
Let’s Talk About Love
Since it’s Valentine’s day, what better moment to talk a bit about love, romance, and how it all fits in the universe of the Eternal Stones.

The first challenge, when you publish a book, is to give the right idea to the potential readers, so that they will know what they are getting themselves into and also to keep their attention long enough to continue reading – or even open the book and take a look at the first page.
And as much as one could be open minded, there are always signs and personal biases that play a role when choosing a book to read.
If you look at my book, Flower of Light, and the pretty girl on the cover, then consider that the author is a woman, and are aware of the recent trends in fantasy, it’s very likely that you might think, is this a romance?
The straight answer is: no.
This is a classic epic fantasy, with all the elements of the genre, and also a bit of SFW romance, more in the “romantic true love of the legends” sense and less in the contemporary smut fan service kind of thing.
There is a difference between a Fantasy story with romance in it, and a Romance in a Fantasy setting. And I hope my readers will understand that.
But Love, in the Flower of Light, is not just a thing that happens between characters, is also one of the founding principles of Creation. The Love stone is one of the first we encounter in the story, associated with the Fire element, opposite to the Hate stone. Love is a force that drives Life, because Love generates new Life, it keeps the blood flowing, the legacy surviving. It’s a generational thing, not just a “recreational” thing. Even the characters that see love as “having fun”, will learn at their own expense how much that fire can burn.
And again. This is not the main and not the only theme connected to the stones, and I hope you’ll stick with me and discover much more of the lore.
But today, since it’s Valentine’s day, I wanted to talk about the love stories specifically (yes it’s plural because I have many characters and those characters will have to get their own families at some point, it’s not just the protagonists, everyone has a life), and I wanted to share a few teasers of some romantic scenes, so you’ll also have an idea of the level of romance we are talking about – which is pretty mild, and even when something spicy happens, it’s all fade-to-black, because I wanted to keep the story suited for all ages.
I know what sells, but I didn’t want to change the rating of the book just to make quick bucks, and I even sacrificed some things that I’d have liked to add just to keep it clean and not too mushy. And also I didn’t want to automatically exclude a whole section of readers because of that.
Thus said, I now declare my books safe to read for a male audience that doesn’t like romance too much – I had some feedback to confirm this, and also my husband/editor/lore master doesn’t care about romance stuff and he’s always pestering me about that, so rest assured I put a lot of effort into making the story appealing for a vast and variegated audience.
And now, let’s get to the teasers 😀
The first two are from book 1 – Flower of Light – I hid the characters name to avoid spoilers, but you’ll see, two different stories, two different vibes.
The third one is a preview from the upcoming book 2 – Mirror of Darkness – and I won’t say more!



Happy Valentine’s day, whether you’re with someone or alone, I wish you all the best!