ARC applications for The Phantom’s Princess are currently open

I’m so happy to be able to announce that my fifth book is very close to being released. Because of that I am currently looking for ARC readers who can share this journey and be from the first to read my new novel.

In a world where loyalty is everything, love could be the most dangerous betrayal.

At twelve, Alexis had lost everything until the Blackthorn gang took her in. Now seventeen, she’s known as the Blackthorn Princess — a title that signifies both her belonging and who she belongs to.

When an arranged marriage is proposed to seal a truce with a rival gang, Alexis agrees — duty before desire. But her would-be groom, Dilan, hides a darker truth. Beneath his charming exterior lies a secret driven by a thirst for vengeance tied to his family’s tragic past. Despite Dilan’s genuine feelings, which grow stronger each day, his ambition to destroy the Blackthorns from within remains untamed.

As Alexis becomes more attached to Dilan, their connection blurs the lines between love and betrayal. Alexis must decide where her true allegiance lies — with the family who raised her or the boy who’s stolen her heart.

TPP Scene audio.mp3

The Phantom’s Princess is a YA character-driven, no spice, romantic tragedy.

Page length: 316

ARCs are scheduled to be sent out mid October.
The released date has not yet been finalised, but it will be roughly around the end of November (25th-ish), or maybe later, but I am hoping for the November date.

Interested? Please click on the link below.

https://forms.gle/zksZzBNjme36eqyp6

I look forward to sending you all a copy and hopefully hearing your thoughts at the end 😊

I would appreciate it so much if you could let me know you thoughts below.
Comments are wholly encouraged, and a clap would make my day.

Thanks so much for reading!

About the Author

Elizabeth Caroline writes from the heart of someone who has lived through deep grief, quiet loss, and the long road back to hope. That’s why themes of healing and resilience often echo through her work — whether in reflective essays or fiction.

If that kind of storytelling resonates with you, please feel free to explore more of her character-driven fiction and reflections on healing.

Looking for ARC readers for British mobster romantic tragedy. was originally published in On Writing, and living! on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Love, loyalty, power, and pain. There’s something timeless about love stories set in dangerous worlds that remind us that even in darkness, the heart still hopes.

Anyone who knows me knows that I love my sweet, cinnamon roll, golden retriever love interests. You know the ones who wear their hearts on their sleeves and love without hesitation. But even I can’t deny the pull of a darker kind of love. The kind that blooms in places it shouldn’t, between people who have every reason to walk away but don’t.

There’s something about tension in morally grey worlds that keeps us turning pages long after midnight. Maybe it’s because danger makes every glance feel heavier, which, in turn, makes them more precious. Love means something different when it’s surrounded by violence and power. It becomes hope masked in rebellion.

That emotional contrast is what drew me to write a clean mafia romantic tragedy (title and cover reveal in 2026). I wanted to explore the ache and intimacy of love in impossible circumstances, without losing the purity of the feeling that makes romance so powerful. I want my stories to carry that same tension while, at the same time, touching readers in those spaces between devotion and destruction.

The Core Appeal: Power, Passion, and the Impossible

I’ve often wondered what makes stories that entwine love with danger so magnetic. Maybe it’s the clash between tenderness and brutality or the way love becomes an act of defiance in a world that leaves no room for softness. Mafia romances, in particular, thrive on this tension: power and passion become locked in an endless dance, where control is both armour and illusion.

At their heart, these stories explore the impossible. They ask the questions: — Can you truly love someone when the rules of survival demand you shouldn’t?
— Can love exist in a world built on fear and loyalty?
 — And who deserves that loyalty, your family or the holder of your heart?

In the world of my main character, Alexis, that question sits at the centre of everything. She grew up surrounded by crime and violence, where loyalty to the family is both her safety and her cage. It’s all she’s ever known and it’s her only version of love and trust. So when real love finally finds her, she can’t tell if it’s something pure or another thread in the same web of destruction.

And that’s what makes this genre so powerful to me. It’s not just about the guns, the suits, or the secrets. It’s about the emotional chaos beneath it all and, ultimately, the fragile, human longing to be seen and chosen in a world that only understands power.

Subverting the Tropes: Writing Clean, but Intense

Coming from a YA background, I knew I wanted to do something a little different with the mafia romance genre. I wanted to keep the tension, the emotional gravity, and the moral conflict, but I wanted to strip away the explicitness that often defines it. Because for me, the power of dark romance doesn’t lie in its graphic scenes; it lies in the moments of realisation and the battle between heart and conscience.

In Alexis’ story, the darkness isn’t just the violence around her; it’s the confusion of growing up in a world where love is often mistaken for control. Her guardians are criminals, yes, but they’ve always treated her like a princess. She’s protected and adored. Yet she’s also watched countless women come and go from their lives, discarded once their novelty faded. That contrast shapes her deepest question: What is love really worth?

By keeping the romance clean, I wanted readers to feel the intensity without needing the explicit. Rather than glorifying the mafia life, I wanted to peel back the armour and see the people underneath.

Writing Emotionally Strong Scenes: The Power of Restraint

I’ve had my hand at writing emotionally powerful scenes, and I find it’s about writing honestly and truthfully. When I write, I try to focus less on what’s happening around my characters and more on what’s happening inside them.

In Alexis’ world, loyalty is everything, and that makes betrayal hit harder. She’s constantly torn between what she’s been taught and what her heart insists is right. She doesn’t always make the “pure” choice; in fact, she often stumbles through the grey, caught between love and obligation. But at her core, she’s still a young woman who wants to be seen, understood, and loved, even when surrounded by defiance.

What I hope readers feel most is that quiet ache. That pull between chaos, innocence, strength, and vulnerability. Because beneath every storm of betrayal and rebellion, there’s always that simple truth: at our core, no matter what world we come from, we all just want to be loved.

Why I Keep Coming Back

I still remember being a teenager like it was yesterday. I remember the rush of emotions and the choices that felt right in the moment but turned out to be anything but. Sometimes the thrill of rebellion feels easier than the weight of doing what’s right. But eventually, we all reach a point where we have to decide who we really are, or risk losing ourselves completely.

That’s the question at the heart of Alexis’ story: will she ever find her way back? Amid loyalty, love, and betrayal, she has to discover what it means to choose with her heart and live with the consequences.

Although I love heartbreak in stories, the reason I love romantic tragedies is that they remind me that love, even when it’s fleeting or flawed, still matters. They show the beauty in trying, the courage in vulnerability, and the hope that even in broken worlds, there’s still something worth saving.

Writing this story taught me that love isn’t about perfection or rescue. It’s about resilience and that quiet strength to keep believing, even when the world around you falls apart.

Do you thrive on emotional conflicts in stories? And what do you think it is that draws you to it?

I would appreciate it so much if you could let me know you thoughts below.
Comments are wholly encouraged, and a clap would make my day.

Thanks so much for reading!

About the Author

Elizabeth Caroline writes from the heart of someone who has lived through deep grief, quiet loss, and the long road back to hope. That’s why themes of healing and resilience often echo through her work — whether in reflective essays or fiction.

If that kind of storytelling resonates with you, you might enjoy her most recent YA novel, Everything Blue — a post-apocalyptic drama about surviving in a broken world, and slowly learning to hope again.

Read more about Everything Blue here.
Or explore more of her character-driven fiction and reflections on healing.

Romantic Tragedy in Mafia Settings and Why We’re Drawn to Them was originally published in On Writing, and living! on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Unexpected Journey Behind Everything Blue

When I first sat down to write Everything Blue, I thought I knew exactly what kind of story I was telling. It was supposed to be about zombie attacks, gang rivalries, and the chaos of a world left behind. Just straightforward survival.

But stories have a way of slipping through our fingers, and somewhere along the way, it stopped being just about monsters and battles and became a story about grief, loss, and the fragile will to keep going when everything feels broken.

And that made me wonder: why do stories so often become something different from what we planned? Maybe it’s because writing doesn’t just expose the world we imagine , it reveals the truths we quietly carry inside us.

When the Story Takes the Lead

The realisation that Everything Blue wasn’t just about survival but about grief changed the way I approached every scene. Suddenly, it wasn’t enough for characters to simply get from one moment to the next , I had to explore how they carried the weight of what they’d already lost.

Sky, for instance, started out as a tough leader, someone who could protect others through strength alone. But the more I wrote him, the more I saw how much of that strength was rooted in loss and how, in his determination to hold on to the people he had left, he was actually slowly falling apart.

Tori, too, became more than just a survivor navigating a broken world; she became a lens for exploring the quiet, complicated ways trauma shapes how we connect, withdraw, and sometimes push people away even when we crave closeness.

Letting the story adapt in this way never, for a moment, felt like giving up control , it was the best thing that could have happened. It revealed a depth I hadn’t planned but couldn’t ignore. Because writing isn’t about forcing a story into what we thought it should be, it’s about allowing the story to become what it needs to be.

The Unexpected Change of Direction

So how did my zombie apocalypse change form so drastically? I’ve mentioned before that the story began in a dream, and how the trauma from that dream never left me, even when I thought I was writing an easy YA post-apocalyptic novel.

Tori, the character from my dream, was in full control as I wrote, but was constantly looking back on her lost friend for comfort and support, even though he was no longer with her. Nate’s absence filled some scenes more than any threats I’d plotted, and those quiet moments that Tori shared alone became something I hadn’t realised I needed to explore.

From there, the story kept choosing the slower, truer path. I’d outline action, but the characters had other ideas.

And then my own life seeped in.

I was writing during a season where I was learning how to carry two things at once: sadness and hope, and that tension bled into the book.

Tori’s reluctance to speak about Nate, the small rituals of remembering, and the way a found family can feel both like a refuge and a risk. None of that was on my first index cards, yet it became the main theme.

There wasn’t one dramatic moment when the story “took over.” It was a series of small alterations — when a character refused to stick to a simple dialogue, when a chapter strayed from its intended arc, or when a draft decided that survival was more than just running faster.

The themes surfaced the way grief does in real life — gradually, insistently, and impossible to ignore. And that’s when the book clicked into place. It wasn’t just a world after disaster; it was a study of the people left behind who were learning how to live with what they cannot fix.

What I Learned From Letting Go

I’ve never been much of a planner anyway, so letting go of my original idea wasn’t difficult for me. Everything Blue reminded me of what I was already comfortable with — that control in writing is mostly an illusion. If I ever did try to push the story back into the box I’d planned for it, the more lifeless it would become. As always, my stories only breathe when I don’t insist they be stick to what I thought I was writing but I allowed them to become what they needed to be.

This new insight taught me something about myself. I was carrying many unspoken things — losses, fears, and the weight of change — and they found their way onto the page through my characters.

Writing Tori wasn’t just storytelling; it was a way of sitting with grief without having to name it directly. In Sky’s devotion, I recognised my own longing for connection. In the gang’s fragile bonds, I saw the complicated ways people cling to each other when the world has already taken too much.

It was both confronting and cathartic. Confronting, because I couldn’t hide from the undercurrent of sadness running through my work, and cathartic, because by giving it to my characters, I made room for myself to feel lighter. That’s the paradox of writing: the more personal it becomes, the more universal it often feels.

That’s why I approach stories differently now. I do still have a rough outline, but I hold it loosely. I trust that the characters might know more than I do, and I listen when they pull me off course. And I’ve come to believe that’s why I gravitate toward character-driven fiction, because people, in all their resilience, always have more to teach me than any plot twist I could plan.

An Encouragement for Other Writers

If there’s one thing Everything Blue taught me, it’s that stories rarely stay in the shape we imagine for them. You might set out to write about survival, and find yourself writing about love. You might plan a tale of action, only to discover it’s really about silence, or grief, or the small ways people hold each other together when everything else falls apart.

For writers, that unpredictability can feel unsettling, but to me it’s mostly a gift. The story you didn’t plan might be the one you most need to tell. So let it wander, let your characters surprise you, and trust that the detour is part of the work.

And for readers, remember: what you hold in your hands is more than a single story. It’s part author, part you. There are layers you may not see at first, but they’re there, waiting to be felt. That’s the beauty of books: they become something different in every heart they touch.

The Heart of the Story

So no — Everything Blue isn’t just about zombies. It’s about how hard it is to keep going when the world you knew is gone, and how love, loyalty, and grief can shape the way we fight to survive. It’s about the people left behind, and the fragile, stubborn hope that maybe, just maybe, survival can grow into something more.

I would appreciate it so much if you could let me know you thoughts below.
Comments are wholly encouraged, and a clap would make my day.

Thanks so much for reading!

About the Author

Elizabeth Caroline writes from the heart of someone who has lived through deep grief, quiet loss, and the long road back to hope. That’s why themes of healing and resilience often echo through her work — whether in reflective essays or fiction.

If that kind of storytelling resonates with you, you might enjoy her most recent YA novel, Everything Blue — a post-apocalyptic drama about surviving in a broken world, and slowly learning to hope again.

Read more about Everything Blue here.
Or explore more of her character-driven fiction and reflections on healing.

The Story I Thought I Was Writing and What It Actually Became was originally published in On Writing, and living! on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Victoria Liiv is a talented author of YA Fantasy, Romantasy, and Romance. Her stories tend to merge immersive worlds, heartfelt characters, and a beautiful emotional depth that will keep you coming back for more.

In this interview, I had the pleasure of asking Victoria about her writing journey, what inspires her stories, and what readers can look forward to in her upcoming projects.

The Interview

1. When did you first realise you wanted to write stories?

I was quite possibly fifteen and had just finished reading Eragon when I knew in all certainty that writing stories is something that I would love to do. Why is Eragon significant in this? You see, Cristopher Paolini was fifteen when he started writing it. To my fifteen year-old self that was mind-blowing. It told me incredible authors do not have to be ancient. It told me I could do it, too. I knew, I could. I had it in me.

My literature teacher knew I could. Even my mother knew I could and literally my entire class knew I wanted to. I lacked patience, however. I started out several different serial stories, wattpad style, though never really on that site since I wrote in Estonian (and also had no clue it existed). I always started strong and then got steered away from the stories. I know for a fact all of them lacked plot or any kind of consistency, but it was a start and readers my age encouraged me forward nonetheless.

2. I believe your first book was ‘Through Hell and Highwater’, it was also the first book of yours that I read and I loved it.
What made you decide to go the independent route when it came to publishing and how did you find the courage to do it?

Yes, Through Hell and Highwater is my debut and looking back at it now, a few years later it feels a little like looking at your 5-year old self’s scribbled drawings. I had no idea what I was doing at the time, all I did know is that I wanted to write and that was the story that was at my grasp for the time. I hated research. I had no clue how to publish something or how to even go about it and finding out frustrated me.

I did query several publishers, needing that support and reassurance. Guidance forward. I was convinced that only a publisher can get me a decent cover, and while I knew nothing about publishing at all, I knew you needed at least a decent cover. So I waited months for replies of ‘no’. Wrote countless of query letters, pouring my soul out in them. And waited, and waited some more.

Until… I got back a yes. A rather inopportune ‘yes’, but still a ‘yes’. That ‘yes’ said I’d need to pay around 2500 euroes for a publishing house to take on my story. Oh, they enjoyed it, but not enough to invest in it themselves. I couldn’t nor wouldn’t do that. So I started that dreaded research I so despised. Research on how to publish myself, because that ‘yes’ may have been conditional, but it did mean my story had promise.

Now, I don’t know if that publisher would have made my book more visible than I managed to do in my fumbling inexperience, or perhaps enriched it up so that I wouldn’t cringe at the writing of my past self as much as I do now looking back, but I would not change a thing right now. I have learned so much from other authors along the way and it’s been such an incredible journey.

3. How do you handle writer’s block or moments of self-doubt?

I take a loooooong break. So long I might forget what it was that I was writing in the first place. Then, when I manage to go back to it, I can see the story in a complete new light and it surprises me every time.

4. What have been the biggest challenges of self-publishing?

Marketing. It is the bain of my existence, as I’m sure most indie authors would agree.

5. What would you say has been the most fun aspect of book writing and self-publishing?

Connecting with readers. I feel like being self-published makes my inbox more accessible to readers and having them rave about my stories to my face is one of the absolute best feelings ever.

6. Have readers ever responded to a character in a way that surprised you?

Oh yes, when they called Luca Ombrello a red flag I almost saw red myself. Honestly, I did not see that coming at all. It’s rather contradicting actually, because some said he is super green and some said he is sketchy and we still don’t know which one he actually is, do we? Either way, everyone is entitled to their own opinion and I have calmed down since. It was absolutely unexpected, however.

7. Finally, what can we expect next from you? Is there anything you’re working on now that you’d love to tease or share?

I have a few unfinished projects at this point. There is so much I want to write, but I also get side-tracked way too easily, as was the case with the second book for Through Hell and Highwater, which is still sitting at 40K words and I haven’t touched it in years.

My current plan is to write book two for Elevate With Me next, then book two for Belfean Courts series and see where we go from there. Sometime in the future I want to expand on Angels Around Us, too.

And both Elevate With Me and Belfean Courts promise to be trilogies at best, with more Belfean Realm books to come after that. So the question is, will I ever get back to where I started from and finish up the second book of Through Hell and Highwater? Only time will tell.

Just a few fun quick-fire questions to end with:

1- Plot or character first?

I believe that the character drives the plot!

2- Favourite writing snack or drink?

I don’t actually snack a lot while writing. I need my hands free, you see! Sometimes I drink coffee, though I’ve heard it can hinder the spontaneous part of your brain.

3- What’s a quote or mantra that keeps you going when writing gets tough?

Just 20K more words and it’s finished. Just 15K. Just 10K. You are ALMOST there!

Wrapping Up

I’d like to thank Victoria Liiv for taking the time to answer my questions and for giving us a glimpse into her world of writing. It’s always such a joy to learn more about an author I admire.

If you’d like to connect with Victoria Liiv or follow her journey, you can find more about her here: linktr.ee/VicWritesBooks

Want to know more about her books? You can find them at heabookshop.com

I would appreciate it so much if you could let me know you thoughts below.
Comments are wholly encouraged, and a clap would make my day.

Thanks so much for reading!

Interview with Indie Author Victoria Liiv was originally published in Indie Corner on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.