Thorn
For Princess Alyrra, choice is a luxury she’s never had … until she’s betrayed.
Princess Alyrra has never enjoyed the security or power of her rank. Between her family’s cruelty and the court’s contempt, she has spent her life in the shadows. Forced to marry a powerful foreign prince, Alyrra embarks on a journey to meet her betrothed with little hope for a better future.
But powerful men have powerful enemies—and now, so does Alyrra. Betrayed during a magical attack, her identity is switched with another woman’s, giving Alyrra the first choice she’s ever had: to start a new life for herself or fight for a prince she’s never met. But Alyrra soon finds that Prince Kestrin is not at all what she expected. While walking away will cost Kestrin his life, returning to the court may cost Alyrra her own. As Alyrra is coming to realize, sometimes the hardest choice means learning to trust herself.
Thorn will re-release from HarperTeen in 2020. In the meantime, it is not available for sale. Sorry for the inconvenience (but yay for a book deal!) Subscribe to my newsletter below if you’d like to find out about the release.
About the Writing
Thorn is my first novel, a culmination of ten years of thinking, revising and, honestly, taking breaks. I wrote the complete first draft during my senior year in university (while also holding down a 20 hour a week job, taking part in various student groups, and taking extra credit hours in order to complete my major–what was I thinking??). I had always wanted to write a novel, so I challenged myself to write a chapter a week. I decided to use one of my favorite Grimm’s fairy tales, “The Goose Girl,” as the basic storyline and optimistically set to work writing. I didn’t think it would be that hard to write a novel if I already had the plot. Ha! Shows how much I had to learn. I remember sitting down to read my completed first draft and nearly falling asleep. Suitably chastened but undaunted, I spent the next ten years on revisions and rewrites. I worked through about 13 drafts before deciding to publish. (Don’t worry, I wrote six or seven other manuscripts in the breaks between revision rounds, so those ten years saw more than just the one story!)