I love connecting events and characters from one story to another. Authors who introduce characters that are interesting or entertaining enough to create spinoffs are my favorite. I love series that lead in to other areas of world building, so I’ve tried to do that.

The first book I published is Ember’s Light: Stryx in my Vampires & Strygoi Witches series (or Strygoi Witches & Vampires for the version with closed doors). There are all sorts of possible tangents from that series. Viktoria’s sisters. Mysterious beings in the mountains. Karov’s brothers. I didn’t even know Karov had brothers until I started writing his story. Ciaran’s hotel offers a whole slew of spinoffs from the guests to the employees. Myth & Fable’s family. The warrior women I have living in Zerzura. Lots of opportunities.

One reader wrote to me and asked if I had any plans to write a Reverse Harem story. At the time, I hadn’t planned to since I have a couple of issues with the overall trope — same applies to Harem stories too. I’m sorry, but no man has naughty bits so magical that would ever make me happy to be second, much less part of a crowd hoping he will grant me the gift of his temporary attention.

For both harem and reverse harem stories, I don’t like what I see as the unfairness of it all. There’s one person who is everything to someone else, but the other person is all…yeah, I like you a lot, and I’ll accept your undying devotion as long as you understand you will never be enough for me…I’m going to need at least two other people along with you to feel happy.

And finally, specific to Reverse Harem stories, I can’t help imagining all the UTIs the woman must have to deal with!

Okay, so, at first Reverse Harem was a no. But this reader didn’t give up and I started pondering if maybe I could make it work in the paranormal world I write in. Like if the man changed with the seasons, or maybe one soul was split somehow. Ali Baba had forty thief friends. Then my mind went to entire zodiacs, but that was far too many characters to keep track of.

I settled on triples. I know, I know. Harems can be more than three, but give me a break. I was trying. 🙂 It was a really easier to think of triple goddesses, like the Morrigan and the Norns, but there are a few male threes. So, triples that came to mind —

The Oneiroi

The Three Musketeers

The Hooded Spirits

The Three Bears

The Butcher, the Baker, the Candlestick Maker

Three Pure Ones

The Cyclopes

Triglav has three heads.

The Three Huntsmen

The Three Clever Kings

The Three Enchanted Princes

But what really settled it for me was while I was thinking about three, I remembered the Hungarian that I learned on my travels. In that language, the word for three is Harom. Close enough to Harem to make me smirk, so my Harom & Aneja series was born.

I knew this particular reader liked the sexy times in my work, and I figured a Reverse Harem was her way of getting more of those. Rather than writing a story with some naughty parts tossed in, I did it backwards and wrote those parts first, then crafted a basic story around them. I ended up with Realm Walker in pretty much one night.

Personally, I think it’s the worst story I’ve ever written…however, it, and its sequel, are my most popular books. My fingers itch to fix all the things I think are wrong with it. I’ve had one reviewer complain the characters have no depth, and I totally agree! But I haven’t rewritten it because it seems to be popular as it is, and why fix something that doesn’t appear to be broken?

But…I am currently writing a side story to Raven Chronicles. It’s one of the few stories I write that isn’t connected to Vampires & Strygoi Witches, and I meant to keep it separate…until now. The side story I’m writing takes place in a version of Hell, in the city of Dis. Angels fighting demons, and as I was writing part of the epic battle, a light bulb went off.

Demons. In Realm Walker the three men who make up the Haroms are demons. Demons a reviewer has said have no depth. The demons in Realm Walker have been banished from their worlds, but I never said why or from where. They could be the demons fighting the angels at the city of Dis!

My imagination immediately got sidetracked and went on tangents about how each of the demons got entangled in the war. They could even get pulled into the portal that banished them to Iadara and during that process had part of a soul infused

Anyway, that is how my mind works and how it seems like everything I write will eventually circle back to my original Vampires & Strygoi Witches series.