Kin of Fae: The Returned Child launched on 9/19/25, so we’re coming up on its one-year anniversary. I’m happy to say the novel has sold a bit over fifty copies, which works out to roughly one a week since launch. It also has some lovely reader reviews, which makes me very happy.
I’m still waiting for the first review for Book 2: The Lost Season, which launched on 8/8. It has sold two copies so far, so if another one sells by Saturday, we’ll keep the one-a-week streak alive. Fingers crossed.
Now that the dust has settled a bit, I’ve been thinking about something mentioned in a few reviews of The Returned Child: the romance between Oliver and Allen is somewhat underdeveloped, or mainly happens off-page.
This is 100% fair, and a helpful thing to share with potential readers. If you like your dark fantasy to come with a strong romantic subplot, The Returned Child might not be the right pick for you. Knowing that in advance can help you find the book that is. And I’m not surprised by the comment; I downplayed the romance by design while I was writing.
There are four books planned for the series, and in my mind, they are very much a love story. Just not a romantic one.
At the center is the love between two friends, Jenny and Allen. Two people who see each other, understand each other, and will do just about anything in their power to keep the other safe and happy. It’s a simple story, really, and its beginning is shown in flashback: boy meets girl. Albeit in a blood-soaked meadow ten years before the novel starts.
I worried that thread of friendship would be easy to lose in a wash of viscera.
A fair interpretation of Jenny and Allen is that their lives are intertwined because of an unthinkable tragedy. True, yes. But that isn’t the whole thing—or the main takeaway, if you will. And I didn’t want a center-stage romantic relationship to upstage their friendship. That relationship will be a driving force for the rest of the series, shaping both characters, their choices, and how the larger story unfolds.
Which is a long way of getting around to something I’ve been thinking about as I start planning Book Three: whether I should let a little more of the romance happen on-page as it develops. I don’t think that means changing what the series is about. There’s room, I think, for different kinds of love without one having to elbow the others out of the way.
And maybe that’s really what I’m interested in writing about anyway. Not romance specifically, but the people we continue to trace into ourselves: friends, lovers, family—sometimes even the ones already absent.
So, in closing, here are a few of my favorite lines from The Lost Season:
Oliver’s name is carved on Allen’s heart. With each beat, he feels an ache along the curve of the “O,” a throb along the lines of the “V.”
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