Roz Maclaren

Teen Fiction with a Dark Twist

Archives for April 2026

The Boy With Wings For Hands – out now in paperback

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I’m thrilled to announce that the paperback edition of my YA sci-fi, The Boy With Wings For Hands, are now on sale.

SHOP YOURS

Seventeen-year-old Sparrow has never known freedom. An alien from the planet Mykzon, she’s caged and forced to perform in Obsidian’s Travelling Show of Rarities and Fascinations.

That is, until Felix crashes into her world. He’s human, reckless and has wings where his hands should be. And when Felix’s arrival attracts powerful enemies, Sparrow’s world is thrown into chaos.

As Sparrow is drawn into a rebellion she never asked for, she must choose between staying hidden or risking everything to fight back.

Because Obsidian doesn’t just want the spotlight.

She wants the world.

Are you ready to join the rebellion? Shop The Boy With Wings For Hands now. Or get in touch with me to enquire about signed copies and sprayed edges.

Character art reveal: Hunter and Vesper

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If you’re in the Street Team, you’ll have seen this already (and if you’re not, why aren’t you?!)

I’m thrilled to unveil Kat’s beautiful piece, created to go along with my upcoming YA dark romantasy series, The Ruined Skye Trilogy.

Here you go:

In my head, the art is meant to evoke how my main characters wanted their first meeting to be. In reality, they argue, threaten each other and one of them nearly dies. But both know that, if they didn’t live in a world where talking to the wrong person could kill them, perhaps they might be friends…

So while this scene isn’t actually from the book, think of it as as a kind of bonus scene. I love how Vesper holds her knife, not quite trusting Hunter (or herself) and never fully relaxing.

Blurb

Here’s a reminder of the blurb:

She wants to destroy his world. He’s sent to destroy her.

Centuries after a radiation leak on the Isle of Skye wiped out thousands, the mutated survivors developed god-like powers. Led by power-hungry Queen Creyta, they’re determined to drive the few remaining humans to extinction.

Seventeen-year-old Vesper, one of the unmutated, is determined to go down fighting. Prince Hunter, the queen’s ridiculously handsome son, might just be the key to his mother’s undoing. But the closer Vesper gets to Hunter, the more she realises he’s just as trapped as she is. Now she’s torn between taking down Creyta and protecting the boy she’s grown dangerously close to.

One wrong move and she won’t just lose Hunter. She’ll lose everything.

Forgotten Skye is out this summer with Evernight Teen. I can’t wait to share my fiesty, damaged, dangerous, flawed, fearless characters with you.

March wrap-up

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Only three months into the year and I’m already wildly overdue with my March wrap-up.

It won’t take long.

Here goes:

My March consisted of being ill. That was it. That was the entire March.

I hope yours was better than that.

Did anything else happen?

Not really. I completed two rounds of edits on Flame and Phoenix. I also received the document for Funeral For A Robot edits, but with brain fog and fatigue getting me with a pincer movement, I really didn’t get very far.

I am really pleased with how Flame and Phoenix came together, though. I hope you enjoy it too when it’s released this summer.

Cover reveal for Funeral For A Robot

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Funeral For A Robot is my upcoming YA sci-fi novel, set in a futuristic, dystopian London. It’s due out this summer with Fire and Ice YA.

I’m thrilled to reveal its cover – created by Ashley of Redbird Designs – and one that I think perfectly captures the eerily dystopian vibes.

I’m currently editing Funeral For A Robot as we speak. I’ve just had the first edits back from my amazing publisher and I’m working through them.

This is the first time I’ve ever written a dystopian/sci-fi murder mystery and it’s full of robots and intrigue, told in dual-POV. It’s perfect of fans of The Hive by Anna February and Coming of Age by Dana Gricken.

Book review: The Swarm by Anna February

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I was thrilled to get a message from the Chicken House teams giving me a free ARC of The Swarm by Anna February.

I was fortunate enough to get an uncorrected proof of The Hive, Anna’s previous book, and review it. So I was keen to get straight in to the sequel.

I tore through The Swarm in just a few days. The book sees Niko and Feldspar head off in a mission to a nearby colony – but that mission soon goes very wrong…

This book switched to Niko’s point of view, which took me a little while to get used to. I liked him as a mysterious figure and to access his inner monologue stripped him of some of the intrigue but it also gave us a chance to see the first book’s protagonist, Feldspar, from a new angle.

I found the twists easier to predict than the first book. This probably isn’t a reflection of the book, but I am serial predicter of twists – which was in no small part why I loved the first book so much. It really kept me guessing until the end.

Both both books are very intelligently written and thoughtful without ever feeling preachy. In their own way, they wryly comment on today’s political and social landscape.

I only hope there will be a third!

Author K. J. Reed on all things dark and twisty and a brand-new podcast

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What first drew you to writing dark and psychological fiction, and when did you realise that horror and suspense were the genres where your storytelling really belonged?

I love all things dark and twisty: music, movies, books, podcasts… you name it! So thriller / horror always felt like the right place for my writing, too. I think I realised it’s the genre I specifically wanted to write within, when the seed of the idea for All The Lies We Told specifically hit.

It was the first story I could see clearly, how I wanted it to be, and I’d recently found my niche of psychological thriller fiction (reader wise), after reading Kiss The Girls by James Patterson. I’ve never looked back! But I’m also big on Fantasy too, so I want to bring the two together one day. 

You’re an English author but many of your stories are set in the United States. What inspired that choice, and how does American horror culture influence your work?

I grew up watching a lot of american horror / thriller / supernatural television shows with my dad. Criminal Minds, The Vampire Diaries, Supernatural, NCIS etc, so I’ve always absolutely loved American-based thriller. This is the case for books, too. It speaks to me more than UK based fiction. Maybe it’s because UK based is every day for me, but there’s always something about American created worlds that feels fascinating to me. I suppose American horror culture influences me massively. Even in college, I studied Sociology and Community & Culture, and part of that was studying American culture and horror, also in English Lit, and that’s always stuck with me! 

In Come & Play, the idea of an imaginary friend takes a sinister turn. Where did that concept originate, and what fascinated you about exploring it in a horror context?

Growing up, I had an imaginary friend. I don’t remember them whatsoever, but it was a massive part of my childhood for my parents and my mom still talks about it to this day. The way she describes it feels like listening to a horror / paranormal event that I survived. She always says she believes they were a spirit that stayed around to play with me and be my friend (I didn’t have a lot growing up), but her describing how I would talk to them in my room late at night and she would hear it through the walls, always gives me a creepy sense. I thought about what my own reaction would be, if it were my child (my mom was very understanding), and I think I’d be creeped the F out! That was the inspiration for Come & Play. 

What does your writing process look like when crafting a thriller or horror story? Do you plan the twists in advance or discover them as you write?

I’m more of a panster than a planner when it comes to writing. My process looks very much like a spark of an idea (either a premise, or sometimes an ending or a twist!) and then turning that into a full story. So, sometimes the twists come first, yes. But the majority is the opening coming to me first… or characters coming to me very clearly. Josie, in my second book Smile For Me, was a character I really wanted to write and I built that story from her character. All The Lies We Told came from the seed of an idea of… what if an abductor sent a close family member clues? Usually, I have one twist in mind before I start writing but this can evolve and I like to include a LOT of twists, so some others come later. Sometimes even after the first draft! 

What can readers expect next from you, and are there any new dark tales or projects currently haunting your imagination?

I’m working on two projects currently (because I can never stick to just one it seems!). One is the sequel to All The Lies We Told! Another is a dark psychological thriller that I plan to query for trad publishing and is top secret right now, but I’ll leave you with— think TWO serial killers ;). I also want to branch out into the Fantasy / Romantasy genre and bring together the murder and bloodshed and twists of thriller into the magical world of betrayal and love. 

And, lastly, tell me all about your new podcast!

Anyone who knows me, knows that I LOVE to talk…especially about all things books! Books have taken over my life in the last few years, in the best possible way, and I love bookish podcasts, so doing one of my own is an amazing new venture for me. I’m co-hosting with my amazing fellow Indie author, Molly Jade, and we have so many bookish discussions ,debates, and games in the pipeline! We also have some amazing indie authors in the wings, ready to tell us all about themselves and their amazing books. We can’t wait to network with everyone and connect with readers in a new way. The first episode is dropping Friday 10th April, and will release every other friday from there! We hope you’ll all tune into For The Book Plot! 

Thanks so much, K.J., for agreeing to be interviewed and for such insightful responses! K.J. also interviewed me for her socials, so be sure to follow her Instagram so you can see that.