Inside the Mind - Liora Morgrave

I started writing because I was always searching for answers that history, mythology, and theology never seemed to fully provide. As a child, I was drawn to the stories hidden beneath the stories—the myths that survived for thousands of years, the legends whispered around ancient ruins, and the questions people have wrestled with since the beginning of time. Why do we fall? Can we be redeemed? What is worth sacrificing everything for? The more I read, the more I realized that fiction allows us to explore those questions in ways facts alone cannot. Writing became a way to wander through those mysteries. It allowed me to imagine conversations between angels and demons, heroes and villains, saints and sinners, and to explore the fragile space where darkness and light meet. In many ways, I don't think I chose writing. I think the stories found me first. I simply followed them into the shadows and kept asking questions.

My Guardian Dear is a dark fantasy about love, temptation, and the choices that define us. At its heart is Samantha Brandt, a woman whose faith has always been her anchor, and Damon, a fallen angel who has spent centuries believing he is beyond redemption. Their worlds should never collide, yet from the moment they do, both are forced to confront truths they'd rather avoid. As ancient forces move behind the scenes, Samantha finds herself caught in a conflict far older than humanity itself—a war between Heaven and Hell where loyalty is tested, destinies are rewritten, and every choice comes with a price. But beneath the supernatural elements, My Guardian Dear asks a deeply human question: Can love transform us, or does it simply reveal who we truly are? Readers can expect forbidden attraction, celestial intrigue, dangerous bargains, spiritual warfare, and characters who exist in the gray spaces between good and evil. It's a story for anyone who has ever been fascinated by redemption, captivated by morally complex characters, or wondered whether even the most broken soul can find a way back to the light. After all, the most dangerous demons are not always the ones who want to destroy us. Sometimes they're the ones willing to burn the world to save us.

I wish I could tell you that I create my characters with carefully organized outlines and color-coded notes, but the truth is far less orderly. Most of my characters arrive as mysteries. A voice. A glimpse of a face. A single sentence that appears in my mind without explanation. Damon, for example, walked onto the page carrying centuries of regret and absolutely no intention of explaining himself. Samantha arrived with a quiet strength that surprised me. The more I wrote, the more I realized that neither of them was interested in becoming the characters I had planned. They had their own stories to tell. For me, writing is less about creating characters and more about discovering them. I spend months asking questions. What do they fear? What secret are they hiding? What would they sacrifice everything to protect? What wound have they carried for so long that it has become part of who they are? The most interesting characters always resist me. They make choices I didn't anticipate. They reveal pieces of themselves slowly, sometimes at the exact moment they reveal them to the reader. That sense of discovery is one of the things I love most about writing. Even after multiple drafts, there are moments when a character says something or makes a choice and I find myself staring at the page thinking, Of course. That's who you've been all along. Perhaps that's why readers connect so deeply with fictional characters. If they're written honestly enough, they begin to feel less like inventions and more like people whose stories we're fortunate enough to witness. Writers may open the door, but the best characters tend to walk through it on their own.

My writing days are probably less glamorous than readers imagine. Most begin with a cup of coffee, a stack of books within arm's reach, and a promise to myself that I'll only research for a few minutes before I start writing. That promise rarely survives the morning. I tend to fall down fascinating rabbit holes—ancient myths, forgotten saints, medieval legends, abandoned castles, obscure folklore, and the strange stories civilizations have carried with them across centuries. Those discoveries often find their way into my books in unexpected ways. When I finally settle in to write, I disappear into the world of the story for several hours. Some days the words flow effortlessly. Other days I spend an hour wrestling with a single paragraph because I know a character isn't telling me the whole truth yet. I often take long walks when I'm stuck. There's something about moving through the world that untangles knots in a story. More than once, a solution to a plot problem has arrived while wandering through a quiet park or exploring a historic city. My favorite hours to write are in the evening, when the world grows quieter and distractions begin to fade. There is something magical about that time of day. The boundaries between imagination and reality seem a little thinner. Of course, writing fantasy also means occasionally stopping everything to scribble down a line of dialogue that appears out of nowhere or chasing an idea that refuses to leave me alone. I've learned not to argue with those moments. They're usually leading somewhere interesting. At the end of the day, writing feels less like a job and more like an invitation—an opportunity to spend time with characters I love, explore questions that have fascinated humanity for centuries, and share those discoveries with readers who are willing to step into the darkness and see what waits there.

The most rewarding part of being an indie author is the freedom to tell the stories that refuse to fit neatly into a box. Traditional publishing, like any industry, follows trends. Certain stories are considered safe. Certain endings are expected. Certain characters are easier to market than others. Indie publishing allows me to ignore much of that noise and focus on what matters most: telling an authentic story. I've never been interested in creating characters who exist simply to fulfill a trope or satisfy an algorithm. I'm interested in flawed people, impossible choices, uncomfortable questions, and the messy reality of what it means to be human. Sometimes those stories are dark. Sometimes they're hopeful. Most often they're both. Being an indie author means I don't have to ask permission to explore those themes. I can write the morally complex fallen angel. I can let characters make terrible mistakes. I can allow faith, doubt, love, redemption, and loss to coexist on the same page without worrying whether they fit neatly into a marketing category. There's something wonderfully rebellious about that. At its heart, storytelling has always been an act of defiance. Across centuries, stories have challenged kings, questioned institutions, preserved truths, and reminded us that the human spirit is far too complicated to be reduced to a slogan. As an indie author, I get to be part of that tradition. And perhaps most rewarding of all, I get to connect directly with readers who are looking for something real—people who aren't searching for perfect characters or predictable endings, but for stories that linger long after the final page is turned. Those are my people.

Learning to stop waiting for perfection. For a long time, I believed every chapter had to be flawless before I could move forward. The problem is that perfection is a moving target, and stories don't get written if you're constantly looking backward. Eventually, I learned that first drafts are supposed to be messy. Their job isn't to be perfect. Their job is to exist. Now, whenever my inner critic becomes too loud, I remind myself that you can't edit a blank page.

I may be showing my age, but my favorite writing tool is still a notebook. There are journals scattered throughout my house filled with character sketches, snippets of dialogue, plot twists, and questions that may or may not become stories someday. Some of my best ideas arrive while I'm nowhere near a computer, so I've learned to keep a pen close at hand. There's something about writing by hand that feels more intimate. Slower. More deliberate. A blank page doesn't buzz with notifications or tempt me to check email. It simply waits. Many of my stories begin as scribbled notes in the margins of a notebook long before they ever appear on a screen. By the time I sit down to write a novel, I've usually carried pieces of that story with me for months. So while I appreciate modern technology, I'll always have a soft spot for paper, ink, and the slightly chaotic stack of notebooks on my desk.

Write the story that won't leave you alone. Not the story that's trending. Not the story you think the market wants. Not the story someone else has already written successfully. The one that keeps you awake at night. The one that follows you on walks, appears in daydreams, and refuses to be forgotten. There will always be reasons to wait until you're more experienced, more confident, or more certain. Don't. Every writer begins with a blank page and a great deal of uncertainty. The truth is that writing is an act of courage. You spend months—or years—creating something deeply personal, then release it into the world and hope it finds the readers it was meant for. And it will. Perhaps not all at once. Perhaps not in the way you expect. But somewhere, there are readers waiting for exactly the story only you can tell. So be patient with yourself. Keep learning. Keep writing. Most importantly, finish the book. You can't change a reader's life with a manuscript that never leaves your desk.

Absolutely. I'm currently working on the next installment in the series, Defend Us in Battle, and I'm having an incredible time returning to this world and the characters who first captured my imagination. Readers will be happy to know that Damon and Samantha are back—and their relationship is every bit as complicated, frustrating, heartbreaking, and irresistible as ever. Neither of them has become particularly good at making things easy on themselves. But the world around them is changing. Secrets that have remained hidden for centuries begin to surface, powerful new players emerge from the shadows, and a conflict that once unfolded behind closed doors threatens to spill into the open. Readers will meet Ellis Vaughn, a man born into darkness who is determined to fight against it, and Myra, whose ambitions may reshape the future in ways no one sees coming. The stakes are higher. The consequences are greater. And every character will be forced to decide what they're willing to sacrifice for the people they love. At its heart, Defend Us in Battle is a story about loyalty, redemption, and the choices that define us. Because sometimes the greatest battles aren't fought between Heaven and Hell. Sometimes they're fought between who we are and who we want to become. And unfortunately for Damon and Samantha, that battle is far from over.

I'd simply like to say thank you. Writing is often a solitary pursuit. It's just a writer, a blank page, and a story that refuses to let go. For months—or sometimes years—you spend time with these characters, hoping that one day they will matter to someone else as much as they matter to you. The extraordinary thing is that readers make that hope a reality. Every message, review, recommendation, and conversation reminds me that stories are meant to be shared. We may live in different places and come from different backgrounds, but for a few hundred pages, we walk the same path together. If you've spent time in the worlds I've created, cried with these characters, argued with them, fallen in love with them, or stayed up far too late turning pages, I am grateful. More than anything, I hope my books remind readers that even in our darkest moments, we are never truly beyond hope. The stories may be filled with angels, demons, impossible choices, and ancient wars, but they have always been about something much simpler: The belief that light is worth fighting for. Thank you for coming on the journey with me. We're just getting started.