I wanted to represent all the pain I received (or imagined receiving) and all the love I gave (or imagined giving) together. Did I succeed? As usual... Yes and no.

I didn't succeed in protecting readers from trauma. "Love in the Dark" is brutal. Scenes of torture, forced psychiatric therapy, prison, sexual violence: everything is described in detail that you might find unbearable. But that was the reality that many trans people lived in the 80s and 90s. If it bothers you, know that it bothered those who lived it too: that's why I wrote it.

I didn't succeed in avoiding my authorial voice emerging too clearly in certain passages. When Daisy reflects on the meaning of freedom, it's me speaking. When Violette questions the price of love, those are my questions. The line between character and author is porous – perhaps too much.

I didn't succeed in balancing the emotional intensity uniformly throughout the seven novels. "Love in the Dark" and "Slave Merchant" are devastating, dense, brutal. "The Candor of the Lily" is at times an action movie and at times a drama. The emotional rhythm of the cycle is irregular – some souls burn brighter than others. But perhaps that's okay: you've also learned that in life, not all pains have the same intensity, and not all loves have the same temperature.

However, I'm satisfied with having written seven radically different stories in tone, setting, and intensity. You won't find victim characters in these pages, but creatures that choose, even in the most desperate situations. Sometimes they choose poorly, but they choose.

I tackled themes that LGBTQ+ literature often avoids to not fuel stereotypes: extreme BDSM between trans and cis people, consensual slavery as a spiritual path, prostitution as a survival strategy, domestic violence in queer relationships. These are uncomfortable truths: I wrote them because they're true, not because they're easy to read.

These stories don't offer easy comfort. You won't find immaculate role models or constructed endings to reassure. If you're going through a fragile moment, listen to yourself and choose the right time to read them.

But if you're ready - if you've gone through enough to no longer be afraid of words - these seven souls await you. Because someone had to write the stories that LGBTQ+ literature politically correct avoids telling so explicitly, so as not to let "normal" people know that these ambiguous and contradictory realities exist, which would harm the cause of social acceptance.

Someone had to give voice to the love that's born in the darkest places, to the sacrifices that no one sees, to the impossible choices that trans people make every day in silence.

So - whoever you are - if even one of these seven souls makes you feel less alone in your battle, whatever your battle may be, then this cycle will have fulfilled its purpose.