Hi, I’m M. Hawthorne—writer of romantasy that aches. I write about people who’ve been shattered, scarred, and left behind… but still manage to crawl forward, even when it hurts. My stories are full of tension, trauma, and the slow, stubborn kind of love that feels like learning how to breathe again. I live up here in the not-so-green part of the Pacific Northwest—wind, smoke, dry heat, and an ungodly amount of tea and propel. I’m married to the love of my life, and we have two amazing children, and three cats who think every flat surface belongs to them: Flapjack, Yoshi, and Pumpkin. They alternate between adorable chaos and plotting my downfall. My life is messy. I’m disorganized, my writing notes are scattered across five different apps, and my caffeine intake could probably fund a small tea empire. I live with aphantasia, which means I don’t visualize things in my mind—so I build worlds out of feeling instead. My stories are grounded in emotion, the weight of silence, and the ways people heal from what they thought would destroy them. When I’m not writing, I’m usually rereading Under the Oak Tree for the umpteenth time, crying over Riftan and Maximilian like it’s the first time, or losing track of time playing games and scrolling through adoptable dogs I absolutely don’t have space for. If you love slow-burn stories, emotional wreckage, complicated people, and romance that comes with scars, you’re in the right place.