Welcome to the Damned follows three members of a group known as the Aconites as they navigate a crumbling society, fighting both external enemies and their own demons. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

As a reader, I was inspired by morally gray books such as Six of Crows and These Violent Delights. As a creator, I drew from some of my own personal experiences from the mental health aspect. I’ve always found gray characters super interesting, with a lot of room to explore where they’d draw the line dividing what they are willing to do to achieve their goals and what they are not. Especially when the world is complicated and not so black-and-white, I love poring over how characters are driven to betraying themselves and their friends, to discovering the ugly parts of themselves, and to learning how to live with it, all due to external events outside of their control. At the same time, these types of stories, when well-written, can make readers root for these imperfect or even despicable characters. This is what I love about dark fiction, and I hope my story has the same impact on my readers.    

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?

At first, the setting was more like a prediction of our future on Earth if we fail to combat climate change, and the initial draft had very little sci-fi elements. As I was rewriting the story, however, I thought it would be a lot more interesting in a cyberpunk setting. That opened up a lot more possibilities for technology within the world, which played a part in progressing the story and character developments. Now, the novel’s setting is very similar to the Arcane series, which is very exciting to watch and imagine my own characters living in that world.

What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?

Despite all the worldbuilding and plot twists, I was most focused on each individual character’s journey with their mental health struggles, and the relationship difficulties that come with it. Before I even decided to publish this story, I only intended to write it for my high school friends, who had their own demons to deal with alongside exams and extracurriculars, as did I. I wanted to tell them a story of survivors, leaning on each other in an unconventional family, and they all end up okay. The sequel will go more into each character’s healing while the first one showed all the messy and awful parts of their struggles, because none of us were immune to mistakes and hurting people we care about, but we all hoped to be better someday. 

Can you tell us what the second book will be about and when it will be available for fans to purchase?

 The second book will follow the same characters a couple months after Zero’s secret was revealed and Tal left the Aconites. Tal is now on a personal mission, Rovis of course wants to find him, and Zero lives with the consequences of her betrayals. They each have something to search for, but the government’s experiments don’t stop for their individual crises. Will they resolve their differences and come back together as family, or will one of them fall victim to the experiments before they reach closure? Readers will find out in May 2025 with the sequel’s release, and the title will be revealed soon. 

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