Amanda Cessor’s debut, With Love, Juniper introduced us all to a world teeming with cozy magic, sweet childhood loves, and personal growth. Drawing on inspiration from Studio Ghibli films like Kiki’s Delivery Service and Howl’s Moving Castle, we followed Juniper and Oleander through a Victorian-esque, fantasy setting called Linseed Village as they navigated a new chasm in their friendship after Oleander returned from two years away studying to get his sorcerer’s diploma.
Returning as a young man, Oleander hoped to finally court the girl he’d spent most of his childhood pining after. Of course, plans go awry when a stranger visiting from the royal city of Kingsborough, Theo Vervain, sets his sights on Juniper as a potential match as well.
The story is full of tender romance, bitter rivalry, and lessons about self-acceptance all packaged in a book that feels like a warm cup of hot cocoa turned into words.
We’re excited to announce that Inked and Gray Press will be partnering with Amanda Cessor again in publishing a follow up to With Love, Juniper.
In the sequel, to be titled Yours Truly, Theo, we follow Oleander’s former rival as he throws himself into his two passions: following in his father’s footsteps by beginning his career in the Chaos and Crime department and moonlighting as a mysterious masked racer in the illicit underground Besom racing scene.
There is not much relief to be found in his steadfast dedication to his work, though. Not as his father seems unlike himself while contending with a new string of ritual murders in the city. Not as he’s placed on temporary suspension for disobeying orders when worried about his father. Not when he loses to an irritating new arrival on the track who’s using some strange kind of magic to beat him that he’s never seen before.
When Juniper shows up on Theo’s doorstep with Oleander in tow, delirious and cursed by chaos magic, intuition tells him all these things are connected. For the first time in his life, he may have to go against his father’s wishes in order to help him. Sometimes desperate times call for vigilante measures.
Inked in Gray Press caught up with Amanda Cessor to give readers a behind-the-scenes peek of what we can expect from the sequel to With Love, Juniper. Starting first and foremost with what inspired them to tell Theo’s story after Oleander and Juniper got their happy ending in book one.
Q: What prompted you to write Theo’s Story?
Amanda Cessor: In early drafts of With Love, Juniper, Theo was a struggle. I felt, as I wrote him into the scenes that needed him, he acted mostly as a plot device. He seemed to only be unkind for the sake of being unkind, making him feel flat and frustrating as he helped move the plot of the story along. Of course, you want your antagonist to feel frustrating, but not to the point where his actions don’t seem to make any sense, or have any believable motivation for being a thorn in your protagonists’ sides.
I had to really sit with him and figure out his reasoning for fighting so hard for Juniper, and when I did, I honestly started feeling kind of bad for the guy. Theo has a moral compass—he’s also just kind of an idiot. He is a jerk only as a means to an end. He just wants to honor the legacy of his parents and repay them for the love and support they always provided for him.
Where Oleander fell for Juniper like a feather falling drifting to the ground, Theo sort of crash landed into his feelings for her, and that’s what led to his failure. He was just thoroughly unprepared for what love required of him. After seeing the tragedy in it, I just couldn’t help but want to give the poor guy a happy ending of his own.
Q: Will we get to see more of Juniper and Oleander?
Very pleased to say yes! Juniper and Oleander will have an important role in Theo’s story and will be present for a good amount of it, though the story will primarily be told from Theo’s perspective.
Q: Are there some exciting elements from the last story that we get to see in this sequel?
Absolutely! Juniper’s story, I think, is a reflection of what is most important to her in her life. As a result, it’s fairly peaceful, cozy and grounded. I didn’t get to spent much time exploring the magic system in the first book, because there was less that revolved around it.
Conversely, Theo essentially works in a law enforcement agency during a fresh string of murders. I’m going to be spending a lot of time delving into this world’s magic in this second book. How it’s used, what the taboos are, and also getting more into what chaos magic looks like.
And a little spoiler . . . this book is going to have an illegal broom racing industry featuring in it as well!
Q: Without spoilers, what can we expect from Theo and his story?
You can expect to see a lot more of Theo’s humanity coming through. In Juniper’s story, we were mostly seeing Theo how he showed up in her perception and Oleander’s perception. In short: we either saw him as a huge jerk, or saw him through the eyes of someone who couldn’t really tell he was being a huge jerk.
In this book, we’re going to see a lot more of the internal parts of what Theo is thinking before he acts. Perhaps not a shocker to most people, but much of what drives Theo is his own anxiety, though it presents differently from Juniper’s. Where Juniper hides away, Theo is more of a perfectionist. He handles anxiety by doing—by convincing himself that he has some measure of control over his circumstances.
We’re also going to see a lot of grumpy-sunshine dynamics between Theo and a new character, which I can’t wait to dig into.
Well, that’s all we have for you for now! To get updates when ARCs and preorders come available, consider signing up for the Inked in Gray Newsletter. If you’d like to keep up with Amanda Cessor’s process in drafting this book, feel free to subscribe to her newsletter at http://amandacanwrite.substack.com or follow her on instagram and threads @amandacanwrite!