Ahelno: The Story Behind The Story

In January 2026, I had an idea for a book. I had always been an avid reader of sci/ fantasy, and last year my husband gave me a Kindle and bought me a subscription to Kindle Unlimited. Before that,

I had read a few popular romance/romantasy series, but not a lot. Once I got the Kindle, though, well, you know how it goes…

There are a lot of subgenres of romance. Not surprisingly, I was first drawn to paranormal romance, which is the closest to traditional fantasy. Then sci-fi/alien romances, then I went down a really dark rabbit hole. Let’s just say there are some very unusual tropes out there.

One of those is non-consensual sex (non-con). This can be done well, and I have read some excellent books that contain non-con. But I often have a hard time identifying with the female main character if I don’t feel her reactions ring true. She’s being assaulted–but somehow she’s into it. Or, she hates it, but is still mysteriously drawn to the handsome perpetrator and falls in love with him anyway. Now, I know that fantasy isn’t reality, but I’ve read many books where I just didn’t buy that this character would fall in love with the man who abused her.

So I kept ruminating on this idea of how that would play out in real life. In what scenario could a woman actually fall in love with a stranger who assaulted her? In reality, she would be traumatized by what happened to her and hate him for it. How or why would she ever forgive someone who did that to her, and afterwards develop real feelings for him? 

The only answer I could come up with was that somehow, the assault had to be an accident or unintentional. The male character would have to genuinely and reasonably believe that the female character consented. But if they’re both sober and understand the word “no,” then that’s a nonstarter.

And that was the lightbulb moment. Somehow, she would need to do or say something that indicated clear consent to him. That could only happen if there was a genuine language barrier. But he also couldn’t be able to understand her nonverbal cues, which meant one of the characters couldn’t be human.

That’s how Ahelno was born. 

At first, it was just a scenario knocking around my brain. The concept of how a miscommunication could lead to assault is pretty easy to depict with an alien romance. The harder part was figuring out what the male character would need to do to earn the woman’s trust and forgiveness after realizing what he had done. For weeks, scenes played out in my mind. I was mildly obsessed. I imagined different conversations and key moments that would need to happen for the forgiveness to be granted and a relationship to authentically bloom. I started to dream about their story at night, working out plotlines in my subconscious.

Eventually, I felt compelled to write all these thoughts down, just to get them out of my head.

When I say this is my first novel, I mean it. I had never written a fictional story before, other than for required English classes in school. I had a lot of experience as a writer and editor throughout my corporate career in Legal, HR, and Marketing departments, but I had never written for fun.

I didn’t write this story for an audience. I wrote this story for me. I loved the world-building and the what-if’s, the adventure, the emotional turmoil, and before I knew it, I had written a full-length novel. And it was the kind of novel that I, as someone who loves reading sci-fi, fantasy, and romance, would love to see in a bookstore. So I thought I would take a chance and publish it. Ahelno is available as an ebook on Amazon for $3.99 or free if you subscribe to Kindle Unlimited. I hope you fall in love with it and with these characters as much as I did.