A reader told me recently that they almost didn’t pick up A Voice of Silver and Blood. Their reason?
“Nearly every book I’ve read by male authors has been awful.”
I get it. Romance readers have been burned before. Too often, male-written romance misses the emotional heart of the story—the heroines don’t feel real, the intimacy is shallow, or the relationship is treated like an afterthought instead of the beating heart of the book.
But here’s the twist: the reason my stories do have emotional heart is because of a guy.
I fell in love with James because of the way he tells stories. Before we were writing partners—or even partners in life—we met on an online roleplay site he owned and operated. The setting was a vampire world, lush and dark, where players (like me) created characters and lived out their arcs. James and his team weren’t just moderators; they were architects of an entire living world. They took hundreds of player-driven storylines and wove them into something interconnected and breathtaking.
And when James stepped in to personally storytell? Magic happened. Every player knew it. People would drop whatever they were doing to log on, because those sessions were unforgettable. He could create tension that made our hearts pound, thread romance that was tender and real, and give every character—even the smallest ones—moments that mattered. That’s when I fell in love with him, not just as a storyteller, but as a man whose heart was big enough to see people deeply and make them feel like they belonged.
Years later, that same magic shapes every book we write together. Behind the scenes, our writing process is a dance. We swap ideas constantly, challenge each other, and refine until the story shines. On A Voice of Silver and Blood, we didn’t just alternate chapters or divide tasks—we crafted every single word together. We breathed life into Skye and Faelan and Corvin side by side, layering emotion and meaning until we both knew we had created something special.
And the truth is, our love story lives in those pages too. James has always been the one who can break my heart with a single line of dialogue or build an emotional crescendo that leaves me in tears (and then he’ll quietly hand me a cup of coffee while I cry). I’m the one who insists that our heroines must be strong, must fight, must burn with hope, because that’s what love does—it gives us strength.
Romance isn’t about the gender of the person writing it. It’s about honoring love in all its forms: messy, beautiful, fragile, fierce. James and I love one another deeply, and that love spills into everything we create. It’s the reason our characters feel real, the reason their connections matter, and the reason readers tell me they can’t put the books down.
So, the next time you see a man’s name on a romance—or in our case, a husband-and-wife team sharing a pen name—don’t dismiss it too quickly. Sometimes the greatest love stories are written by two people who are living one of their own. And sometimes, they begin with a vampire roleplay game.
If you've read A Voice of Silver & Blood what part felt the most real to you?
If you'd like an ARC Copy grab one before it releases:
https://booksprout.co/reviewer/review-copy/view/224401/a-voice-of-silver-and-blood