What happens when a shy, telekinetic Brit and a street-wise American, who just happens to be a demigod descended from Herne the Hunter of myth, fall in love?

In Lord of Ravens, the third novel in the dark, new-adult fantasy series Inheritance by A.K. Faulkner, a world of mythological gods, paganism, and magic continues to complicate the relationship between these two young male protagonists: British earl Quentin (kind, painfully reserved, and able to move things with his mind and manipulate fire) and San Diego florist Laurence, who can control the growth of plant life and is gifted with precognition. 

Faulkner, an information technology specialist–turned–full-time writer who shares her home base outside of London with her opinionated corgi, Luna, is also the author of the adult paranormal series Tooth and Claw,about a male werewolf and a vampire (written under Amelia Faulkner). Her books have received Rainbow Awards and honors for outstanding LGBT fiction.

Lauded by Kirkus Reviews as “a grand entry in a consistently gripping and remarkable urban fantasy saga,” Lord of Ravens encompasses new characters, the awakening of Laurence’s magical abilities, and his out-of-body encounters with Morgan le Fay of Arthurian legend and the antlered, cloven-hoofed god, Herne. The plot is darkened by child-eater Black Annis (a ghoulish figure of British folklore), Quentin’s menacing father, and a graphic vision of the scarred past that Quentin has buried deep in his subconscious.

Laurence and Quentin are now living together in the San Diego mansion owned by Quentin’s absent, apparently sympathetic twin brother, Freddy. (In the fourth book, Reeve of Veils, “you get to see what Freddy was up to when he wasn’t on the page” in the previous books, “which was a lot,” Faulkner hints.) The pair have made a family of sorts with young people they rescued from the twisted villain in the second book, Knight of Flames, Quentin’s two rescue dogs, and Laurence’s newly hatched familiar, a raven gifted to him by Herne, who makes his debut as a major player here.

“I kind of left a cliffhanger with regard to Laurence’s ancestry at the end of Jack of Thorns,” Faulkner says, referring to the first book in the series. “It was…there in the background through Knight of Flames, with Laurence being a bit uncertain about his humanity, and I wanted to go back to that. If I’d left it for a whole year,” she observes wryly, it would just be Laurence saying, ‘Oh, yes, by the way, I’m descended from a god.’”

Faulkner turns up the erotic heat, too, as the couple’s bond of love and respect enables innocent, emotionally vulnerable Quentin to control his telekinetic panic response to physical contact and begin to more fully experience the sexual intimacy that Laurence has been yearning to share with him. However, this lull of romantic domesticity is short-lived. Quentin’s father has discovered where his son is and uses unnerving threats to force him to return to Britain. Laurence, meanwhile, struggling in secret to accept the sudden emergence of his feral, Herne-endowed hunter persona, experiences a shattering vision of Quentin’s childhood trauma that profoundly affects their relationship and the entire course of the book.

What Laurence sees in that vision may also cause some readers to take a breather. Faulkner says that her early readers’ reactions were to form a “Chapter 13 Support Group.” “I’m very sorry. I’m just a horrible person,” Faulkner jokes, referring to what she puts her characters and readers through. 

When asked if she had nightmares writing that pivotal chapter, Faulkner’s response is serious. “If you’re going to write horrible trauma, you have to do a lot of research into [it],” she says. “And if you can’t dissociate through that, it’s just going to break you. There’s this level of emotional distance that you have to have to be able to look at a real-world case and go, ‘Yeah, I’m going to use bits of that to do a really horrible thing in a book.’ ” 

Faulkner credits her readers for their input. “Some have experienced certain things that I’ve written about, and they are the people who tell me whether…I’ve stepped over a line or [if] I’m handling something with enough sensitivity or with enough horror.”

Despite the secrets that both Quentin and Laurence feel compelled to keep in order to protect the other, the love and caring they share continue to be some of Faulkner’s most important throughlines. Both men may experience moments of insecurity, but each assumes the best of the other. Faulkner clearly wants readers to also see, however, that love isn’t always enough to fix a problem, that “it’s OK to get that help from somewhere else,” as Laurence does with poignant urgency in seeking advice from eccentric witch Rufus to fast-track his own nascent ability to wield magic in order to protect Quentin.

Far from being random, this expanding mix of humans with superpowers and fantastical characters in the Inheritance series is built on a foundation of inquiry into the nature of belief. Rufus speculates about the pagan origins of monstrous Black Annis:

Christianity demonized wise or elderly women when it overran cultures who actually listened to what their women said, because it ran contrary to the monotheistic, masculine Christian world. It’s likely Annis was a product of this twisting of Pagan cultures. Gods are a reflection of our beliefs….Some of them talk to their followers and can tell them exactly what to think. But most are just creations of human belief, and we shaped the monsters we needed. 

“When you are writing a series that is…heavily based in folklore, mythology, religion, and faith,” Faulkner says, “and you are making some of those aspects real things in the world, you have to consider that other faiths and religions and mythologies exist, too, and that they impact each other, influence each other, and sometimes eradicate each other. I really wanted to dig into [that].” 

As the Inheritancesaga continues in Reeve of Veils, Page of Tricks, Rites of Winter, Sigils of Spring,and an eighth book, which is in progress, readers will not only learn more about Quentin’s family members, but about secondary characters as well. “The choices that the protagonists make in the series affect the lives of everyone around them,” Faulkner says. “That’s basically what Reeve of Veils is about, along with the fact,” she adds, laughing, “that Freddy’s an asshole.”

A Southern California–based writer and editor, Lynne Heffley is a former Los Angeles Times staff writer.