Author’s Note on Content Warnings for The Hourglass Throne and The Tarot Sequence as a Whole

TWS FOR THE HOURGLASS THRONE:

I asked my beta readers to help assemble this list of content warnings, and they didn’t disappoint. I don’t even remember which animal I killed, but I trust them when they say it happened.

The gist is this: my novels have a dark past. Rune’s story is one of survival from an episode of physical and sexual violence. And surviving trauma isn’t the type of thing that ever has a neat ending. It’s a lifelong effort. I wanted to be honest about that, and show Rune constantly fighting to grow past the defeats of the past. At the same time, this is an urban fantasy set in a city where even allies can be dangerous–and you see a lot of that grit in the writing.

I try to be extremely respectful of this content. I’m not afraid to admit that I felt I had too heavy a hand in THE LAST SUN, and tried to moderate the … vividness of some of these scenes.

And, as always, I try to populate my story with a lot of love, found family, humor, and the diametric opposite of toxic masculinity.

  • Drugs and alcohol:
    • depictions of narcotic side-effects
    • underage and non-consenual usage
  • Trauma and gore:
    • PTSD / panic attacks, depictions of past events, (forced) flashbacks
    • torture
    • (suicide) bombings
    • child violence
    • blood
    • body horror
    • torn limbs
    • impalement
    • mind control
  • Mentions of:
    • sexual assault
    • animal death
    • character death
    • cannibalism
    • eye gore
    • COVID-19
    • suicide