Stephanie Denne is the author of The Blackthorn Saga, a dark fantasy/paranormal romance series. Ahead of the release of book four in the series, Ruinous Secrets, What We Reading sat down with Stephanie to talk about everything from how Blackthorn came about, the positive splashes it’s already made online, the nature of self-publishing and what her plans for the future are!
Thanks for speaking with us, Stephanie! First off, tell us a bit about yourself and what led you to the world of writing.
Thank you for having me!
I’ve always been part of the arts in some form or another. From playing the violin to drawing to painting, and even children’s book illustrations and book cover illustrations for other authors. I always enjoyed writing creative papers in high school and college, and role-playing in tabletop games and text-based RPGs were something I loved immensely, but I didn’t think it would lead me in the direction of becoming an author.
I had the idea for a story around fourteen years ago, but the only thing I did with it was make some character and scene sketches and write a small plot. The intent then was to make a manga under a pseudonym, but I never went beyond an idea with it.
Fast forward to 2022 when I was homebound like most of the country with jobs shutting down over COVID-19 and I decided to take a stab at it. At that time I was reading many books that I enjoyed by indie authors. I didn’t know it was possible to self-publish before then, and I thought maybe it was time to take the risk. So I sat down with a program that helped me outline my ideas, locations, and characters, and I fleshed out the idea from so many years ago.
When I began drafting, I realized I had a passion for the craft and I wanted to make a career out of it. The rest is history.
Talk to us about The Blackthorn Saga. You’ve got a new release on the cards, right?
I do! Ruinous Secrets is the fourth book in the Blackthorn Saga, and will be available on Amazon and most major retailers online, or by request at the local book store.
This book can be read as a standalone as it features two side characters – Riley and Seth – from the previous books but as the main characters. This is their love story. Something a lot of readers have been waiting for due to the built-up tension between them in the previous three books of the series as they helped the main characters of the series – Lukas and Blaire – get through their issues and fulfil their destinies.
While it is better to read the previous three to get a complete grasp of the underlying dark fantasy subplot, I put enough information to catch a new reader up to the series. Most of my advanced reader team who jumped into this book first have gone back to read the others after they fell in love with the world of Blackthorn.
As far as the world of the Blackthorn Saga is concerned, to avoid revealing too much and spoiling the series, I’ll give a little bit of information.
The series begins with Blaire Wilcox, a human girl working in a diner in the small town of Rosebrook Valley, a fictional town twenty minutes outside of Savannah, Georgia, USA. She’s stuck living with her abusive stepbrother who has some unsavoury ideas of what their relationship should be, but with her parents passed, she’s stuck with him through a series of unfortunate circumstances. When one day she runs into a young man outside of her job and it sets things in motion to bring her to Blackthorn Academy, a mysterious university where only Vasirian attend.
Who are the Vasirian? The true root of the vampire myth. What happens to her when she goes there? How does she respond when she finds out she’s the fated mate of the young man she ran into? You’ll have to read to find out.
What is the number one goal you want your work to have with readers?
I want them to be able to escape from the real world into a place where they connect with my characters and not only root for them, but also sometimes get angry with them, cry with them, and grow with them.
Sometimes my characters make decisions that frustrate readers, but when you look at their ages, it makes sense. It’s real, and if readers in their age group think about their own lives and how they truly would act in the same situation, they might find they can empathize with them.
I also want readers to connect with the world and characters in ways they might find comfort, or understanding of their own struggles in life, even if the world is completely fictional and the events are paranormal and fantastical.
What do you think makes you stand out as an author?
This one is a little funny, and it ties in with the above answer. When I started this series, I didn’t have the idea of the found family trope or mental health struggles in mind. It came naturally. My characters each face something. Not always a diagnosable issue, but they struggle with something. From the loneliness of abandonment, recovering from trauma and loss, undiagnosed ADHD, body dysmorphia, and more.
They all face something, and the small group of friends that band together through this series have formed a family unit all their own as they face these issues — and the issues of what happens in the world of the Vasirian — together. I’ve been thanked numerous times for my take on mental health in this type of book and that means a lot.
To have readers tell me that my book helped them, or that they were happy to find a character that they could relate to (in the newest book releasing next week especially with several from my advanced reader team), is such a wonderful feeling. I’ve found even in my side project work-in-progress I’m also touching on mental health issues with those characters. I think this is something that will continue being a trend in my writing, and I pull from my own personal well of experience and inspiration for a lot of it. So I’m sharing a bit of myself and, in turn, helping others.
What would you say has been your biggest success so far?
This is a little harder. I can’t say I’ve had any grand successes since my debut last January, but I did have a bout of success at the end of summer when a TikTok of mine went viral. Over the course of two months, I thought that this might be shaping up to be a full-time career, but the algorithm is fickle, and I didn’t maintain the momentum. So we will see what this year holds! Maybe I’ll go viral again. Maybe the right person will see this latest release and shout its praises from the rooftops.
All I know is the fact that I completed four full-length novels in my debut year is a huge success – especially when I had never written anything before. Not even fan-fiction.
If you could go back in time to one book you read for the first time, what would it be and why?
I’m going to have to say a series, not a book. I’ve reread it several times. The WITSEC series by Ashley N Rostek. I love it. A Darker Dream by Amanda Ashley was also one from long ago I enjoyed. Aside from Annie Rice, she was who pulled me into enjoying vampire romance. There might be a few others, but they reveal some of my more obscure tastes, and who knows, family might be seeing this interview. Haha!
What’s one tip you would give your younger self if you had the opportunity?
In regards to writing? I would have pushed myself to write the story in my head all those years ago at the start of the boom of self-publishing. Though I wonder if it would be as good as it is now. It had time to roll around and grow over the years.
As far as general advice? I’d probably tell myself to go easier on myself. Not to expect perfection, and don’t let anyone else expect it of me either. Maybe share a quote I recently saw that resonated with me: “Be you. They’ll adjust./The world will adjust.“
And finally, what do you hope the future holds for you and your writing?
I would like to reach a point where I can do this full-time without a side gig. I don’t write for the money, I write because I love it, but we all need money to survive, and with money, I can write more and produce more. All independent authors strive for that sort of success. Besides, I refuse to release subpar work that hasn’t had the touch of my wonderful editor, and the books I sell fund those endeavours, so it’s a win-win for both me and my readers if I achieve this goal.
The goal in my future writing is to finish the Blackthorn Saga. I’m currently working on book five, and while I wanted to finish the series with six, I believe it will take seven to complete all there is to share.
From there, I will move on to its spin-off series. (Yes, it has a name already. No, I can’t share it quite yet as it reveals too much.) Then I would like to release the reverse harem future series that is connected to the same universe but does not feature any of the previous characters but has grown from the foundation built in this first series.
Outside of that, I have side projects I would like to release that readers have shown interest in when I’ve shared snippets. Demon princes reverse harem, anyone? But that comes with having more time to write, and the means to produce it.
In the end, I hope that I can continue writing and the readers will still enjoy what I produce. I’ve met some wonderful people, and I truly enjoy connecting with fans on social media who’ve found a love for my work. I hope in the future I can reach others in the same way.
Follow Stephanie and all of her work on her website, TikTok, Twitter/X and Amazon!
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Part-time reader, part-time rambler, and full-time Horror enthusiast, James has been writing for What We Reading since 2022. His earliest reading memories involved Historical Fiction, Fantasy and Horror tales, which he has continued to take with him to this day. James’ favourite books include The Last (Hanna Jameson), The Troop (Nick Cutter) and Chasing The Boogeyman (Richard Chizmar).
