Dear Fellowship member,
Five years ago, I was at a crossroads. I’d just moved to a new city, gotten a new job, and was in the midst of a huge pivot in my writing career. I didn’t know what the future would hold. But during this time, I started delving into a project that had long lingered in the back of my mind, featuring characters I had thought about for years—and as I began that new, uncertain phase of my life, it became a real source of solace to me. The characters became my friends and constant companions in the unknown world where I’d found myself. Soon I’d discovered how truly I loved spending time with them, exploring what their world would be, living it and playing with it, uncovering its histories and its mysteries and its depths; I spent my days researching everything I could, and slowly started the process of bringing a fantasy story based their journeys, and on my own family and cultural history, to life. I didn’t know where it would take me... But I knew it was too important to stop.
The result of this is the book you now hold in your hands.
The Book of Fallen Leaves is the start of an epic fantasy series inspired by Japanese history and folklore, and my own family history as well. It’s a fantasy retelling of a 900-year-old samurai saga that follows two friends—one the heir to a disgraced warrior clan, the other a lowly servant—who form an unlikely friendship as civil war throws their land into chaos.
It’s an epic tale of family, honor, love, revenge, and dark magic inspired by my heritage, featuring a cast of characters that have been in my mind since I was a child. It’s a celebration of epic fantasy and my own culture in equal measure—and is everything I want in fantasy, as a reader and writer both.
It’s the story of a daughter, heir to a great family, who dreams of reclaiming her birthright.
The story of a son, who quests to stop his father's killers once and for all.
And it’s the story of a young woman, a commoner, who by chance once saved his life, and whose fate is now entwined with his, because of it...
My whole life I’ve longed to see stories set in a world like this, to read and write about the tales, the myths and legends of the place where my family is from, a place that’s a little different than what we’ve seen in western fantasy for so many years.
Set in a world of gods and monsters, samurai warriors and nobles, strange monks and peasants and priests, this book is not your sort of normal pseudo-England/Europe that so much of fantasy has traditionally been. It’s a fantasy story, but it’s also a retelling, a remix, of a nearly thousand-year-old narrative that’s based on real history handed down through generations, a story with huge personal significance to me because my family is descended from some of the characters featured in that real life tale. So it means everything for me to see this book finally go out into the world.
It’s a story that speaks to the consequence and inheritance of systemic violence, dark and dangerous, yet full of hope, and it focuses on faith in the goodness of people, no matter how bad the world seems to be.
Despite its darkness, this is not a nihilistic book. It’s a book about good people trying to do their best and find their way in a terrible world; it’s about fighting for that goodness in the face of a place that seems to be telling them to succumb to despair. Deep down, it’s a story that asks: what will you become, if who you feel you are is not what the world is telling you to be?
So, welcome to this realm of gods and monsters, clans and imperial nobles, mystical religions and nature spirits, demons, prophecies and curses from the past. Welcome; I’m so glad you're here. Within you’ll find a tale of love and loss, of battles of pride and hubris, and also, a lot of heart. This book truly is a window into my heart, and I am so unbelievably excited to open it to you now.
This is where we start. I really hope you enjoy it.
Thank you, always,
Alex
