skew a little further towards romantic epic fantasy than strict romance. They are also a bit of a step away from historical fantasy towards fantasy strongly inspired by history! You can expect a lot more magic and a new fantasy world!
About the books!!!
Book 1, Winterking, is a retelling of the myth of Hades and Persephone with some inspiration from the Star Wars Reylo ship, lol. I wrote the first draft of this story two years ago and have been brooding over it ever since. It will need substantial rewrites before it's ready to see publication, but all the friends who have read it so far have loved it.
Book 2, Springwolf, is a retelling of the folktale Tam Lin, with some inspiration from: the ballad Raggle-Taggle Gypsy, which I'm reinterpreting as an allegory of Christ and his Church; a favourite historical kdrama - Moon Lovers: Scarlet Heart Ryeo; and the Daisy Ridley film Ophelia. I have a detailed outline for this one, which I am champing at the bit to write.
Book 3, Summerbride, is a retelling of the fairytale Bluebeard, with hints of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, plus some of my favourite elements from a truly bonkers cdrama, Till the End of the Moon, which you should only watch if you love Mess. As I write this, I'm working on the detailed outline, which I hope to have done by Christmas!
Book 4, Autumnthrall, is the one I drafted in November. This one is a retelling - and a redemption - of the Volundarkvida, a pitch-black tragedy of power, mutilation, loss, and revenge from the Icelandic Poetic Edda. This story went through me like a knife the first time I read it, and I've been longing for the chance to do a retelling ever since. I was, however, just waiting for the key to unlock the particular twist I wanted for the story - and that came to me with the Adariel ship in season 2 of The Rings of Power. An inspiration that is amazingly apt, given that JRR Tolkien himself used the Volundarkvida to inspire at least two of the stories in The Silmarillion. He's probably turning over in his grave at the way I'm mashing Norse mythology into an English Renaissance-inspired world with heavy debts to The Faerie Queene - and the way I've straightened this twisted fairytale into something more like the myth of Eros and Psyche - but on this one he can fight me.
