Overall, there are definitely particular themes in almost everything I’ve written: strong female friendships, found families, kindness and empathy and a refusal to let the world turn you mean, a love for nature and foraging, a strong belief in forgiveness.
NOW LET’S GET INTO SOME DETAILS!
The Hawk: A Slow River Novel
Genres: Fiction, Romance, Historical, Western
A woman running a brothel in the dying days of the wild west struggles to choose between the short and brutal—but known—life her mother chose for them and wanting an unknowable future for herself.
We’ve got troubled childhoods, we’ve got sex, we’ve got murder, we’ve got foraging and herbalism, we have swearing in Welsh, we’ve got women who are complicated and the men who are too!
RIYL: Las Leonas, Hell’s Eight, Red Dead Redemption Fan Fiction
Ruby: A Slow River Novel
Genres: Fiction, Romance, Historical
In this prequel to The Hawk, a young widow rescues the Clint Jackson gang from a blizzard, and over the course of a few short days, her trajectory—and theirs—are irrevocably altered.
This one is a lot lighter, much more a straightforward romance where our protagonist has to choose between the man who is up front with his feelings—and that he isn’t looking for a relationship—or the man who takes care of her but can’t seem to spit out how he feels. Don’t worry though, there’s still a handful of murders in there, some 1880s frontier medicine, a failed suicide attempt and at least one concussion.
For fans of Yellowstone who want something historical and not racist!
We also have two sequels to The Hawk in the works: one far less romantic, tracing what happened to a woman from Callie’s past she long thought dead called Ana, and the other answering the question of what happened to the rest of Clint’s gang at the end of The Hawk. Both have plenty of queer subtext and actual queer relationships (listen I contain multitudes, okay?) and codeswitching and arsenic poisoning and brain damage.
Ana is great if you liked Passing but kind of wish the two protagonists stalked each other.
The other is great if you wish everyone in Blazing Saddles dated each other, or that the L Word somehow took place in the west.
Seilie Prince Or; Little Gifts
Genre: Romantasy, Romance, Fantasy
In this twist on Snow White, a young woman incapacitated by her empathy searches for answers to who abandoned her at an orphanage—and why she can read animals’ thoughts.
I know, I KNOW, it’s kind of played out, but I really love this book. I mean, I love all my children books, but this one was really heavily inspired by Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams in terms of tone and style, it’s partially epistolary because I love them (The Watchmen graphic novel will always be the best at it) and if you look not even that carefully you will recognize several characters from Baldur’s Gate III in the fray.
Kendra Long 