Photo: Supplied: Pan Macmillan
An interesting phenomenon's been happening in the world of publishing - the rise of the romantasy book genre.
It's where fantastical worlds mix with romantic plotlines - and the number of books sold is booming, in the US alone it helped drive an increase in fiction by one percent or 9.5m units - in the UK sales of science fiction and fantasy books increased in value by 41 percent between 2023 and 2024.
Someone who knows the genre inside out is Queenstown-based author Helen Scheuerer.
She's behind the best-selling series The Legends of Thezmarr - and now, The Ashes of Thezmarr.
Book one of the new series is called Iron & Embers - and tells the story of Wren - an alchemist-turned assassin who's been seeking revenge over the deaths of her friends in a previous war.
There's love - and some activity that necessitates an explicit content warning on the book.
And it also comes with a legion of fans, already waiting for her next installment.
