When I set out to tell Fable’s story, I didn’t know where it would take me.
A few weeks after my father passed away in 2016, I was curled up in bed when a vivid picture came to me in the shadows between waking and sleeping. A girl stood on a beach, watching a ship sail away, knowing it would never come back. Story ideas often come to me this way, in an image that appears so real that I feel as if I could reach out and touch it. I knew right away that within the bright colors of the almost-dream lay a new story. But over the weeks and months that followed, Fable led me on an unexpected journey through my own self-discovery and grief.
Fable was fourteen years old when her father’s trading ship sank to the bottom of the sea, taking her mother with it. The next day, her father left her on an island to fend for herself. She has spent every day since trying to get back to him and claim her place on his crew, but when she finally gets her chance, fate has other plans.
“Buried between the lines are questions I never asked, discoveries I didn’t see coming, and perhaps even my own fantasies about what could have been.”
Fable’s father Saint is a man carved from myth and legend, whose reputation fills the world that Fable lives in even though she hasn’t seen him in four years. Her story will take her across the Narrows—a brutal, treacherous world in which the truth could cost you your life. Along the way, she will learn more about her father than she ever knew and uncover just how much of him lives within her.
I have often said that this book feels like a goodbye letter to my dad. Although there is nothing explicitly based on him, me, or our story, there are bits and pieces of us scattered throughout the pages. Much of it is written in a language only I understand. Buried between the lines are questions I never asked, discoveries I didn’t see coming, and perhaps even my own fantasies about what could have been.
With every project I work on, I find myself writing my own experience. Worlds of fantasy, superstition, and cutthroat stakes serve as the backdrop for narratives that unravel my own pain, joy, and growth. This has never been be more true than it is in Fable, where my soul found a little healing with each and every chapter. First and foremost, this story is an adventure. But beneath the pale blue waters of the Narrows lies an infinite sea of secrets. Some of them Fable’s, and some of them my own.
The release of this book felt like an exhale. And though it is more than a story to me, Fable is also the most fun I have ever had writing. I hope when readers open this book, they are a swept away like I was, caught in a storm that I didn’t want to end.
