Parallel Visions deals with being different, domestic violence, suicide, homophobia, and asthma, all entwined in a fantasy setting. It’s written with suspense and tension, and has hope, like all my books do.

I write about the things I deeply care about, and often that I know. I’m an abuse survivor, so it’s important to me to deal with abuse and healing into my books. I also now have asthma, so I gave Kate asthma. And I’m queer, so it’s very important to me to have queer characters in my books. It’s also important to me to show strong girls, strong survivors.

I love realistic novels, and I love fantasy novels. Fantasy books helped me to escape the abuse I was living, and to dream and hope. I also always wished that I had psychic powers, so that I could predict what my abusers would do before they did it, and so escape some of the abuse.

This is the first time I’ve self-published a book. I like having a foot in both worlds. With a self-published book, I get much more of the royalties—about 70%, at least when the book is priced at $2.99 and above. But traditional publishers have much better distribution—they get books into bookstores—and have more money to promote books. And also some readers trust publisher names in a different way than self-published.

I tried hard to make it professional. I hired the same editor who edited my books Scars and Hunted, to edit Parallel Visions. I also hired a cover designer and formatter, and I again wrote about things I cared about, and wove them into the fantasy. Parallel Visions is a shorter book than my usual, since Houghton Mifflin Harcourt asked me to do that. But it’s still a book that comes from my heart. I hope you enjoy it!