Blog Archives
Mariella
Mariella, by Jonathan Kind, is a Gothic novel set in late Georgian Britain, following Mariella Vangard after a violent supernatural attack leaves her family ruined, orphaned, and dependent on reluctant relatives. What begins as a story of sisters trying to survive poverty and scandal soon widens into a darker tale of vampires, ambition, marriage, betrayal, and moral decay. At the center is Mariella herself, a woman who is not simply haunted by evil but increasingly drawn toward it.
I liked how patiently the book lets its darkness gather. Kind leans into the pleasures of the Gothic genre: ruined churches, moonlit roads, locked rooms, family secrets, and danger that feels both physical and emotional. The atmosphere is rich without becoming too heavy, and the historical setting gives the horror a sharper edge. These characters live in a world where women have few good choices, where reputation can be a prison, and where money is often as frightening as any monster. That makes Mariella’s choices more interesting, even when I found myself recoiling from them.
I also appreciated that Mariella isn’t softened too much for the reader. She can be clever, wounded, practical, selfish, and chilling, sometimes all within the same stretch of story. That makes her difficult company, but never dull company. The novel is candid about hunger, not just for blood, but for security, status, control, and escape. The plot moves with the sweep of a melodrama, full of reversals and heightened emotion, but it feels right for a Gothic novel. It has that candlelit sense that every desire has a cost, and sooner or later the bill will be brought to the door.
I recommend Mariella to readers who enjoy Gothic fiction with strong historical texture, morally complicated women, family drama, and vampire horror that is more seductive and tragic than purely gruesome. It’s not a cozy read, and it doesn’t offer an easy heroine to cheer for. But for readers who like their Gothic novels stormy, strange, and emotionally tangled, this one has a strong pull.
Pages: 328 | ASIN : B0FKYDCHDS
The Seeker
The Seeker, by SJ Snel, is a medieval historical fantasy and the first book in The Hidden Truths Saga. It follows Deanda, a young silk weaver in 1203 Constantinople whose gift for revealing hidden truths places her in danger when politics, prophecy, faith, and war collide. After a vision tied to the Fourth Crusade, she is pulled from the fragile safety of her life and sent on a journey toward England, where her gift becomes entangled with King John, Sir Richard, and the brutal power games of the age.
I liked how the book treats truth as both sacred and dangerous. Deanda’s gift sounds simple at first, almost fairy-tale-like, but Snel makes it feel heavy. Every answer she gives has a cost. I liked that tension. The story is not just about seeing the truth, but about deciding when truth helps, when it harms, and who gets to use it. Deanda can be trusting to the point of frustration, yet that innocence also makes sense. She has been raised to believe in duty, faith, and obedience, and watching those beliefs get tested gives the novel much of its emotional weight.
Snel’s writing is rich and visual, especially in the Constantinople scenes. You can feel the heat, smell the incense, see the silk strips moving in the branches of the Judas tree. The prose leans into description, and some moments might feel slower for readers who prefer a leaner pace. Still, I found the detail useful because this is a historical fantasy that wants the past to feel lived in. The author also makes a bold choice by mixing real medieval figures and political events with Deanda’s supernatural ability. That blend gives the book its spark. It’s grounded in history, but there is always this shimmer of the uncanny just beneath the surface.
I recommend The Seeker to readers who enjoy historical fiction with a mystical edge, especially stories set in the medieval world where faith, power, and personal conscience are all fighting for space. It will appeal to fans who like a patient, character-driven journey. If you enjoy books about women with unusual gifts trying to survive in dangerous times, this one has a clear pull. It’s thoughtful, dramatic, and sincere, with enough unanswered tension to make the next book feel worth seeking out.
Pages: 449 | ASIN : B0DY61GYZ3
Two Worldviews
Runebound follows a noble girl born under a fiery omen and pulled between Christian courtly duty and the older Slavic powers her family has tried to bury. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
The inspiration came from my fascination with the borderlands of medieval Northern and Eastern Europe, where Christianity, older pagan traditions, and dynastic politics all overlapped in uneasy ways. I was especially drawn to the tension between public duty and private belief, the difficult choices my characters had to make to survive, the power dynamics within the Empire, and the idea of having the courage to move against the current. The fiery omen was my way of giving that conflict a mythic edge from the start: a sign that Milena’s arrival is going to shake things up, and that her life is tied to both danger and destiny. The appearance of the Elder Futhark rune Berkana was also meaningful, since it connects to Mecklenburg’s older Germanic past before the Slavic expansion, and adds another layer of historical and symbolic resonance.
The tension between Christianity and older belief systems is central. What interested you most about that conflict?
It was the emotional pressure that comes from living between two worldviews, the sacrifices one must make, and the power dynamics that emerge in that kind of setting. Faith shapes family expectations, political alliances, daily rituals, and even how people understand fate, but a person can still feel the pull of their heritage and ancestral beliefs. That clash creates not only conflict, but an opportunity for transformation.
Milena’s journey is emotional, spiritual, and physical. How did you balance her agency with the sense that something larger is guiding her?
I wanted Milena to feel like she is making real choices as a young woman trying to find her true calling, even while something larger is guiding her. She is able to discern who she is from who others want her to be and withstand peer pressure. My goal was to make her agency matter in a world ruled by duty and obligation. Her courage, her doubts, and her decisions are what make the story more human to me, because so much of life is exactly that balance between personal choice and the forces beyond our control.
Where does the story go in the next book, and where do you see it going in the future?
The next book, Wayfare, is already in the works, and it pushes Milena into an even more uncertain and dangerous stage of her journey. The choices she made in Runebound have consequences, and she has to face not only outside threats but also the deeper cost of becoming who she is meant to be. She will find and bond with the next rune, which will further sharpen her awareness and bring new abilities, and several interesting characters will be introduced. I am anticipating a June 2027 release. As for the future of the series, I am only gradually shown glimpses of it as the story unfolds.
Author Links: GoodReads | Website | Amazon
Born into a Christian court that has abandoned the old gods in favor of the Church and promised to a Saxon noble to secure her father’s rule, she is expected to submit without question, even as the remnants of the pagan North still breathe beneath the surface.
Haunted by prophetic dreams and guided by intuition, Milena receives a rune long destined to find her. Its ancient power awakens something within her that does not belong to the world she knows.
When Norse traders arrive to barter with her father, she is introduced to another way of being and encounters a young warrior who becomes a threat to everything her father has built on buried grief, shame, and regret.
To choose her own path means betraying her family, her faith, and the fragile order that holds her world together.
And once she begins, there will be no turning back.
Runebound is a richly grounded historical fantasy with a thread of romantic tension, set in the twelfth century, where the old gods endure in the shadow of the rising Cross. It’s a tale of love, destiny, forbidden belief, and awakening power for readers drawn to mythic, folkloric stories in the tradition of The Bear and the Nightingale and Uprooted.
Essential Human Longings
Valor, Book Two, follows a young woman of Druidic blood who flees her past and confronts prophecy, peril, and the awakening of her own fierce magic as she steps into a destiny shaped by sacrifice, love, and rebirth. What ideas did you want to introduce in this book that were different from Book One?
In Book One, Sacrifice, Ena—also known as Catherine—is a young woman caught between duty and desire, shaped by the rigid expectations of noble birth and Christian decorum. Her understanding of herself is narrow, inherited, and heavily prescribed. She moves through the world reacting to forces around her.
In Valor, I wanted to explore what happens when that same young woman chooses to step outside every boundary that once defined her. This book shifts the tone from repression to autonomy. Ena sheds the identity that never fit and takes responsibility for forging her own path, even when that path is treacherous, lonely, or morally complex.
So the new ideas I wanted to bring forward are rooted in personal sovereignty; claiming one’s freedom, and experiencing the profound, often painful unfolding of selfhood. Valor is more about becoming. It’s the story of a woman who confronts both the darkness behind her and the light rising within her, and discovers the courage required to inhabit her true self.
The book balances sudden bursts of violence or magic with quiet, sacred moments; how did you approach crafting that rhythm in your storytelling?
Crafting is an interesting term here. Because these quiet pauses that occur—mostly after some intense rising action—occur more organically than by any attention to planning. After scenes filled with danger, magic, or emotional upheaval, both the reader and I need a breath! I write from inside the characters’ bodies, minds, and hearts, so those quieter moments feel instinctive—almost like a spiritual exhale. They become sacred spaces within the narrative where meaning can settle, and where transformation can take root.
Mysticism and dreamlike imagery play a strong role in the book’s atmosphere. What mythologies or symbolic traditions influenced your vision for this world?
That’s a great question!
For most of my life, I’ve been fascinated by the worlds that existed before organized doctrine—mythology, symbolism, and forgotten religions, especially the Druidic traditions. Valor draws heavily from years of exploring these ideas. One major influence for this book is Hermeticism, attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, a figure who bridges Greek and Egyptian wisdom traditions. The Hermetic axiom “as above, so below,” and its counterpart “as within, so without,” form a subtle backbone in the series.
Other contributing traditions include the I Ching, Vedic wisdom, and Christian mysticism. On the surface, readers will see the conflict between paganism and the rising Holy Roman Church. But beneath that lies a deeper theme: that across cultures, religions, and mythologies, we share the same essential human longings—to understand ourselves, to find meaning, to feel love, and to experience the sacred.
What can readers expect in Book Three of The Evensong Enchantments series?
Well, lots more magic! In Book Three, Truth, Ena’s gifts continue to evolve and ultimately reach their apex. The stakes intensify when a powerful bishop sets his sights on her young son—heir to the throne—for his own personal and spiritual ambitions. This threat strikes at the core of Ena’s beliefs and forces her into a battle on multiple fronts: political, mystical, and deeply personal.
The narrative carries readers to some of the most evocative settings in medieval Europe, including the sacred crypt beneath Chartres Cathedral and the enchanted Valley of No Return within Brittany’s magical Forest of Broceliande.
Truth blends gritty medieval reality with liminal, mythic spaces where Druidic magic, Celtic lore, and Christian dogma collide. Ultimately, Ena must rely on her heritage, her allies, and her awakening powers to secure her son’s destiny and usher in a new era grounded in enlightenment, understanding, and true fellowship.
Author Links: GoodReads | X (Twitter) | Facebook | Website | Amazon
Escape to the Middle Ages with the fierce heroine of this series, as her inherited gifts come to life on a perilous journey to the Middle East.
In distant lands, Ena must confront her darkest shadows to face an ancient force that still covets her powers, while Philip, now king of the Franks, struggles with the weight of his new regime—and his undying love for her—as the First Crusade threatens to consume them both.
As her path intertwines with Bernard Ato, the enigmatic Viscount of Nîmes, his loyalty to the Church and the campaign of the Holy War is a harsh reminder of Philip’s vexing blind faith. Will Ena’s growing attraction to Bernard hinder her journey—or ignite her purpose as an instrument of the Divine Feminine?
For those who love magical realism, profound romance, and historical fiction, Valor is a must-read. If you are captivated by enchanting worlds and gripping medieval tales, you will not be able to put down this riveting blend of history, chivalry, romance, and fantasy.
Buy your copy today and be swept away in the immersive world of Valor, Book Two of The Evensong Enchantments.
Elemental Magic
Sacred Sites
The First Crusade
Slow-burn Romance
Druidic Prophecy
Strong Heroine
Potential Triggers: killing, death, war, violence, trauma, loss and grief, famine and plague, attempted rape, demonic possession, religious persecution, graphic childbirth, near death experience.
Spice level = 1 out of 5 (no smut)
Parents: This book is suitable for ADULTS ONLY.
Boy of Heaven
Boy of Heaven, by Morris Hoffman, tells the story of an orphan boy in 17th-century Milan who discovers a fading mural, Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper, hidden in what has become the stables of a Dominican priory. As the boy labors among horses, he has named after constellations; he alone sees the painting’s slow return to clarity. What unfolds is a lyrical meditation on suffering, faith, grief, and vision. Hoffman’s novel blends historical fiction with a mystical edge, threading deep emotion through a richly imagined world.
Reading this book pulled something quiet but insistent from me. Hoffman’s writing is unusual, almost liturgical in rhythm. It doesn’t always make for an easy read, but it makes for a rewarding one. There were passages I reread just to feel them again. The boy’s interior world is raw and lonely, but never melodramatic. There’s very little action in the conventional sense. Instead, the story unfolds through daily labor, small kindnesses, and sacred echoes. And yet, I found myself emotionally swept up in the boy’s grief for a horse, his awe at a fresco, his quiet yearning to be seen.
I feel the book drifts at times. There were sections where the pace slowed, where there were long descriptions of the priory or repeated imagery. Everything is so reverent. Still, what the book lacks in momentum, it makes up for in heart. The blend of the sacred and the mundane, the way the horses become mythic, the mystery of the fresco, that’s where it shines. It doesn’t explain itself, and that made it feel more honest and more relatable.
Boy of Heaven isn’t just about art or faith or even memory. It’s about seeing what others miss and holding on to what shouldn’t be forgotten. It’s a quiet book, but it left a loud feeling. I’d recommend it to anyone who loves poetic writing, historical fiction with a spiritual bend, or stories where nothing much happens on the outside but everything changes on the inside. This is not a book to speed through. It’s one to sit with, one to cherish in silence.
Pages: 90 | ASIN : B0F7C4BSRP
Vampires Are Our Friends
Immortal Gifts follows a centuries-old Jewish vampire on the run from an antisemite trying to make him permanently dead, who falls in love with a mortal woman in the twenty-first century. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
The original concept was a one-time challenge with my writing group: “The vampire has a wife. Set the story in the last five years.” Several people submitted wildly different stories. Mine turned into Immortal Gifts.
I’m a Pantser, and it’s a normal part of my process to reread what I’ve written and extract subtext. Early on, I started to feel that the character was Jewish. That was interesting, so I went with it.
A lot of Abraham’s early biographical details (date and place of birth and desire to study at an academy that does not allow Jews) came from the life of Jewish composer Louis Lewandowski. Obviously, Abraham is not Lewandowski! But Lewandowski ended up being the first Jewish student at the Berlin Academy. Lewandowski was admitted as a favor to his friend, Felix Mendelssohn. Abraham, not having a Mendelssohn, lied.
Abraham is not the typical vampire often found in paranormal books; he offers readers a human perspective on supernatural beings and explores how immortality affects who they are. What were some of the emotional and moral guidelines you followed when developing your characters?
I was primarily interested in the concept of immortality in choosing vampires. It’s true that my vampires have the no-food and sunlight issues, but that was primarily so the reader wouldn’t immediately say “Immortality? Sign me up!” 🙂
Aside from that, I wanted my vampires to be very grounded in reality. Vampires are always people—that’s one of the things that makes them fun to me—but I wanted them to be very much the person they always were. If someone is a good person, eternal life in itself won’t change that. If someone is a bad person, immortality won’t change that, either. In other words: it’s your choices and actions, not the length of your life, that determines your moral alignment.
Early on the question of consent started coming up. Turning someone without asking permission first is, at the very least, a faux pas. When is it justified? Is it okay to turn someone without their consent to save their life if they haven’t offered an opinion? When is it okay to make someone’s medical decisions for them? Because that’s what it is in my book: a miracle cure for almost any ailment that also has significant drawbacks.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
Mortality. Grief. Consent. Resilience in the face of oppression.
At one point I was describing the book to my sister and told her, “Don’t be afraid of the vampires. Vampires are our friends. You know what’s not our friends? The natural processes by which our loved ones get sick and die. Those are horrifying.” (Our parents are both dead, by the way.)
Will there be a follow-up novel to this story? If so, what aspects of the story will the next book cover?
I’m working on the second book, and we’re still talking about mortality (and gifts). We did leave off with a couple of characters in uncertain situations and had a reveal about a third.
A lot of Immortal Gifts was written during the pandemic and has a lot of pandemic-feeling isolation. The second book is shaping up to be more… sociable.
Author Links: GoodReads | Facebook | Website | Amazon
Prussia, 1841. Abraham only ever wanted to play violin. Hiding his Jewish status so he can study at the prestigious Berlin Academy of Music, the eager young man is delighted to find a patron who believes in him. But he’s mortified when his new friend turns him into a vampire… and Abraham earns the fury of an ancient antisemite who vows to see him permanently dead.
Fleeing the hate-mongering fiend across the decades, the sensitive violinist at last settles in twenty-first-century New Jersey with a mortal woman. But when he discovers his relentless tormentor has tracked him down yet again, Abraham despairs he’ll never find true happiness.
With everyone he’s ever loved at risk, can he escape the rage of a ruthless bigot?
In a complex tale woven through history, Katherine Villyard delivers a fresh and insightful twist on the vampire novel. Infusing the narrative with profound themes of love, betrayal, and the nature of monsters, she crafts an unforgettable saga of surviving prejudice that will keep readers turning pages deep into the night.
Immortal Gifts is the thoughtful first book in the Immortal Vampires contemporary fantasy series. If you like well-drawn characters, dual-timeline storytelling, and pulse-pounding suspense, then you’ll adore Katherine Villyard’s compelling read.
Buy Immortal Gifts to tap a vein of devotion today!
Immortal Gifts
Katherine Villyard’s Immortal Gifts is a tender, layered, and unexpectedly intimate vampire novel that defies the genre’s usual brooding tropes. Instead of sleek, soulless predators, we meet Abraham, a centuries-old vampire who finds comfort not in shadows and bloodlust but in love, cats, and quiet domesticity. His relationship with his human wife, Destiny—a Wiccan veterinarian with a bleeding heart and a sharp wit—forms the emotional center of the book. Through alternating perspectives, we get a story that weaves deep questions about mortality, belief, identity, and love into a slice-of-life narrative where vampire myth meets real-world heartbreak and healing.
The writing is deceptively simple, yet emotionally precise. Abraham’s melancholy charm and Destiny’s fierce warmth play off each other perfectly. The prose flows easily but is filled with poignant moments that sneak up on you. There’s a real sense of lived-in love here, of two souls—one eternal, one ephemeral—trying to bridge an impossible gap. Villyard never glamorizes the vampire life; instead, she shows its weight. The grief Abraham carries for every lost pet, every lost love, feels real. I actually teared up more than once, especially during the sections with Victoria, their aging cat. That mix of supernatural elements with such grounded, human sorrow hit me hard. It’s rare to see a fantasy book so in tune with real emotional textures.
What I appreciated most, though, was how Immortal Gifts manages to be funny and soft even when it’s tackling grief, anti-Semitism, or ethical dilemmas around immortality. The characters talk like real people—awkward, earnest, sometimes ridiculous. There’s no need for purple prose here; the dialogue and emotional beats do all the heavy lifting. And can we talk about the Jewish and Wiccan interfaith wedding ceremony? It was weird, beautiful, and oddly hilarious. I was grinning one minute and choked up the next. Ludwig’s historical flashbacks were chilling, especially his origin story, but they gave the book depth and darkness without overwhelming it. Villyard handles historical trauma with care, and that care is felt.
Immortal Gifts is for people who’ve loved and lost, who find meaning in small rituals and shared quiet. If you’ve ever bottle-fed a kitten at 2 a.m. or struggled to hold it together at the vet, this book will feel like home. It’s for the weird, the tender-hearted, the spiritually curious. For those of us who like our love stories with equal parts warmth and weight, this book is a gift.
Pages: 414 | ASIN : B0DM9YKV2F
How Myths Form
The Borealis Queen follows a resilient young woman marked by a mysterious prophecy who embarks on a perilous journey that intertwines survival, destiny, and the forging of unexpected bonds. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
The setup came from wanting to tell a story that felt ancient but emotionally intimate; something that would resonate across time. I was drawn to the idea of a young girl facing the collapse of everything she knows and being forced to survive, not because she’s chosen, but because she’s clever, resourceful, and refuses to break. The prophecy element isn’t about fate in the traditional sense: it’s more about how people interpret strength, especially when it threatens the established order. (A future installment—told as a prequel—will reveal the true origin of the prophecy.)
I wanted to explore how myths form around ordinary people who do extraordinary things. Nin’s journey is perilous, yes, but at its heart, it’s about a girl learning who she is in a world that tries to define her. The bonds she forms (with animals, with her memories, even with silence) came from my belief that survival isn’t just physical. It’s also emotional. And sometimes, it’s the unexpected relationships, even with wild creatures, that save us.
I find the world you created in this novel brimming with possibilities. Where did the inspiration for the setting come from and how did it change as you were writing?
The inspiration for the setting of The Borealis Queen came from a mix of bedtime storytelling, my fascination with prehistory, and a desire to build a world that feels both ancient and mythic—but still grounded in nature and human emotion. I used to tell stories to my kids at night, creating episodes on the fly, and over time, these tales evolved into the foundation of this world. I wanted a setting that didn’t rely on magic or modern tropes, but still felt epic, dangerous, and full of wonder.
The Ice Age gave me that—a time when humans lived closer to the edge when survival depended on wits, instincts, and bonds with animals. The world itself became a character. As I wrote, the setting changed from a backdrop into something almost primal. The wilderness sharpened Nin’s growth, and the creatures—like the Urbaraks and Shadow—took on symbolic weight. It started as a harsh world, but over time, I began to see its beauty and subtle order, just as Nin does. That shift really deepened the emotional core of the story.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
ANSWER: I wanted to explore what happens when a person is pushed to the brink—how survival, identity, and resilience take shape in a world that feels hostile, ancient, and raw. One of the most important themes for me was the power of connection—not just between people, but between humans and nature, especially the bond between Nin and the animals she encounters. I was also interested in legacy and mythmaking: how stories about a person can become larger than life, and how that shapes not only how others see them but how they see themselves. Another key theme is agency—Nin is not waiting to be rescued or chosen. She’s crafting her path, sometimes painfully, sometimes defiantly, in a world that would rather crush her than acknowledge her power.
Is this the first book in the series? If so, when is the next book coming out, and what can your fans expect in the next story?
I’m already writing the sequel. The theme is actually hinted at in the final paragraph of Chapter 24, at the end of the book:
‘Word of the tale of the girl slave adorned with beautiful marks on her skin, who rose to become a queen, spread like the fastest birds, soaring across the land and beyond. It traveled all the way to the distant Australis lands, where it caught the attention of an ambitious young king, driven by dreams of world domination…’
That final line opens the door to a larger world and deeper conflicts. It shifts the story from one girl’s survival and rises to something even more expansive—how her legend begins to echo far beyond her homeland, drawing the attention of powers she doesn’t even know exist yet. The theme of how myth and reputation can reshape history is something I’m really excited to keep exploring.
I expect to finish it by early next year. The sequel builds on everything that came before, but with a much wider lens: new lands, new rulers, and greater threats. It explores how one girl’s rise can spark fear, admiration, and ambition across distant lands. I’m enjoying the challenge of expanding the scope while staying true to the emotional core of the first book.
Author Links: GoodReads | Website | Amazon
For readers of Brandon Sanderson and Clan of the Cave Bear—this is not the fantasy of knights and castles, but of raw survival, ancient beasts, and a legend forged in snow and blood.
She was never meant to survive. Nin is the last of her people—captured, scarred, and dragged across the frozen wilds by brutal enemies. But in a land where beasts are dreaded and winter never forgives, she discovers that survival is more than endurance—it’s transformation.
With nothing but a sling, her instincts, and the loyalty of a mysterious saber-toothed Smilodon, Nin must carve a path through ice, blood, and betrayal. As legends rise and clans clash, she becomes more than a girl on the run—she becomes the storm they cannot contain.
The Borealis Queen is a sweeping Ice Age survival fantasy about resilience, instinct, and the powerful bonds between humans and the wild. Perfect for fans of character-driven epics, elemental worldbuilding, and heroines who don’t just fight—but endure.
If you’re seeking a bold, action-packed epic fantasy with emotional depth and cinematic storytelling, this is the adventure you’ve been waiting for.
