Author’s Note
As you read this novella, I imagine you might have felt it too – that familiar tightening in your chest, that breath held a moment too long, waiting for the shadow to fall across our characters’ path. We’ve learned to expect it, haven’t we? That moment when hope transforms into heartbreak, when dreams shatter against the hard edges of reality.
Stories have taught us this dance of anticipation and loss. They’ve trained us to guard our hearts, to look for the storm gathering behind every moment of sunshine. And perhaps life itself has been our most persistent teacher in this regard – showing us how fragile joy can be, how quickly light can turn to shadow.
But sometimes – and this is the magic I wanted to share – sometimes the light holds. Sometimes the breath we’ve been holding can be released into laughter instead of sorrow. Sometimes healing comes not through trial by fire, but through the gentle persistence of hope, through the quiet miracle of things simply working out as they should.
In writing Hannah and Thomas’s journey, I found myself confronting my own expectations of narrative darkness. The weight of every story I’d ever read or written pressed against my fingers as they moved across the keyboard, whispering that joy must be earned through suffering, that peace can only come after pain.
But then I thought about real life – not just its storms and shadows, but its unexpected moments of pure grace. Those times when everything aligned just so, when help came exactly when needed, when the path ahead opened clear and bright before us. These moments exist. They’re as real as any hardship, any struggle, any loss.
I wanted to tell a story that reflected this other truth: that sometimes good things happen simply because they can. That kindness can appear without requiring payment in pain. That healing doesn’t always need to be bought with blood or tears.
This isn’t to deny the existence of darkness or difficulty. Hannah and Thomas faced their challenges – illness, loss, the weight of uncertainty. But their story reminds us that sometimes our expectations of disaster can blind us to the possibility of grace. Sometimes the universe conspires in our favor. Sometimes strangers become saviors without demanding sacrifice in return.
As you close this book and return to your own story, I hope you carry with you this permission to expect good things. To believe that sometimes – perhaps more often than we’ve been taught to believe – things work out. Not because we’ve suffered enough to deserve it, but simply because that’s how life can be when we open our hearts to its possibilities.
Look for the light. Expect the good. Believe in the possibility of grace freely given. Because sometimes – that’s exactly what we find.
To discover more about Hannah and Thomas’ life in Graven Pointe, be sure to read the Neeka Blackthorn novel. There is a chapter later in the novel where they meet.