Jezelle: Thief of Forks is here!

Today, Jezelle: Thief of Forks steps into the world.

This book has lived with me for a long time (writing began in early March of last year, so over a year ago), and today I finally get to place it into the world.

Jezelle began for me with an image I could not shake: a father holding his daughter’s hand and leading her toward a terrible fate. There was something in that moment that struck me deeply. Not as an idea for a story, but as something painful and true. I knew there was something there I had to follow.

What I found was a story with real hurt. Real loss. There were moments in writing this book that brought tears to my eyes, and I do not say that to be dramatic. Jezelle goes through darkness in this story. She is tested hard. Again and again, she is brought to the edge of a person’s endurance.

And yet she keeps going.

I think that is what fascinated me most about her, and perhaps what I needed most from her as well. This book asks a hard question: how much can a person suffer before they break? And if they survive, what remains of them on the other side? Would they still want to go on? Where is the moment when it’s enough?

I do not know that I have a perfect answer to any of that. I am not even sure there is one. But I do know this: one of the deepest truths in Jezelle’s story is that things can always get worse, and you can still rise. The worse I made things for her, the harder she fought, and I grew to really admire her character.

That matters to me more than I can easily explain.

In some way, I think that is part of why I had to write this book. Not because my life is hers, or hers is mine, but because I understand something about the shape of that struggle. The feeling of staring into something bleak and continuing anyway. The choice to keep moving, keep building, keep believing, even when hope feels thin.

By the end of this book, there is an image of Jezelle that stays with me more than any other: high above the grim city, no longer just a victim of it, no longer only hunted, but transformed. Fierce. Stealthy. Almost like a panther above the rooftops. Scarred, sharpened, and still standing–the image above captures that perfectly.

I love that image because it feels like more than an image. It feels like strength, like perseverance, like hope.

This was not an easy book to write. It took a great deal of editing, rethinking, and soul-searching before it became what it is now. It took great disappointment and tough criticism to sculpt it from the mud. Along the way, I was helped by people whose wisdom mattered enormously to me, and I am deeply grateful for that. No book arrives alone.

So today I mostly feel thankful.

Thankful to those who have supported me and my work. Thankful to those who have encouraged me along the way. Thankful for those who were blunt. Thankful that after all the struggle it took to get here, Jezelle’s story has finally reached its day.

This is dark fantasy, yes, and darker than much of my earlier work. At times, it goes nearly black. But I think that darkness serves a purpose. It makes the light shine more clearly. It reveals what is human. It reminds us that endurance, tenderness, and will can still exist even in hard and broken places.

To me, this book is more than entertainment. It is fantasy, but it is grounded in something real. The magic is light enough, believable enough, that I hope it feels less like escape and more like something human wearing the clothes of myth.

Jezelle’s story does not end here. It continues into the Absolution of the Morning Star series, where her role becomes vital, especially in the next two books. But this is where she begins. And beginnings matter.

Jezelle: Thief of Forks is available now in both ebook and paperback, and is free on Kindle Unlimited.

Cheers!

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