The Story Behind The Price of Staying

There are stories that are planned carefully. And then there are stories that arrive quietly, like someone standing at the edge of a doorway waiting to be noticed.

The Price of Staying was the second kind.

Long before Tilly’s Tonics existed, before Lock29, before spell jars and crossroads signs, there was Rowan Hale — a character who appeared in fragments first. Conversations. Feelings. Glimpses of rain at windows and the strange ache of almost recognising someone before you understand why.

At its heart, The Price of Staying is a paranormal fantasy romance novel about thresholds…

The spaces between people.The moments that change everything quietly instead of loudly.The strange and impossible choices we make when love asks us to stay anyway.

It’s a story filled with slow-burn romance, emotional mystery, sharp banter, and crossroads magic lingering just beneath ordinary life.

Readers stepping into the series now are entering before The duck, before the snap, before the world fully opens its doors. This is where it all begins.

Writing the book felt less like inventing a story and more like uncovering one piece by piece. Some scenes arrived so clearly they barely needed changing. Others fought back until they finally revealed what they were trying to become.

There are hidden pieces of me woven through the pages:

• a love of liminal places,

• old buildings,

• strange feelings that arrive without warning,

• and the belief that some people alter the shape of your life simply by appearing in it.

For anyone who has ever felt caught between leaving and staying… this book is for you.

And for those already walking beside Thessara and Rowan:

thank you for stepping across the threshold with me 🖤

You may also be wondering, why does she have your name?

Some thresholds open slowly ;)

I hope you find a piece of yourself somewhere within the thresholds too.

Brightest blessings

Thess x Available now on Amazon Kindle, paperback and hardcover.