Heartlines – notes from a romance author’s heart

Where Devil’s Star Began (And Why I Had to Write It)

Some stories arrive fully formed.

Others begin as something smaller… a thread, a question, a piece of history meant to support another tale.

That’s how this one started.

When I first created the dragons, they weren’t meant to lead a story. They existed as backstory—a way to explain, in Stone of Love, why the magic of the Stones of Iona Series had to leave the Fae realm and come into human hands. Why the MacDougalls. Why that choice mattered.

I needed weight behind that decision. Power. Consequence.

So, I built it.

Three brothers.
One, lost frozen in crystal after a brutal battle.
Fae warriors bound by blood, cursed by an evil father who demanded they hunt magic for his own gain—until they turned against him and chose something else.

Chose to give that power away.

It was supposed to be history. Nothing more.

One of the few times I ever pantsed a story, I wrote it in a rush—letting instinct lead instead of structure. When I stepped away from the laptop, I kept turning it over in my mind. The characters wouldn’t quiet. The conflict refused to settle into the background where it belonged.

Goal. Motive. Conflict. Flaw. Stakes.

The bones were there. Strong. Unignorable.

I remember stopping mid-step, the realization hitting all at once—this wasn’t backstory. This was a series.

I wrote the first book not long after.

While I continued building the Stones of Iona world, those dragons never left me. Their story unfolded in the margins—sentence by sentence, book by book—waiting for the moment it could stand on its own.

And now, it does.

Devil’s Star feels different. Not separate—but deeper, sharper. The pull runs darker. The tension cuts closer to the edge between control and surrender, between duty and desire.

Some stories support others. And some refuse to stay where you put them. This one demanded more, and I finally listened.

Devil’s Star, book 1, Dragons of Tantallon will release in Fall 2026.

Buy my books → https://linktr.ee/mizardauthor