I gave up on fantasy in my late teens. Not because I stopped loving it, but because it stopped having any fun. Middle school fantasy was the peak: Adventures, epic worlds, and ride or die friends.
But in high school, it started shifting. Princesses weren’t out defeating evil queens and rescuing the prince, they were longing for an obvious loser or getting accosted in the woods. Plots and world building fell by the wayside to give more space to PINING and TRAUMA. Weren’t all these wild princesses supposed to be having bigger adventures now that they had more years of horseback riding and swordplay under their belts? Why was nobody having any fun kicking ass anymore? Steeling myself to scour my local library’s shelves for a new read became harder and harder.
One summer, totally frustrated, I wrote a novella: a heist, a castle. Shapeshifters, humans, and an ancient spell. No romance, no assault. Everything I wanted to read, and nothing I didn’t.
Freshman year, fantasy and I broke up. I resigned myself to the classics. At least Jane Austen didn’t take her characters too seriously.
When I needed my fantasy fix, I dug back into that novella. The adventures multiplied, the characters gained depth. I dropped all the YA tropes that have annoyed me since I was a young adult, and many years later, here we are. A new adult fantasy universe with shapeshifting spies, gods inspired by the Norse pantheon, and a punk rock soundtrack.
You’re welcome.
Allison Ringness 