An Interview with Remy Renard

I write dark fantasy romance with teeth – stories where monsters are messy, love is complicated, and the woods are always watching. My debut novel, Lupines Bloom Where Blood Falls, is the first instalment of The Florilegium Cycle, set in the strange town of Lorewood, where the line between human and other is thinner than it should be.

Outside of writing, I work in higher education as an instructional designer, and I also have a background in film, which heavily influences how I build scenes and emotional beats on the page. I’m drawn to stories that let tenderness and brutality exist side by side, and I love writing worlds that feel just a little off in the best possible way.

I write stories that make you question who the monster really is – and I don’t make that easy.

---

---

Tell us the story of your book’s title. Was it easy to find, or did it take forever?

The title Lupines Bloom Where Blood Falls came very late. Like, final revisions before interior design late.

I went through a phase where I thought I wanted an ‘X and X’ style title, but once I realized how common that structure was, I backed away from it pretty quickly.

‘Lupines’ comes from the nickname the MMC gives the main character, and the ‘blood’ is…well, there’s a lot of it.

Once it clicked, though, it felt inevitable – like I’d been circling it the whole time.

Weirdly, it also unlocked the rest of the series. I was suddenly able to map out the titles for the other books based on themes and the flowers tied to each one. Even the title for the series – The Florilegium Cycle – flowed from this one.

One of the biggest challenges I faced was that this book was originally supposed to be a standalone. It is now very much not. The world grew as I wrote, and suddenly I’m staring down five books that need titles – and the first one had to be perfect.

How did it feel when you first saw your book cover? Or when you first held your book in your hands?

Honestly? I cried both times.

When I saw the cover, there were several options, but one was the clear winner. The one I chose was a bloody lupine against a black background, text that looks like it was written with a sharpie, and blood splatters that wrap around to the back. It was perfect.

After deepening the red so I didn’t drift into Twilight territory, it immediately became my phone background, and it hasn’t changed in almost a year. It’s beautiful and a little uncanny, which feels like a good representation of what’s inside the book.

Holding the book for the first time was…a whole different moment.

It showed up around Christmas and accidentally got buried in a pile of Amazon packages for about a week. When I finally found it, I completely lost it – I scared the dog, my son rolled his eyes, and my husband came rushing downstairs to see what was wrong…

And I’m just standing there, crying, holding the book, trying to figure out how I even got this far with my silly little story.

Who/what made you want to write? Was there a particular person, or particular writers/works/art forms that influenced you?

I don’t know that there’s a clean answer for why I wanted to write, just that once I started, I couldn’t really stop.

Part of it was wanting to write the kind of story I hadn’t quite found yet – something that held brutality and beauty in the same space without softening either.

But part of it was also more personal. My mom would have absolutely hated what I write, and still would have read every word, given honest feedback, and listened to me talk through every character and scene. She would have been so proud of this moment. After she passed, finishing this book became something I was determined to do.

Film has always been a huge influence on me. I spent years studying it and writing about it, and it’s shaped how I think about storytelling, pacing, and visual tension. I tend to ‘see’ scenes before I write them, which definitely comes from that background.

Books, too – too many to name, honestly. But in 2023, I became really drawn to dark romance, especially the monster romance side of it. I loved the genre, but I found myself craving a very specific tone. When I couldn’t quite find that, I went back to a story idea I’d jotted down years earlier in my notes app, borrowed pieces of my home in the Appalachian Mountains and Central Pennsylvania to shape the town of Lorewood, picked names for characters…and just started writing.

Somewhere along the way, the world stopped feeling like something I was building and started feeling like something that was revealing itself to me. Characters showed up out of nowhere, businesses and streets took shape as I wrote, and sometimes the story would veer off in directions I wasn’t expecting.

That’s honestly the best part – the moment where it stops feeling like work and starts feeling like discovery. Because it’s not only about wanting to write…it’s finding reasons to keep going.

(There were also moments where I had to remind my characters to stay on track. They didn’t always listen.)

What other professions have you worked in? What’s something about you that your readers wouldn’t know?

I work in higher education as an instructional designer, which I sometimes jokingly refer to as my ‘adult job.’ I help faculty build courses, think through accessibility, and integrate technology into their teaching. It’s a very structured, very practical world – which makes it a nice contrast to what I write.

Before that, I spent a lot of time in film – studying it, writing about it, and occasionally doing things like filming my now-husband with an 8mm camera in a bathtub splattered with chocolate syrup in a rental apartment (I did get the security deposit back, don’t worry). That background still shows up in how I write. I tend to think in scenes, pacing, and visual beats, almost like I’m building a film on the page.

Something readers might not expect is that my academic work focused on deconstructing monsters – specifically zombie media – through cultural and theoretical lenses. So, in a way, I’ve always been interested in what monsters mean. I just don’t write about them like a professor anymore.

Also, the building I work in is technically haunted, which feels very on-brand.

What was the most rewarding/meaningful part of publishing your book?

The most meaningful part of publishing my book has been the connection.

A lot of that has come through social media. I didn’t approach it like I needed to perform or chase attention. I wanted to create a feeling – an invitation into the world. Something that said, “Hey, we’re here if you’re interested. Come hang out for a while. It’ll be weird, but fun.”

And people showed up.

I’ve had conversations with readers, potential readers, and other authors that I never would have had otherwise, and that’s been the most rewarding part of this entire experience. Being able to share Lorewood in a way that feels intentional and true to the story – and having people connect with it – means everything to me.

I also understand my book isn’t for everyone, and I’m okay with that, which makes the connections I do make even more meaningful.

Beyond readers, I’ve met some incredible authors – people I’ve talked with, will collaborate with, and others who are simply kind, supportive, and doing amazing work. That sense of community, when you find the right pockets, is incredibly rewarding.

I’ve also had the chance to connect with independent bookstores and place my book on consignment, which has been such a surreal and meaningful experience. Seeing it exist in physical spaces, supported by people who love books as much as I do, is something I don’t take lightly.

Social media can absolutely be exhausting (I’m currently on a bit of a break), but when you focus on connection over noise, it becomes something genuinely meaningful.

If your book had a soundtrack, what are some songs that would be on it?

Music plays a huge role in how I write. I tend to build scenes around emotional beats, and I’ll often have a song on loop while I’m working through them – sometimes for hours at a time. It helps me feel the scene before I ever put it on the page.

If Lupines Bloom Where Blood Falls had a soundtrack (which it absolutely does), it would include:

Lose Control – Teddy Swims

Fire – Barns Courtney

MONSTER – Wake Up Hate

Control – Halsey

Mine – Sleep Token (or Aqua Regia, depending on the mood – both live in this world)

Heaven on Earth – Hayden Blount (a softer, unexpected one, but it fits)

T.B.D. – Live (no one can convince me this isn’t one of the sexiest songs ever written)

It’s a mix of tension, obsession, transformation, and something a little wild-eyed underneath it all, which feels right for Lorewood.

I also have a Lorewood playlist (which is more of a running collection of anything I listen to while writing – some of it makes its way into the book’s soundtrack, and some of it doesn’t), and each book has – or will have – its own curated playlist, because I’m incapable of doing this halfway. You can find the Lupines Bloom Where Blood Falls playlist here if you’re curious:

What is one thing you hope readers take away from reading your book? How do you envision your perfect reader?

I want readers to walk away feeling like they’ve actually been to Lorewood – that they’ve walked the streets, met the people, and experienced something just a little off in the best possible way.

At its core, the story explores power, survival, trauma, and the choices we make after something terrible happens to us. I don’t think those things are clean or easy, and I didn’t write them that way. I wanted to let tenderness and violence exist side by side.

I think there’s sometimes an assumption about what a ‘spicy dark romance’ is, and I wanted to push a little beyond that. These stories can hold a lot of emotional weight, especially when it comes to trauma and survival, and that was important to me while writing.

I also hope readers connect with the characters in a real way – that they roll their eyes at Aurora’s jokes, laugh at Ezra’s constant exasperation with humanity, and fully accept Louie’s complete disregard for reality. Those moments of levity matter just as much as the darker ones.

And if it resonates on a deeper level, I hope it makes people feel a little less alone. That even in the messiest, most difficult moments, there’s still a path forward – even if it doesn’t look the way you expected.

My ideal reader is someone with an open mind – someone who loves morally gray characters, powerful women, queer-normative worlds, and stories that don’t shy away from intensity. Someone who can see the beauty in the brutal, and the brutality in beauty, and understand that those things can exist at the same time.

What creative projects are you currently working on?

Right now, I’m deep in revisions for book two of The Florilegium Cycle, Asters Wilt Where Shadows Rise, which has been a really fun (and occasionally frustrating, in the best way) process of refining the story and strengthening the emotional beats.

At the same time, I’ve started mapping and sequencing scenes for book three, which has been especially interesting as I begin to see how threads connect across the series – some of which were planted early on and won’t fully surface until much later.

I’m also in the early stages of developing a podcast centered around dark romance, storytelling, and the community itself. A big part of that will be exploring genre differences – why certain things work for some readers and not others – and having conversations with other authors, including those writing in very different spaces like literary fiction and poetry.

So while Lupines Bloom Where Blood Falls is out in the world, there’s a lot happening behind the scenes – Lorewood isn’t done with me yet.

How was working with Atmosphere Press? What would you tell other writers who want to publish?

Working with Atmosphere Press has been a really positive experience. One of the things I appreciated most was how much they encouraged me to lean into what makes my writing different. There was never any pressure to smooth out the edges or make the story more – instead, I felt supported in telling the story the way I wanted to tell it.

The content editing, in particular, made a huge impact. I was given thoughtful, direct feedback that pushed the manuscript in ways I don’t think I would have reached on my own. My draft was far from perfect, but it felt like they could see the story beneath the rough edges and help me bring it forward.

I was also pleasantly surprised by how transparent the process was. I had full control over my content, cover, and formatting, and when I had feedback or questions, those conversations were taken seriously – either implemented or clearly explained. That level of collaboration and respect mattered to me.

For writers who want to publish, I think the most important thing is understanding what you want out of the experience. There are so many different paths – traditional, hybrid, independent, and self-publishing – and none of them are one-size-fits-all. It’s easy to spend a long time waiting for the ‘right’ opportunity or the ‘perfect’ version of a story, but at some point, you have to decide what matters most to you and move forward.

For me, that meant choosing a path where I could maintain creative control while still having support – and trusting myself enough to put the work out into the world, even when that trust doesn’t always come easily.

---

Are you a writer, too? Submit your manuscript to Atmosphere Press.