Hello! It’s our pleasure to be introducing R. Lee Fryar, the author of our first release as Midnight Meadow, and our first release of 2024. We have both an interview and a surprise cover reveal for you!
Tree Gods is only our third work featuring an M/M relationship, so this is an incredibly exciting reveal for us.
Book Description
Death was in the water. Holly could taste it.
TREE GODS is an adult rural fantasy with M/M romance. Imagine if Romeo fell in love with Tybalt in rural Georgia, but Tybalt’s family was a murderous bunch of trees. A logging company executive negotiating a deal to cut down old growth forests in Georgia falls in love with a rabid environmentalist who is actually a Drus, a male dryad. Their love divides a human family, and plunges the sentient forest into chaos. Happily-ever-after depends on two things: a man who learns what he wants most in life, and a tree who will give up the title of king for the man he loves.
About R. Lee Fryar
R. Lee Fryar is a fantasy writer from the River Valley region of Arkansas. She writes paranormal romance and fantasy. Most of the time, there’s kissing in it. When she isn’t writing, she is a bad gardener, a slightly better watercolor artist, and a pretty decent cook.
You can learn more about R’s other works at her website here.
What comes first for you—the plot or characters—and why?
Often, they arrive at the same time, but in the vast majority of my stories are character driven.
So the plot evolves out of who they are, where they came from, and what they most want in their lives.
It becomes difficult to separate the two.
What part of Tree Gods did you have the hardest time writing?
There’s a scene where Margo talks to Tristan about relationships. I must have rewritten that
chapter thirty times. But I kept finding that I could get even deeper into Tristan’s heart if I kept working
on it. I hope I finally got it.
What part of Tree Gods was the most fun to write?
My favorite scenes to write are ones where I get to explore the world of the Drus. Writing them made me acutely aware of what it would be like to be intimately connected to the natural world, growing with it, living as a part of it, suffering with it. I particularly enjoyed everything to do with their sacred spring.
Which of the characters do you relate to the most and why?
Willow. That surprised me, too. I like the way he navigates the position in which he finds
himself—caught between two worlds that can’t ever meet. And yet, he manages this mine field for
years. I’m not entirely sure why I relate to him the most, only that I often feel I navigate that mine field
too.
What perspectives or beliefs have you challenged with Tree Gods?
I hope that the book makes readers think a little harder about the forest, about what it’s like to
see the world from the perspective of a tree.
What inspired the idea for Tree Gods?
Two things inspired Tree Gods. I was challenged to write this book by a CP who suggested that if
I was going to take fantasy people and integrate them into a contemporary setting, I needed to try it
with a fantasy race that hadn’t been done before. It got me thinking about a person I had drawn many
years before—a person standing on the shores of a pool of water with roots for feet and hands.
I put that together with an experience I had exploring a forest in the Southern Applachians when
I was a teenager. I came across a spring bubbling out of a group of mossy rocks. I never found it again,
although I looked. So much about those mountains is magical. I am delighted that I had the opportunity
to set a story there.
Without further ado, here is the cover of Tree Gods
