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Author’s Note
The feels. Oh, the feels! I had so many of them when writing this book! I wanted to be respectful to the topic of losing a child, but at the same time, I also didn’t want to put readers into a book-long grieving session. It’s a fine line to make the story intriguing, romantic, and still hopeful, and I hope I kept you entertained.
One housekeeping note - in a prior story I mentioned that Asha and Hemalo’s baby was named Shemalo. In every story after that, the baby was called Hashala. I try to keep vigorous notes on the tribe, but some stuff slips through my fingers. I’m sorry! I’m fixing the earlier book and for clarity’s sake, we’re going with Hashala. I hope it’s not too confusing.
Some of you might ALSO be gnashing your teeth at the fact that I leapt ahead 3 years in the storyline! How can we possibly skip ahead when there’s so much going on???? I know, right? I feel like I lost those three years myself! But at the same time…it needed to be done for a few reasons. For one, I couldn’t leave Asha wondering and worrying, book after book. Even I’m not THAT cruel. I wanted to show her and Hemalo happy and their arms filled with joy. Second, Farli’s story is next, and she has to be adult-aged before we see her with her hero. And her story DOES come next in the timeline, and some important stuff goes down. :)
So, yes, we skipped ahead. By the time Farli’s book starts, we’re probably going to be 5-6 years post-original crash. You might notice that my people list has now been updated with ‘u
As for why Claire was given a POV (point of view) in this book — I felt like part of Asha’s story was that she’d walled herself off from the tribe and the new human population for so long that she was more alone than ever, and I wanted to give her a friend. I originally thought to include Claire because I wanted to add the holiday fun in, and in my mind, barbarian holidays are narrated by Claire. But! Once I added Claire in, I realized that they would be perfect friends because of Claire’s past with Bek and how she hid away from the tribe when she was unhappy. She, of all people, would understand Asha’s actions, and I love that she turned into a BFF and defender of our prickliest sa-khui lady.
I’m sure someone out there is wondering why Ereven had no POV then, and well…sometimes people just don’t talk to me. That sounds weird and precious even to my own ears, but it’s true. When I write, it’s like a character is yammering in my ear, and Ereven is just so…chill. He doesn’t have much to say because he’s a happy, easy guy. Claire was the one with the story, so she was included. I hope that makes sense. Will we ever see a story from Ereven’s POV? Just like Ariana and Marlene, once they start speaking to me, I’ll write it down. Right now Farli’s been shouting pretty loudly (actually for a few books now) so she’s next in the lineup.
On one final note, this book is dedicated to all my mamas out there who have gone through the loss of a rainbow baby. So many of you have written to me about this and I hope the story was not too painful to read. I’m thinking of you, ladies. <3
Ruby