Trending 10th June 2026 by Bronwyn O'Neill

By The Book: Romantasy Bestseller Sarah A Parker

Sarah A Parker

Sarah A Parker is all smiles when we meet her in her hotel in the heart of Dublin city. She’s made a flying visit to Ireland as part of her book tour for her latest novel, The Ballad of Falling Dragons. It’s the second book in her Moonfall Series which has become a New York Times Bestseller almost immediately.

The New Zealander tells us that she is on a whirlwind adventure that could be taken straight out of her fantasy books – she’s currently working on two book series. Oh and she teases a brand new project as we chat about book boyfriends, her favourite fantasy worlds and being a people pleaser.

We could have chatted to Sarah all day…

Talk to me about your new book, The Ballad of Falling Dragons.

This is the second book in the series, but it was originally the second half of book one. So I realised in the early plotting process that I wasn’t going to fit so much story into one book. It’s meaty. I split it down the middle. I used book one as an opportunity to sketch out the shape of things, to get us really in touch with the backstory of characters for us to understand. Book one is setting the chessboard and book two is where we’re playing. This book is a lot faster-paced. It’s got a lot more plot progression. It’s got a lot more character development. This one is the punchier of the two.

Was it a hardline for you to make sure that book one is the set-up? I’m sure there was pressure to be, as you said, “punchier”.

I like to try to challenge myself with each book I write. I think with the Crystal Bloom series, my main character is very florally. That’s the way she kind of sees the world. I classically do write quite florally prose. But with this book, I was very aware our attention spans are shot. We’re used to watching these seven-second videos and just that immediate gratification. With this series Raeve has got a sharper mind. She’s an assassin. She’s pushing all of her emotions down. It’s all just cut and dry for her. And so that allowed me to cut my own prose back a lot. Book one, I had about 50,000 words that I cut from my draft, just with self-edits, making sure that I’m slicing things down so it moves faster compared to my other series. I had so much more that I had to achieve in this book, because I was already aware that I had split one of the books, and I didn’t want to split another one. I cut about 100,000 words from my draft one of Ballad, just to make sure that the story was moving faster. I actually found it therapeutic. It’s kind of like decluttering a cupboard. And I feel like it really leans into the story as well.

Is there pressure to follow up such a popular book with a sequel?

I completely cut myself off from social media while I was writing Ballad as best I could. Purposely to protect the story. I didn’t want that to affect the way that I tell my story. I didn’t want to see fan theories. I didn’t want to see reviews. I wanted to stay true to my story and true to my characters and true to their journeys and true to the trauma as well. It was protecting my mental space. And I will continue to do that with the stories that I write, because I think that it is, it’s important that we tell our stories. Moon took me six weeks to write the first draft. I had spent three years in the world prior to that building the world, but it took six weeks to write the first draft, which is so fast. It’s unheard of. Another six weeks for draft two. And for the next three months, I was editing and then self-published it. So all that, that was six months from start to finish. When my publishing house came to me and said, “Sarah, can we set you up for an October 2024 release date?” I was like, yeah, sure. That’s easy. But I had no idea that what this was going to take from me to write. It was such an emotional journey, and it required so much more from me than book one. I felt bad about it, but actually, my publishing house was fantastic about it.  I’m a people pleaser, I felt bad about that. As a result of that, moving forward, I will never give a pre-order date until the book is completely finished. But no, mostly I have protected my personal space and I will continue to. It doesn’t affect the story I’m writing. I would have written the same book had the first done well or not. The most important thing is staying true to my stories and my characters.

Sarah A Parker

What is the first thing you do when you sit down to write?

If I’m writing a story from scratch, I’ve learned to write out all my lore. I write out all my characters, my backstories, my creatures, everything. I make a cheat sheet for myself for the story. I was sitting in the world for three years prior to writing the first book. I have a 50,000 word document that’s a universe. That will always be my first port of call from now on because it helped me so much. I actually tried to write Moon two times prior. I think one of the reasons why it wasn’t working was that I hadn’t gotten it all out of my head. And the other thing was, I think I was writing Kaan with a bit more red flags. He wasn’t dealing with his grief in the same way that he did end up actually coping with it in the story. I had to go through some changes in my own personal life to actually see him a bit clearer.

Do you have a childhood book you find yourself going back to?

Eragon! I haven’t read back at it since I was little. I just chewed through it! I’ve got the most recent book sitting on my bookshelf. I haven’t read it yet, so I’m looking forward to reading that.

Who are three authors who inspire you?

Raymond E. Feist, his book, The Magician. I love that story. I loved his writing. I would say Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind. I love his world-building, his character-depth. I can still picture every single thing in that book, even though the last time I read it was about six or seven years ago. I don’t typically reread, but I just love the way he writes. And then Karen Marie Moning, she wrote The Fever Series. It’s actually set in Dublin. She did such a brilliant job with characterisation. Her world building is lush and her character development is just impeccable.


Do you have a favorite character that you have written?

It’s like choosing between your children! I have a big space in my heart for The Other.

Is there a book universe that you’d like to go into?

Honestly, I would go into this world because I’ve been living it for years now anyway!

What are you reading at the minute?

I can’t read while I’m writing. So I haven’t even read Forth Wing. I haven’t read Quicksilver, I haven’t read any of the big ones that have come out over the past four years, just because I’ve been so deep in this world, but I will eventually. 

What is a book that you’ll never forget that just stayed with you?

Sea of Ruin by Pam Godwin. It’s a pirate-y, menage-a-trois. She ends up with both guys. It was fabulous! It’s set in a bygone era, but there’s also some magical realism. I don’t often reread books, but I would reread that time and time again. It was brilliant, yeah.

What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

I was trying to sharpen my world building skills, and I was told by my editor to play on the five senses. So after a first draft, when I’m going through my second draft, I’ll have the five senses listed beside me, and I’ll do a little tick every time I pop one of the senses into the chapter. I think that helps to prevent white room syndrome, So that’s helped me distinctly with my world building.

Do you read reviews?

No, oh god, no, no, no. I know some authors do, and it blows my mind. I have a very trusted group of all very different sort of Beta readers, um, that have been with me since the start. They know my weaknesses, they know my strengths, um, and my husband reads for me as well. I let them beat me black and blue verbally. I love that when I’m in the writing stage. So I listen all feedback, negative and positive until I press publish. Then I disconnect. I have written the very best version of that story that I could possibly write at that time, and listening to people beat it black and blue at that stage is not helpful. It’s not constructive. I don’t scroll TikTok, I don’t scroll Instagram, I’m not hunting for things.


Do you have a favourite genre to read? Is it the same that you write?

It’s epic fantasy and romantasy. There has been debate online whether my book is romantasy or high fantasy. My series has big world building, but there is a very important and very heavy romance thread through it. But I’m not one to put labels on things. I’ve written a story, I hope people enjoy it, and they can call it what they want.

Before we let you go, what’s next?

I have PTSD from saying I will finish book two in this time and having to push it back a year-and-a-half. So I have book three in this series to finish. I have book four and five in my Crystal Bloom series to finish. And I’ve something else fun going on as well. But I’m not going to give any more details on that. But we see what comes out first.

The Ballad of Falling Dragons is out now