Enchanting Roles
by Sova Erickson
Released: Feb 27, 2026
Genre: Fantasy Romance
Why this book and why now?
Truth be told, I started this book to cheer up a friend. I’d never written in the spicy romance genre but she did. I promised her if she stayed on her writing goal for a week, I’d write a chapter of a fun, silly idea I had for a spicy sapphic story as a reward. I woke up three months later from a hyperfixation haze with a full manuscript and said friend was begging me to try to publish it. I never thought this type of story would be my debut but I trusted her judgement, put in the work, and a year later its finally released for the world to see. And now I’ve also got sequels in the works as I’ve found a love for writing romance that I didn’t realize I had.
What is a significant way your book has changed since either the first draft or the way you thought it would turn out when you first had the inspiration?
The idea was darker than what came out on the page. It had so many components that could’ve easily turned it into a dark romance, one of the characters is literally kidnapped by the fae, and in theory it was a dark romance when I started. By the end it was so cute and wholesome, while also being very spicy and depraved. The dark romance tag just didn’t stick. It toes the line and has elements to be sure, I had to analyze hard if it still counted, but that’s also kinda the point of the story. They toed the line and found a balance that benefited them both.
Would you and your main character(s) get along?
Lia and me would get along great, she can befriend literally anything. I think Beatrice would kinda scare me. Not that she’s a mean person, she’s honestly super nice, but she’s very elegant and high-class and I think I’d just be intimidated by her. Although that would probably work in my favor to her getting along with me, she wouldn’t view me as a threat or prideful.
How does it feel to finally share this book with readers?
It makes me feel excited and utterly terrified. This story came from the heart and has a lot of what I enjoy, both the sweet and the spice. While people reading it and feeling the emotions I wanted to invoke in them is what fuels me to write more, it also makes me feel very vulnerable.
Is there anything you wish readers knew before diving into this book?
Lia has layers and her personality can sometimes make people think she’s a bit one-dimensional at first glance. Her empty-headed nature is part of her charm but she’s not dumb, she’s very clever in her own ways.
What’s one fun fact about your book that most people wouldn’t know?
Book 2’s main character and Book 3’s main villain both appear in the same chapter at a soiree.
What 3 things would your main character want with them if they got stranded away from civilization, and why?
I’m gonna answer for Lia as I think Beatrice would just perish, she’s not built for the outdoors. Lia would want something to help start fires, a blanket, and a bed. While she’s the sweetest thing, she is half-demon and has claws so she can hunt food if there’s wildlife. She spent a lot of her life homeless and living in abandoned churches so she’d know the thing she always loved the most was when there was a bed.
One of your main characters is planning a romantic night. Tell us about it.
Beatrice would tell Lia she has a very important dinner coming up and needs advice on what to do as she thinks this person is more similar to Lia than her. Bea would ask her all the things she thinks would make a night special under the pretense its for this very important dinner, Lia would probably even help prepare it, then it is revealed that its a romantic dinner Lia had given Bea step by step instructions on how to make it perfect for her to enjoy. Lia is kinda gullible and would not have realized at any point Bea was literally having Lia plan her own perfect night. She honestly would’ve been having fun with it, teasing her with hints and never telling who this person similar to Lia.
On the flip side, Lia would be under the assumption Bea would want to do something after this, as aristocratic work is exhausting and she deserved a reward after putting this much thought into it. So she’d have a romantic night of spicier fun planned out, the starter being a type of fae food desert that enhances emotions. Basically it would mean as the dinner was ending it would be kicking in and make a shared night together even better. Thus they co-planned a romantic night without either one knowing the other’s plans.
Which character do you relate to the most, and why?
I wish I could say Beatrice but it’s 100% Lia. She has a few traits that she got straight from me, including not being able to stand still, taking everything literally, and making sure to keep things within sight because if I can’t see it anymore I’m going to forget it exists. Can you tell I’m neurodivergent? Well, Lia is too, she also got that from me.
Were there any scenes or characters that surprised you as you wrote?
Lia and Clotho, one of the maids of fate, becoming friends was an idea that popped into my head almost as a joke of a solution for something and yet it suprisingly worked. Clotho is literally a wild animal of a fae, she’s blunt, she goes on hunts, she’s got sharp teeth and loves the thrill of the chase. And Lia befriended her to a point that I legit think Clotho would’ve disobeyed any orders to hurt her. It really showed just how much of a people person Lia was and it warmed readers up to the murder maid.
Which character was the most fun to write, and which was the hardest?
Lia was so fun to write, I love her so much. Her thought process is very tangential and from an outside perspective she can seem a tad ditzy. But when you’re within her pov its just so fun to see how she thinks and how she has a very different but eager approach to problem solving. She’s very clever and resourceful, but also she’s just so shameless. I don’t know how she can be so adorable and so depraved at the same time, but she pulls it off.
Beatrice was really hard to write in the early chapters. I really like how it turned out but I had to write a character who would both abuse their power and yet never had done so before this story. I didn’t want the reader to hate her or think she was evil, she’s genuinely a decent person, but the point of the story is the power inbalance so I had to figure out how she got there. It’s hard to write a character who will regret things later but also make them fun to read about as they do their regretable actions. Lia’s pov was very important in this regard as well, it let the reader know on her end she was having the time of her life so I could let Bea self-discover her tendencies.
If your book had a signature dessert, what would it be?
It would be a cinnamon bread loaf, glazed and the cinnamon within the bread spread to look like an eye instead of just a swirl.
Your characters are throwing a party—what’s the theme?
Masquerade, with glamours to hide who is who so its truly a challenge to guess.
Do you outline your books in detail, or do you prefer to discover the story as you write?
I discover the story as I write it. Not only that, I write out of order. The way I write is very crazy and I don’t suggest it to anybody as the first way to try, but when people say they have a scene they really want to get to I just say “then go write it” because that’s what I do. A lot of my scenes and chapters become islands I’m sailing between as I fill in the gaps. It took a long time to figure out how to turn that into a writing process but I’ve got it down. The upside is it makes for very clean first manuscripts, everything feels very connected because I often wrote early and later portions at the exact same time. It allows me to create setup and payoff, I often need a solution for a later problem and because I haven’t written all the beginning I can add in the solution that will be needed there. The downside is that near the end it becomes a sudoku puzzle where the solutions I can use to write my way to the next island becomes more and more limited by what’s already been written until I have a spots that require extremley specific solutions that I know exist and am going mad trying to figure out what it should be.
What are you currently reading?
It comes out in a few days so I’ll probably be reading it by the time this answer gets read, a fae romance called Cursed Debts. It’s not sapphic but I really loved how the author wrote fae in her cold magnet and want to see more of that.
If you could have dinner with any author, living or dead, who would it be?
This is a tough question. I’m torn between Terry Pratchett and Robert Jackson Bennett. I think I’ll go with Robert Jackson Bennett, his writing is just on my wavelength and I love the worlds he makes.
