Tiffanie Shaw — one half of Kaylie Lanshaw — is a member of the Flint Area Writers, the writers group that taught me to write when I lived in Michigan.  I met her at a book signing at Barnes & Noble in Flint after we shared a table of contents in the writers group’s anthology Out of the Green.

Tiffanie has her degree in Mental Health, specializing in Child Development with a minor in Early Childhood Education. She puts her degrees to work in her young adult and new adult fantasy writings, though she has been known to venture off into other genres.

When she isn’t working or spending time with her two children and husband, she is jotting down what the voices in her head are saying. Those voices are plotting out Bound in Blood and Shadows, the dystopian series about the fall of the United States and the coming out of hidden species who have lived among us for years.

Here’s how she describes the first book in the series:

After a civil war twenty years earlier decimated the United States’ economy, the crumbling nation has enough to deal with. When the King of a hidden people steps into the light and the monsters of legend turn out to be more than myth, the disintegrating nation is presented with a whole new set of issues.

Prince Endymion wants to get away. Away from the father who abandoned him as a child. Away from the new Kingdom-State he thought could make everything better. So when his cousin Prince Aldis, heir to the throne, assigns him to a part of the Coexistence Project called the Human Transfer Program, it’s just one more obstacle to fleeing.

But peace is never as easy as war. One misstep could send the two nations spiraling into a conflict that the no-longer-United States might not survive.

Did something in the real world inspire Double-Edged War?

There wasn’t one real thing that inspired the book, really. There was talk about places like Detroit needing to file bankruptcy and I wondered what would happen if some government official decided the best way to handle the United States losing money would be to sell states. From there, my fantasy-riddled mind wondered about the supernaturals buying said states.

What is your favorite scene in the book?


It’s hard to pick just one part of the book that is my favorite, moreso since it’s really two books and both are good. If I had to pick though…it would be the moment Endymion realized that he liked Kaelin. It’s a quick thought that sparks the whole thing. I know with that one little thought, Endymion can move toward a better life. Sure, not all at once and not instantly, but without that first thought, I know where he would have ended up.

What was your writing process like as you wrote the book?

This started out as a short story for a creative writing class. I thought of this idea about a human going to a vampire school to prove there could be peace and wanted to write it from the vampire’s point of view. My classmate, Kayla, liked the idea and said she would love to see it from the human’s side. After a lot of talking and convincing our teacher, she got the ok to do so. Having two different stories that are really one taking place in twenty pages is not easy. Trust me when I say we used up every inch of those pages. (I think some of our classmates were a little irritated with that too. LOL). But we made it work and we loved it.

It took us a few months after class was over to expand it, but once we got into the world, we were hooked. We wrote this book along with several side stories, even some stuff that will happen ten years after these books. It was loads of fun and the story has changed since the first twenty-page draft, but totally for the best.

What was the best thing that happened during your promotion of the book?

We didn’t have huge goals for sales. We heard stories of indie writers selling a handful here and there, but sales being hard. I don’t know about Kayla, but when our sales numbers started coming in… I was shocked. We sold out of the paperbacks that we ordered before the first shipment even arrived at the house. Kindle went even faster. It was an amazing feeling. I mean… that and our first review. That was awesome, too.

What do you have planned next?

I am working on the second book in the series Brink of War with my co-author, Kayla Langmaid. (We published under the name Kaylie Lanshaw.) I am also working on a collection of short stories called Knowing. And my own novel, Mine, which is a LGTB romance. You can find all the updates and information for upcoming books on our website: http://www.boundinbloodandshadows.com/blog.

You can get your own copy of Double-Edged War at Amazon: https://amzn.to/2Qx3KMz.

You can check out all of Kaylie Lanshaw’s books at https://amzn.to/2EwMG2T.