TAP Feature – Clennell Anthony

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This month we are featuring Romance and Romantasy author Clennell Anthony.

FIA: Tell us the title of your Book.

CA: When Shadows Bind: Chronicles of the Draiocht, Book One

FIA: When you created the title for your book, was it difficult to come up with your title? What was your process and what was your motivation for this title?

CA: This particular book went through several adaptations. Originally, it was part of a much larger novel that came in at approximately 162,000 words. Eventually, I decided to break that behemoth into three separate novels.

At the time, this book was titled Bound by Blood. It took several rounds of title searching, brainstorming, and generating possibilities before I finally landed on When Shadows Bind, a title that suited both me and the story. It was quite the process, and I swear it felt like it took forever! But once I found the right title, I knew. The shadows, the bonds between the characters, and the connections tying the past to the present are all important parts of the story, so the title fits beautifully.

FIA: What would you say are the key themes of your book?

CA: One of the key themes of When Shadows Bind is that trust isn’t determined by bloodlines. The book also explores the idea that, even though it might sound trite or cliché, love really can be the strongest magick.

Hatred causes havoc, and it takes far too much energy to sustain. These two families have spent generations feeding a feud, pointing fingers, and holding on to anger. Ultimately, if the evil threatening them is going to be eradicated, the feud must end. They have to learn to accept and trust one another, and make room for love to prevail.

FIA: What inspired this book?

CA: This is an interesting question because when I finished the first book of the Draiocht, which is really more of a prequel than anything, I thought the story was over. It was a short book I essentially published for a course I was taking.

Then my friend Mandy Barough told me the story wasn’t finished.

“What happens next?” she asked.

Of course, I was basically like, “Nothing. The story ends there.”

Mandy disagreed.

Over the course of the next few months, her words plagued me in the best possible way. What happen next? I started wondering, imagining, and asking questions. Somewhere in all those musings, Kedrick and Synder were born.

Eventually, I ended up with a behemoth of a book that has now grown into a six-book series with a planned spinoff series.

So, thanks, my friend, for refusing to let me get away with saying, “That’s the end.”

Clearly, it wasn’t.

FIA: Why was it important to you that this book be shared with the world?

CA: It’s important to me because underneath all the magick, romance, danger, and forbidden attraction are issues people face every day. There are politics, secrets, outright lies, family expectations, old grudges, misplaced blame, and people struggling to decide whether they should follow the paths laid out for them or choose something different.

At the heart of the story is the idea that love can create harmony, even between two feuding families determined to point fingers and place blame on everyone and everything except themselves. Sometimes, changing your world means being brave enough to stop repeating what the people before you did.

FIA: Are you traditionally published or self-published? Can you share with us what lead you to this decision and how it has worked out for you so far?

CA: I am self-publishing When Shadows Bind. I decided to self-publish because I want to make the decisions surrounding my books, including cover design, marketplaces, book formats, release plans, and how my stories are presented to readers.

I’m still learning the marketing side of publishing and figuring out how to get my books in front of more readers. I love the process, although I certainly wouldn’t complain about making more sales! I’m pretty sure most authors can relate to that particular struggle, so at least I know I’m in good company.

Self-publishing has definitely been a learning experience, but I enjoy having creative control over my work and being involved in every stage of bringing a book from an idea to something readers can actually hold in their hands.

FIA: If your book had a play list, what would it be and why?

CA: “I Found” by Amber Run

“God Has a Sense of Humor” by GAYLE

“The River Sings” by Enya

“A Thousand Years” by Christina Perri

“Witchy Woman” by Eagles

“Bring Me to Life” by Evanescence

“Demons” by Imagine Dragons

“Secrets” by OneRepublic

“Wicked Game” by Chris Isaak

“Control” by Halsey

Several of the songs on this list connect more to the themes and emotional atmosphere of the book than to what I actually listened to while writing it. Some are wonderfully thought-provoking and make me think about the dynamics between the feuding families, the secrets everyone is carrying, and especially the complicated relationship between my main characters, Kedrick and Synder.

There’s longing, darkness, temptation, secrets, magick, and just enough emotional chaos to make things interesting. Basically, it’s When Shadows Bind with a beat.

FIA: If there was one person you could pick to say this  book was meant to impact who would they be and why?

CA: I think this book can appeal to a wide variety of readers, but my primary target audience is women ages twenty-one and older who enjoy romance, romantasy, magick, mystery, family drama, and characters who have to figure out who they are outside of everyone else’s expectations. I’d certainly love to have male readers too; they’re simply not my primary target audience.

More than anything, I’d love for this story to resonate with women who need the reminder that their lives belong to them. You can spend an incredible amount of energy trying to please your family, your community, or everyone who thinks they know what your life should look like, and still never please everybody. So, why not choose yourself?

Synder’s journey especially asks what happens when the life everyone expects you to live collides with the life you actually want.

FIA: What was the moment you felt this is really happening and you felt your book was actually becoming a reality?

CA: It became real when I started doing all the promotional work surrounding the release. The cover reveal was a huge moment, but then I set up the preorder through Kindle Direct Publishing and began establishing my launch team.

There’s something wonderfully surreal about spending so much time alone with a story and its characters and then suddenly saying, “Okay, world. Here they are.”

Once the preorder went live, it stopped feeling like this enormous project living on my computer and started feeling like a real book that was about to belong to readers.

FIA: Give us one fun fact or event that made it all worthwhile: the writing, editing, time, and effort? What made it fun? What was stressful? why is it all worth it in the end?

CA: One of the best things about When Shadows Bind was simply how much fun I had writing it. Even when I got stuck and had to regroup, I could still find something about the story that made me curious enough to keep digging. And, I researched everything.

I learned about aromatherapy and herbalism. I learned more about the Earth and some of its natural rhythms. I explored a different calendar, and now I occasionally check it just to find out what phase the moon is in. I’ve even subscribed to some fascinating newsletters because I wanted to keep learning about subjects I originally discovered while researching the book.

One of my favorite things about writing romantasy is the worldbuilding. I got to invent names for things, take a town that no longer exists and reimagine it as my own, develop social systems and magickal traditions, and create an entire world where I could decide exactly how much my characters were allowed to suffer before giving them a little happiness.

Okay, sometimes a very little happiness.

The stressful part has been editing such a massive story, making difficult decisions about what stays and what goes, and eventually realizing that one enormous book needed room to become something much bigger, but that’s also part of what made the experience worthwhile.

This entire story has been a labor of love, and I’m thrilled to finally hand When Shadows Bind over to readers on the Autumnal Equinox, Tuesday, September 22, 2026.

I hope they love it even half as much as I loved creating it.

 

FIA: Hello readers. If Romance and Romantasy is a genre you love to read, pick up this book and support Clennell’s creative journey.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HFQWGMWT?lv=shuf&channelId=500&plpRedirect=mhFallback

We wish her success–  sprinkled with a little bit of magic, just for luck. 💖

 

Twilight Temptations

An Excerpt from When Shadows Bind

By Clennell Anthony

 

“I think you should go,” she said, making no effort to push him away this time.

“Yeah, I know.” He touched his lips to her forehead. “I wish I could be more like you,” he admitted.

“Why?” She let her palms rest on his chest while she looked up at him.

“Because I don’t think it’s quite right to think the way I do.”

“And how is it that you think?”

She touched her fingers briefly to his chin, then placed them back on his chest. She couldn’t resist the lure of him being so close. She simply had to touch him. Her stomach was doing somersaults, her legs felt a bit weak, and her body strained toward his.

Suddenly, it was crystal clear what these feelings were. She was beginning to understand why Kedrick kept believing Kooper would harm his sister and why she wanted to hate Kedrick for every little infraction.

What was happening between them was wrong. Theirs was a forbidden attraction, and she would not give in. She promised herself that as she stepped back from him and temptation.

“It’s wrong, and you know it as well as I do,” Kedrick murmured as Synder pulled out of his arms. “You’re always pulling away, always walking away.”

He watched her turn toward the lake and look out at the deepening darkness of the horizon.

“Why is it wrong?” she asked, already knowing the answer.

They both knew, but they knew no other way to be. They were meant to be enemies, not hold one another at sunset while watching the moon rise bright and full over the lake and forests.

It was one of the most romantic settings on either of their lands. The atmosphere alone was sensuous, but then there were the two of them, alone, forbidden to touch, forbidden even to like one another.

It was heady stuff. Had it been like this for Kooper and Ember? Synder wondered as she turned to face Kedrick once more.

“What are we going to do?” he asked when she turned and met his gaze once more.

Other titles by Clennell:

https://clennellanthony.wordpress.com/books/