Dear Reader,
It still feels surreal to be writing this, to know that my debut novel is out in the world and might be in the hands (or ears) of a reader who needs it at this very moment.
I started drafting Lord of the Empty Isles in an uncertain time. I'd just shelved a different project—one of those beloved books that will always have a place in my heart—and was reckoning with the passing of a friend from COVID and a sudden, steep downturn in my mom’s health.
For a lot of reasons, those included, writing this book was therapeutic and necessary, as important as it was difficult. Finishing it was a triumph. I hope readers might find in its pages a bit of the healing I found in writing it, but I also hope they find laughter and love and beauty, even in places where beauty is hard to find.
This book was joyful to write, too. I love exploring complex characters and connections in fiction, so writing Remy’s journey—the journey of a messy, angry young man death-cursing his brother’s killer only to find himself magically bound to that killer and catapulted on a journey through the stars—was a pleasure. There are many books out there with wrenchingly gorgeous romances, but it’s important to me to write stories that celebrate love of all shades without valuing one type over another. I built this book’s tether system with that in mind and hope that Remy and Idrian’s twisted-up hate-to-love story and the many other bonds in this book might hold their own against more traditional relationships.
Someone once said that science fiction can allow authors to ask questions about the future, while fantasy might be better positioned to explore present or past concerns. In Lord of the Empty Isles, there’s a constant struggle between holding on and letting go and between the idea of preserving things as they are or have been (to prevent future tragedy) and transforming imperfect systems (to alleviate present pain). It seemed natural to blend both sci-fi elements and a dash of fantasy flavoring to tell this particular tale.
To be fair, though, I think I came into my love of genre-blends honestly. I grew up in the woods with a single, disabled mother in a crumbling trailer without electricity or indoor plumbing, but when I was able to visit my dad, I went to his small apartment in the city. It felt very much like living in two vastly different worlds. I bring that sense of dissonance—of two worlds colliding—to most of my work. In this book, it comes in the form of a high-tech and highly-restricted post-climate-disaster world that just happens to have invisible tethers that connect people.
It’s vanishingly rare for a book to have such broad appeal that it gets anywhere near universally readable, and I know that Lord of the Empty Isles is not one of those books. It’s always scary to write a story knowing it won’t be for every reader. That it, indeed, will not be for most readers. I write anyway, though, and other authors write anyway, in hopes of finding the readers who are hungry for our particular brands of strangeness.
If that’s you, I’m so glad this book found you, and I hope you enjoy the ride. If it’s not, you still have all my gratitude. I hope Remy’s journey of growth and healing and discovery brings even a small measure of joy or catharsis, and thank you, thank you, thank you for giving it a shot.
All my best,
Jules Arbeaux
