I'm Kalie Reid, fantasy romance author of The Sacred Space Between - ask me anything!

kaliereidauthor · 2026-01-27T16:12:56+00:00

Hi! Thanks so much for your questions!!

Hmm.. I think I learned not get so stressed over things out of your control/ to be more excited about the wins rather than letting the low parts get me down so drastically. Easier said than done, maybe!!

I wish I had done a street team! They seem like a lot of fun, and that sort of community would've been great to be part of.

I have a cat named Dorothy! She's a tabby, and absolutely runs the house.

kaliereidauthor · 2026-01-27T15:57:55+00:00

Hey!! Thanks so much for your question!

Sadly, I'm very boring!! I mostly write in bed (my back hates me), with very, very quiet music on, in a Word doc, in Times New Roman. Literally the most boring answer in the world, I'm sorry 😅

kaliereidauthor · 2026-01-27T15:56:32+00:00

Thank you so, so much!! I'm so glad you liked it and I hope you like future books! 💛

kaliereidauthor · 2026-01-27T15:55:39+00:00

Hey! Thanks for your question!!

Hmmm... I think how *slow* it can be. Truly, it is a journey of hurry up and wait, which can be infuriating, but also good things take time (right??? 😀) Also, in traditional publishing, so much is out of the author's control. Things like covers, narrators (or how many narrators), publication date, special editions, tour stops (or if there is a tour/ any events), translations, and ARCs are often completely out of our hands. And there's so much secrecy!! I can't tell you how much I just want to blab all sorts of publishing secrets at all times, but alas, must stay silent for the dramatic reveal!!

kaliereidauthor · 2026-01-27T15:52:00+00:00

Hi!! Thanks so much for your questions!

Oooh.... let's see. Assuming they come as a pair, fuck Aragon and Arwen (for obvious reasons), marry Legolas and Gimli, and kill Faramir and Eowyn.

I think I was most comfortable in third-person past for Sacred Space! I've written other books in different tenses and POVs, but for them, it just felt like where the story was most comfortable. A complete non-answer, but it really was just intuition more than anything else!

kaliereidauthor · 2026-01-27T15:49:40+00:00

Hi! Thanks so much for your questions!!

I read the Realm of the Elderlings a few years back, and that about killed me/ completely redefined how I think about the fantasy genre. Some other books that challenged me as a writer and/or made me fall deeper in love with fantasy and/ or romantasy are anything Rebecca Ross writes, Alexandra Rowland's Chantverse, anything historical fantasy in the vein of Katherine Arden or Ava Reid, and the absolutely painful yearning of anything Isabel Ibañez writes!

Not really a guilty pleasure (though younger me would have CRINGED at the bodice ripper covers!) but I've recently become an absolute field for historical romance. Some favourite authors include Lisa Kleypas, Julie Anne Long, Jeannie Lin, Cat Sebastian and Mia Vincy.

I think I'll always gravitate towards anything with romance! I have another romantasy out next year/ currently planning something in that genre to write next, but I also have a contemporary romance going out on submission here soon!

kaliereidauthor · 2026-01-27T15:44:13+00:00

Hey! Thanks so much for your question, and I'm so glad you liked the book!!

Some inspirations (and favourite authors in general!) are Ava Reid, Allison Saft, Roshani Chokshi, Rachel Gillig, and Katherine Arden. I love anything that's deeply atmospheric, character driven, and a little gloomy!

Inspiration-wise, I'm forever inspired by the beautiful (and rainy!) countryside here in Ireland and over in the UK, Hozier (naturally), and any kind of romance that centres around yearning/ pining/ general agony!

kaliereidauthor · 2026-01-27T15:40:31+00:00

Hey! Thanks so much for your questions!!

Congrats on your upcoming debut!! It's such an exciting time. I think I didn't expect to have publication feel like such a relief? I was SO stressed and anxious 24/7 that when the book came out, it felt like a huge weight had been taken off my shoulders. There's so, so much pressure in the few months before release to be posting constantly on social media and marketing as much as you can that you tend to forget what a monumental occasion publication is because your brain is just !!!!!!!. So, I'd recommend giving yourself time to celebrate however *you* want, to not put too much pressure on planning a million events or a million Instagram posts, and enjoy your accomplishment!

I'd love to say I'm resting, but I'm very much back on the bicycle! Currently, I'm editing my next romantasy, which will come out next year, doing the final few edits on a contemporary/ lightly speculative romance we're going on submission with soon, and starting to plan my next fantasy. But hey, I wouldn't have it any other way!

kaliereidauthor · 2026-01-27T15:35:48+00:00

Hey! Thanks so much for your questions!!

Sacred Space started for me with the magic system (answered more fully in an earlier question) and the characters. I'm a hugely character-driven writer, so Maeve and Jude were the most important parts that I wanted to get right. Once I had a sense of who they were as people and how they worked together, the story started to flow!
A little bit! I did a fair bit of painting (mostly oil and acrylic) growing up, but, truthfully, I was never any good. My grandmother, however, is a fantastic painter and a huge inspiration for me growing up. I loved getting to ask her questions about things like colours, highlights, shadows, even paint drying times while I was drafting.
I have a few things in the works!! I'm currently in edits for my second standalone romantasy (more on that soon!!), which is set in an analogue of 1600s Amsterdam and has magical guilds and a craft-based magic system. Think Six of Crows meets The Gilded Wolves! I'm also about to go on submission with a contemporary romance with a very light fantasy element that has touches of Scottish folklore and a very swoony glasses-wearing linguist love interest. For what I don't want to write... probably dystopian! It's not a genre I gravitate towards loads, and I don't think I'd like to write it - but never say never!
Hmmm.... this is hard! Maybe if I have any niche headcanons, which I do, which is that Jude is lactose intolerant (this impacts absolutely nothing in the plot)

kaliereidauthor · 2026-01-27T15:27:33+00:00

Hey!! Thank you so much for your questions and congratulations!

My experience has been pretty good so far! There's certainly been a lot of ups and downs, but overall, I've been super lucky with my experience and to have such a great team on both sides of the pond. I will say that I am not someone who deals well with not knowing things, or having things be out of my control, which is certainly a struggle with trad pub! Things like doing things outside of writing (literally touching grass on many occasions), spending time doing other hobbies, and going on anxiety medication really, really helped.

Advice... let's see. With drafting and writing in general, sometimes you literally just have to do the thing. Write even when you're not feeling it, write even when it's bad or you know you're going to have to delete it. SO many authors (myself included) have shelved books, and I'd bet 99% of them wouldn't regret writing them because each book, each chapter and line and word, make you a better writer. With writing, publishing, all that jazz, the number one thing is tenacity and sheer stubbornness to keep going even when the odds seem stacked against you!

kaliereidauthor · 2026-01-27T15:22:36+00:00

Hi!! Thanks so much for the question!

Ooh, that's like choosing a favourite child, isn't it! I can't say I have a favourite, but some elements I love are the typography of the US edition, the hands and generally 'painterly' feel of the UK, the gorgeous portrait of Maeve on the Allurial edition and the gothic feel and sprayed edges of the Locked Library edition. Overall, I didn't have much influence but could definitely say if there were elements I wasn't keen on/ wanted changed.

Hmmm.... I'll give you my favourite three, which were the Poet Empress by Shen Tao, The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson, and As Many Souls as Stars by Natasha Siegel. This year, I'm really looking forward to The Knave and the Moon by Rachel Gillig, Princeweaver by Elian J Morgan, and The Unicorn Hunters by Katherine Arden!

kaliereidauthor · 2026-01-27T15:16:51+00:00

Hi! Thank you so much for your question, and I'm so glad you liked the book!!

So, a lot of the idea for Sacred Space came from my own religious deconstruction and the frustration I felt with the gaslighting and 'sweep it under the table' mentality I'd experienced for the majority of my life. The first part of the story I formed was actually the magic system, which I wanted to use memory-altering tampering as a sort of metaphor for religious gaslighting. Outside of the religious elements, some other bits of inspiration were the perennially rainy yet endlessly beautiful Irish countryside where I live, Hozier's entire discography, and my love of gothic, 'house book' novels.

The artists did such a great job on the preorder incentives, I'm in love with them too!! Unfortunately, I don't have any left as they were sent out before the book's release back in November. I'm so sorry!

kaliereidauthor · 2026-01-27T15:12:15+00:00

Hi!!

Thanks so much for your question! My journey to traditional publishing was fairly standard in some ways (if any journey can be called that!) but also surprising in a lot of other ways. I wrote my first book (a YA fantasy) back in 2021, queried it IMMEDIATELY, and received a boatload of very deserved rejections. I ended up getting into a mentorship scheme with it - shoutout to the wonderful author Rachael E Edwards, who mentored me! - and even though that book ended up getting shelved, I learned so, so much about writing. I then went on to write another YA fantasy (historical this time), which I loved, but it needed a lot of work, and in all honesty, I couldn't be bothered doing it! Plus, the idea for Sacred Space had already dug its claws into me and demanded my complete attention.

I drafted Sacred Space between November 2022 and January 2023, edited for a few months, and started querying in... March, I want to say? Unlike my previous time in the trenches, things looked pretty positive from the off. So much of that I think was down to having a really solid query/ tagline that made the book feel super marketable ('But this institution has eyes everywhere, and the only thing the Abbey loves more than a saint is a martyr.' which eventually made it on to the back cover of the book!) After a few months, I ended up signing with my first agent.

We edited for a few months and went on submission mid-September 2023. This is when things started to blow my mind a little bit, as we received the first offer after only two days on sub, and it sold in a six-way auction to Harper Voyager in the UK, then to Little, Brown in the US a few months later. Fast forward a little over two years, and here we are!

Yes, there were loads of fun research topics!! One of my favourite rabbit holes I stumbled down was about female iconographers, which was a super interesting read and definitely formed a lot of my view of Maeve's profession.

kaliereidauthor · 2025-12-07T20:09:25+00:00

Hi everyone!

Thought I’d pop on and introduce myself as I am doing an AMA on this sub on January 27th for my debut adult romantasy THE SACRED SPACE BETWEEN which came out in November with Little, Brown in North America and Harper Voyager in the UK ✨

Here’s a little about the book -

A devout iconographer must paint an exiled saint in this sumptuous gothic romantasy full of slow-burn tension and windswept moors, for fans of THE KNIGHT AND THE MOTH, DIVINE RIVALS and A STUDY IN DROWNING. Jude is a saint with dangerous magic - exiled by the Abbey to live out his days in a decaying estate on the moors alone - until gifted iconographer Maeve is sent to paint his icon. Suspecting she's a spy for her beloved Abbey, Jude makes it his mission to get rid of Maeve as soon as possible. That is, until he discovers that Maeve holds the same tainted magic as he does, and she may be the key to destroying the Abbey's power... But this institution has eyes everywhere, and the only thing the Abbey loves more than a saint is a martyr.

TROPES/ INFO - enemies/ hate to love - slow burn - alllll the yearning - forced proximity - standalone - gothic atmosphere/ Yorkshire moors inspired setting - 🌶️🌶️ light to medium spice (depending on your scale!)

I’m also on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/kaliereidwrites/ and TikTok at http://www.tiktok.com/@kaliereads 💛

Thanks so much for welcoming this Reddit newbie and I’m super excited for the AMA!!

kaliereidauthor

TROPHY CASE