Writing Elara and Cassian: A Q&A on Obsession, Power, and Where the Series Goes Next

It started with a single image, honestly — a woman signing a contract she doesn't fully understand, in a house that clearly doesn't want her there. I didn't know yet who Cassian was, or what Vale House was hiding. I just knew the deal she was making was going to cost her more than she thought. Everything else — his motives, the family history, the "some debts are paid in blood" of it all — built outward from that one moment.

Yes, from the start. A pure villain is easy to write and, honestly, a little boring to sit with for two books. Cassian needed to be someone Elara — and the reader — could believably want, even while suspecting him. That meant giving him real restraint alongside real danger. He never lies to her about what he is. He just doesn't tell her everything, which is a different kind of dishonesty.

Because Elara earning power over the house — the same house that once felt like a cage — is the emotional spine of the second book. She's not the same woman who walked in during The Debt He Claimed. Watching her repurpose that space for other women who have nowhere else to go felt like the only honest way to show how far she'd come, without saying it outright.

Yes — The Last File is a direct sequel and assumes you know the relationships, the deal, and the secrets uncovered in Book One. Start there.

Yes, and it's out now. Lies That Kept Her picks up the threads left hanging at the end of The Last File: the hidden children and stolen identities storyline does not end where readers think it does. This one belongs to Mara Voss, a London solicitor who has spent her life keeping records, and to Adrian Moretti, who would burn the whole ledger to keep her safe. Read it on Kindle.