Midnight Title Reveal? Midnight Title Reveal.

Happy Second Birthday, Harbingers 🖤

Character Art by hygromanteia

I’m not gonna lie, y’all — I wanted to start this newsletter months ago. Unfortunately, life happened. And then it happened again. And then it kept happening. 2023, for me, could only be captured in a timeless maxim, penned by one of the greatest Twitter accounts of all time, horse_ebooks:

That said, in a way, this was a blessing in disguise. Because what better day to kick off my very first author newsletter than the two year anniversary of where this all began: the birth of the Harbingers series.

December 28, 2021.

The day my life was forever changed. 

On the tail end of my annual winter break from the day job back in 2021, I found myself inspired. I’d been delving deep into the escapism that December, voraciously consuming tons of  story-driven content in video games like FINAL FANTASY XIV: Endwalker, as well as a number of novels. I found myself frustrated as one of my beloved fantasy romance series took a turn for the “meh,” and found myself thinking… 

I could do this better. 

Yeah. I’m a cocky little shit like that sometimes. I mean, if you’ve read my work — Kieran had to come from somewhere, y’all. 

But I had been a writer since birth — storytelling was in my blood. Trauma, depression, and unchecked autistic & ADHD burnout had stolen my ability to create for the sake of creation, though — it had taken away my ability to create for myself for a very, very long time. I found ways to channel my creativity into my day job instead, because that was productive. That was an acceptable use of my time. 

And then that fateful Tuesday rolled around, where the faintest flicker of an idea took hold. Glimmers of an angst-riddled love triangle, a dark prophecy, a second world fantasy filled to the brim with gods, monsters, secrets and elemental magick, a little sprinkle of BDSM — because gods, I had always wanted more honest, healthy kink representation in these fantasy realms I loved to escape in… 

Within days, that flicker became a wildfire. The main characters came to me overnight, introducing themselves with warm familiarity and immediately burrowed their way deep into my heart. And they began to whisper the beginnings of their story. 

Dramatic as it may be to suggest… I honestly felt like I was reborn over those frantic, frenetic days, glued to my godsdamned keyboard like a woman possessed. After years of repression, and being forced to fit a mold in order to survive, I’d managed to escape — and a few years of freedom had led up to this moment. It felt like I had finally, finally stepped into my truth: I was an author. And I had one hell of a story to tell. 

And that story begins with Harbingers Book One: Of Blood & Aether.

Because In Case You Missed It…

I finally revealed her true name! You know, the title… I had picked out since… Yeah. December 2021. Good gods, I’ve been sitting on this one for a while. You’ll have to forgive me for burying the lede pretty heavily here, but I simply had to wax poetic for a bit. This is a big moment for me. 

But yes, at long last, I can finally say: I’ll be making my debut as an author with Harbingers, Book One: Of Blood & Aether in Spring 2024.

Of Blood & Aether is the first in a six-book, multi-POV dark romantasy series: a saga of love and war and fate, and at its core — humanity. Book One, specifically, follows the story of these two bisexual disasters: Kieran Vistarii, and Arken Asher.

Character Art by kraplak-levitan.

I drew much of my initial inspiration for this series from the JRPGs & MMORPGs that I grew up on (World of Warcraft, FINAL FANTASY), the gacha I was painfully obsessed with for a hot minute (Genshin Impact), as well as a handful of series that had reignited my love of reading when the pandemic first struck — ACOTAR, The Witcher, and From Blood & Ash.

Fans of any of the above will likely find the sprinklings of all of that and more within my debut. I am the sum of every piece of fiction I’ve ever loved, after all. But I’ve never loved a story more than I love this one. 

And soon enough, OB&A will be out in the world. 

Somebody fucking pinch me. It’s happening. It’s actually happening. 

Through Two Years of Blood, Sweat & Tears

A common response I get from friends when I tell them I’ve been working on this series for two years & counting now is “oh my god, I could never.”  To be fair, a bitch has ADHD, so I also could never… until somehow, I could. Until this story grabbed me by the throat and absolutely refused to let go. I remember my therapist warning me in those first couple months, “Now, Harper, before you get lost in delusions of grandeur here, let’s remember that your average hyper-fixation lasts about three months…”

That’s heavily paraphrased, mind you — but I remember being so, so afraid that this creative burst would be transient. Yet another hobby that I picked up and later inevitably left to gather dust in my closet. 

Spoilers, dear reader: It lasted longer than three months. 

I did write the first draft in about three months. Poked and prodded at it, had a couple alpha readers — aka close friends of mine — take a look and got some very valid feedback that I was trying to force too much story into one book. Though I had originally intended for Harbingers to be a duology, or perhaps a trilogy, when I sat down to re-examine Book One, things began to expand beyond my wildest dreams. Another three or four months in, I had a new draft, one that focused solely on the relationship building between Arken & Kieran… and my alphas confirmed: Yeah. This is it. This is the one. 

I took a couple weeks off here and there, even went a couple months without touching it. And so much of that first year was spent on me just… figuring my shit out. Learning my own process, learning how to actually write a book. I’d never been taught, hadn’t taken any creative writing classes since high school at best. I hadn’t found my writing communities yet — I wasn’t even on Writing Twitter until December of 2022. Yet another December that changed my life, though.

For better or for worse, I owe a great deal to Writing Twitter. It’s how I met my best friends, my girlfriend, my beta readers. It’s how I found my people, my communities, my home. Though that site has gone to hell in a handbasket, I will forever be grateful for my time there. 

Because the journey continued in February of 2023. I was on something like the third or fourth draft of Book One, and all my research suggested it was time to seek out beta readers. As a baby author who admittedly didn’t really know any better at the time, I decided to just… put a blast out on Twitter with a mood board and some vibes to gauge interest, and was subsequently floored by the response.

I think I ultimately ended up with about 15 total beta readers, some of whomst were total strangers at the time. In retrospect, I can’t say I would take that risk again with such deeply personal work — but godsdamn, did I luck out. I had an incredible pool of kind and trustworthy betas, and the volume of support, hype and thoughtful critique I was given left me in shambles for weeks. People made memes about my book. They (very lovingly) threatened my life over the ending. Weeks later, they told me they were still thinking about my book. A couple people told me they’d dreamed about Harbies.  Y’all, I was a fucking wreck, an absolute mess of emotions… 

And once I’d resurfaced from the waves of shock over the overwhelmingly positive feedback, that’s when I realized that I could do the damn thing. That’s when I knew Of Blood & Aether would be published someday.

But It Takes a Village…

While there are so, so many people that I want to recognize as my personal heroes, my guiding stars of this strange and beautiful journey, I’m going to have to save that for the acknowledgments. This shit is getting long, and honestly, if you’ve made it this far, I commend you. Still, it would be remiss of me not to call this out:

I would be nowhere without my support system. My friends, my critique partners, my editor, my found family, and all the queer little freaks (affectionate) who live on my phone: I love you all endlessly. If you’ve offered me an ounce of hype or encouragement over these last two years, know that you played a part in this. An integral part, really. 

In future newsletters, you can expect more from me than just sentimental drabbles, I swear — I’ll be sharing more news about the Harbingers series (and my other projects!), playlists, recent reads, features of fellow indies I admire, and whatever else seems to strike my fancy. 

If you’re not already, be sure to follow me across social media for even more unhinged, Harper Hawthorne-certified stream of consciousness nonsense. I am basically @harperhawthorne everywhere I go, but you can find links below, too.
 

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