Behind the Scenes: Creating The HideAway
Some books get written in a year. Some in two.
The HideAway took closer to thirty-six.
I started Anya's story when I was fifteen. A girl who survived something she shouldn't have had to survive, who ran, who found somewhere that felt like safety, who learned — slowly, stubbornly — what it meant to actually stay. I didn't finish it then. Life had other plans. I set it down, picked it back up, set it down again. Carried it around for decades like something I wasn't ready to look at directly.
Then I relocated across the country at 47 for a fresh start. And somewhere in that upheaval, Anya started talking again.
I finished it at 51.
What the book actually is
It's not a perfect love story. It's not a trauma recovery checklist. It's a woman who is broken in specific ways trying to figure out if she's allowed to want things. A cabin. Quiet. A man who doesn't push. Herself, maybe, on a good day.
The healing in this book isn't clean. It doesn't arrive on schedule. It shows up sideways, in small moments, in the middle of ordinary things. That's the only kind of healing I know how to write about honestly.
What surprised me
Anya knew things I didn't know I knew yet.
That's the part of writing that still catches me off guard — when a character reaches back and shows you something about yourself you weren't ready to see. She did that more than once. I'd write a scene and sit back and think where did that come from and the answer was usually somewhere I'd been trying not to look.
That's what writing is, I think. At least the kind I do.
What's next
The HideAway was spring and summer — healing, hope, a woman learning she's allowed to take up space.
What I'm working on now is the opposite season entirely. Reaper's Chronicles is dark adult fantasy — morally gray characters, political intrigue, a magic system that's been living in my head for years, and a woman who loses everything saving a world that may not deserve it. Autumn and winter. Shadows and complexity.
Anya's story had to come first. But the dark has been waiting patiently.
More on that soon. 👀
The HideAway is available now at irish-rivers.com/books
Writers — what's the hardest part of a project you've been carrying for years? Readers — what's a book that felt like it was written just for you? Tell me: Irish@irish-rivers.com
Irish Rivers writes memoir, literary fiction, dark fantasy, and romance fantasy from the Gulf Coast of Texas. The HideAway is available now. Her memoir, Probably Nothing: A Beautiful Wreckage, releases April 10, 2026. Find her at irish-rivers.com
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