The Characters We Leave Behind . . . and the Ones We Return For: A Guest Post by Lexi Ryan
The author of These Hollow Vows returns to the enchanting world of Faerie to tell the story of Princess Jasalyn in our new YA Book Club pick, Beneath the Cursed Stars. Read on for an exclusive essay from Lexie Ryan on why she chose to return to this world and tell Jas’ story.
Hardcover $19.99
Beneath These Cursed Stars (Barnes & Noble YA Book Club Edition)
Beneath These Cursed Stars (Barnes & Noble YA Book Club Edition)
By Lexi Ryan
In Stock Online
Hardcover $19.99
The start of a brand-new duology in a world we already love. The author of These Hollow Vows gives us even more fae to obsess over in this story of love, fantasy and betrayal.
The start of a brand-new duology in a world we already love. The author of These Hollow Vows gives us even more fae to obsess over in this story of love, fantasy and betrayal.
One of the unavoidable truths of writing a fantastical world that feels rich and real to the reader is having a cast of characters whose stories will never be told. With complicated pasts and outrageous dreams, I like the secondary characters in my books to feellike they should be a protagonist in their own story.
When I finished writing the These Hollow Vows duology, which launched in 2021, I found myself haunted by the untold story of Princess Jasalyn, sister to Abriella, Queen of the shadow fae. I knew I wanted to return to Faerie and tell Jas’s story. She’d been abducted and tortured, and while she was safe in Brie’s palace at the conclusion of Brie’s duology, she was by no means okay. How was she supposed to heal from all she’d been through? How was she supposed to accept a new life in a world full of the people who hurt her? How would she ever go back to the bubbly young woman she once was?
When I let myself think about it, none of the answers were good. And yet . . .
The sun will rise again tomorrow.
That’s what Kendrick, the teenage boy in the cell across from fourteen-year-old Jasalyn, told her to get her through the worst nights of her life. A platitude, perhaps, but one that helped her hold on. And maybe, just maybe, I needed to prove to her—to myself—that those words were true. That even after the darkest nights, the sun will rise again. The power comes in seeing it for ourselves—the ever-important “show, don’t tell” that writers live by.
Set three years after the conclusion of the These Hollow Vows duology, Beneath These Cursed Stars is a story about a human princess to a faerie kingdom. Jas is on a vengeful mission and armed with a magical ring that gives her death’s kiss. Because her story is so heavily surrounded by trauma and depression and fear, I knew it would need to be carefully balanced with hope and healing and love, so I adopted a dual narrative. Jas, who will become fae on her eighteenth birthday, wants to be anyone but that true self. She is mirrored by shifter Felicity, who’s been on the run alone for years and wants, more than anything, the freedom to finally be her true self.
Beneath These Cursed Stars can be read without reading my other duology in this world, but it was born there, and I’m so glad I got to return for Jasalyn, to tell her story—to prove that even when we feel powerless and trapped in the darkness of our own trauma, the night won’t last forever.
