Three Rooms

Yesterday was Wednesday. The sky was blue, the kind that goes on and on and makes you think about eternity. It was two in the afternoon, and I could hear the mourning doves at the window as I had my breakfast earlier, but at that point in the day they had gone quiet again, the way they always do in the heat.

I had been at the desk since that morning with Eîra. She is eleven hundred and seventy-five years old, which is what she is when I am with her and what she is when I am not. She lives in a ruined library at the end of the world, alone, and she has been alone for so long that the silence in the library has become her companion. Her Papa made her, but now he is gone. Yet still, she was made to remember.

New Release: AN INDEX OF VANISHING - Part One: Now Available for ARC Read & Preorder

New Release

He Was Sent to Watch Her. He Never Expected Her to See Him.

AN INDEX OF VANISHING: PART ONE is available for ARC read and preorder.

---

I'm thrilled to finally share this one with you.

An Index of Vanishing: Part One is a slow-burn historical romance set in Tibet, 1938. It follows Matthias Krüger, an SD officer posted to a remote Himalayan monastery to observe the Reich's most classified asset. She reads Dostoevsky between rifle shots. She sings poetry on the high ridges at dawn. She can vanish into thin air. And she looks at him like she has already made up her mind about something he hasn't.

He does not stand a chance.

This is a story about obsession and longing and the cost of being seen. About a man sent to evaluate a weapon, and the girl who refused to be one. It's told entirely through the private journal Krüger was allowed to keep but never meant to fill with this.

If you love slow-burn tension, morally complicated characters, lush historical settings, and prose that lingers, this book was written for you.

Even if the Light Forgets | Out Today

My new novel, Even if the Light Forgets, is now available.

It is a fantasy romance about distance, remembrance, and the fragile ways light survives even when the world begins to dim.

You can get your copy here.

To everyone who read early copies during the ARC period: thank you. If you enjoyed the book, leaving a short review on Amazon will help other readers discover it.

I’m grateful for your time and attention.

~ Ys

something new

Years ago, some friends and I ran a small online publication for poetry. It was scrappy and informal and didn't last long, but I loved doing it; the reading, the selecting, the feeling of putting something out into the world that other people had trusted you with. I never quite stopped thinking about it.

I've been thinking for a long time about starting a literary magazine. Not because the world needs another one, but because I kept looking for a certain kind of home for fiction and couldn't quite find it. Somewhere without genre restrictions, without content restrictions, without pretension, where the only thing that mattered was whether the writing was good.

So, I built one.

It's called nachtljocht, which is Frisian for 'night light'. You know, the small one you leave on, the one you read by when you can't sleep.

When Fantasy Crosses Its Boundaries (Free Reads)

I’ve been invited to take part in a curated promotion featuring fantasy that moves beyond its own boundaries.

The books included are all rooted in fantasy, but each leans into something else. Some blend genres quietly. Others move toward more unusual or specific edges. The result is a collection of stories that feel slightly askew from what the genre usually allows.

All of the books in the promotion are available for free.

My upcoming novel Even if the Light Forgets is part of this selection.

If you’re interested in fantasy that bends rather than stays fixed, you can browse the full list here:

View the collection here.

How My Stories Begin

Stories, when they come to me, begin with a person.

Not a plot, and rarely a world. A character simply appears, sometimes only a vague figure at first, sometimes already vivid enough that I know how they move through a room or the tone of their voice when they speak. They usually arrive without explanation, and I rarely go looking for them.

Once they appear, they begin to gather details. A name comes first. Then a temperament, small habits, the kinds of things they notice and the kinds of things they avoid. Gradually they become more defined.

After that, I begin to wonder where they belong.