A Fate Entwined
I am currently exploring options for the publication of A Fate Entwined, the first book of the Speculite Trilogy and my second completed fantasy novel. If you’d like to learn more about the book, you’re in the right place!
When the world’s first twins are separated by those seeking to destroy their prophecy, Andra must fight her way across the continent to save her brother’s life and keep their shared fate intact, even if her emotion-stealing magic consumes her in the process.
‘A Fate Entwined’ Elevator Pitch
What Is A Fate Entwined?
A Fate Entwined is an upper-YA epic fantasy novel with an oncoming apocalypse, a protagonist who won’t let anybody tell her what to do and a magic system fuelled by stolen emotions. Told from the 1st person perspective in the past tense, the story follows Andra’s journey to reunite with her twin brother after she loses her place in the world’s most important prophecy.
As mentioned above, I’m currently exploring publication options (traditional, self or somewhere in between) for this book, the first in an anticipated trilogy.
Origins
I wrote the first draft of A Fate Entwined in 2019. With a 10-day university writing intensive approaching, I had planned to write a novel in which magic and art are fundamentally linked, called Earthbrand. That idea got put on the back burner when I was inspired by a certain plot development in Dragon Quest 11. Suddenly, I had a new idea brewing in the back of my mind: what if there were twins destined to save the world, but they were tragically separated?
This idea expanded into a 126,000-word epic fantasy novel following the story of Andra Dremsal, as she discovers an ancient magic in herself and sets out to learn what destiny really has prepared for her. The magic system of A Fate Entwined is one of my favourite aspects; emotions are divided into twelve categories, each named after a gemstone. Veramancers have the ability to temporarily siphon emotions from people in order to use certain magical abilities. There’s so much I’m excited to do with this magic system, even to the point where I can’t fit it all in one fantasy trilogy. One of the things I’ll be doing with my Speculite short stories (more on that below) is seeing how characters other than Andra would use this magic.
Inspirations
My biggest inspirations for writing A Fate Entwined were some of the best fantasy books going around, at least in my opinion. As a teenager, I was an avid reader of Robin Hobb. I’d always find myself enthralled by the first-person perspective of FitzChivalry Farseer, which was something I wanted readers to experience with Andra’s point of view.
I also loved the combined efforts of Raymond E. Feist and Janny Wurts in the Empire Trilogy, telling the story of a young woman facing near destitution, as she rises in power. Of course, more recent works inspired A Fate Entwined as well, but Hobb’s work and the Empire Trilogy were at the heart of the story I wanted to write.
Andra’s Asexuality
Somewhere along the way of my first draft – completed in two months – it became apparent that Andra was asexual. Books with asexual representation are hard to come by, particularly in the fantasy genre, so I spent some time researching how to do this character justice.
Ultimately, I decided that this wouldn’t be a prominent part of the story. Although the word asexual doesn’t exist yet in Raedos, Andra’s asexuality is strongly alluded to early in the story. It does become slightly relevant later in the book, but this isn’t a story about Andra discovering her asexuality. She has already come to terms with this part of herself and has much bigger things to worry about now, such as saving her brother’s life.
LGBT+ Representation
Since Andra’s asexuality isn’t a major feature of the story, I’ve always wondered whether this would be shelved with other LGBT fantasy books – there are other queer characters, but once again it is far from the book’s focus. Ultimately, I don’t think it matters too much. I just hope I’ve done the representation justice.
Mind you, at the time of writing A Fate Entwined, I thought I was cishet. LGBT+ representation wasn’t really something on my mind at the time. My future works are much more likely to have tons of queer representation, including Transcendent, my current WIP which has sapphic romance and trans representation – if you’re keen for sapphic fantasy books, watch this space.
Why I Had to Write A Fate Entwined
When I started writing A Fate Entwined, I thought I was a boy. Sure, I’d always dreamed of being a girl, but I never once made that connection to this book and choosing to write from the first person with a female protagonist. In hindsight, A Fate Entwined was an important part of me exploring my own gender identity. What would it actually be like living as a teenage girl? Funnily enough, Andra is not a character I see myself heavily reflected in. I always wanted Andra to be morally grey, which means she has some issues I like to think I do not have myself.
Quite a few people have read this book, between beta readers and my writing group. One of my greatest achievements with A Fate Entwined was that nobody thought Andra read poorly as a female protagonist written by a man. As it turns out, that’s because she was actually written by a woman the whole time (insert surprised Pikachu meme here).
So yeah, my r/egg_irl moment was writing an entire novel from a girl’s point of view.
Speculite Short Stories
Sometimes I feel like expanding the world of A Fate Entwined through short stories, which I publish on this website (subscribers to my newsletter get early access, by the way). These short stories are generally between 1000 and 3000 words, which is about the same length as a standard chapter in A Fate Entwined.
If you’re interested in reading a short story or two, just click the Short Stories button below to see the full list. Alternatively, click the other button to jump straight into the first story, which was actually the prologue of A Fate Entwined at one point. If you enjoy, don’t forget to sign up for my newsletter so that you never miss a new story.