HADIA KULSOOM

Some stories are written because you have an idea. Others are written because there is something inside you that needs somewhere to go.

Built from Ashes is a story that will always be especially close to my heart. I think a small part of me wrote this book because I wanted to give my characters something I never had. A second chance.

There was once someone I cared about deeply. We were separated by circumstances, and eventually, life simply carried us in different directions. We left college, went our separate ways, and never found our way back to each other.

There was no perfect ending. No final conversation where everything was explained. No moment where we met again years later and finally said everything we had left unsaid. Just a story that ended before I was ready for it to end.

So I wrote another one. Not about us — not exactly. Bella and Zavian are their own people, with their own lives, mistakes, wounds, and choices. But somewhere between their pages, I found myself putting pieces of feelings I had once known into their story.

I gave them the conversations I never got to have. The answers I never received. The chance to meet again. And most importantly, the chance to choose each other again.

Maybe that's why Bella's journey means so much to me. She doesn't simply get the person she loves back. She has to become someone who can stand on her own first. She has to rebuild herself, her dreams, and her life before she can decide whether there is still a place for him in it. And Zavian has to learn that loving someone isn't enough if you don't understand how your choices affected them.

I didn't write Built from Ashes because I believe every lost love should come back. I wrote it because sometimes we don't get the ending we wanted in real life. And fiction gives us a beautiful place to explore the what ifs. What if they had met again? What if they had finally said everything? What if the timing had been different? What if, after everything, they still found their way home?

Built from Ashes became my answer to those questions. Perhaps that's why the title feels so fitting to me. Because sometimes you can't rebuild what you had. You can only take what survived and build something new from the ashes.

And maybe, in giving Bella and Zavian the second chance I never got, I gave a little piece of myself one too. 🕯️

Before there was a cover, there was a feeling.

I wanted the cover of Built from Ashes to feel like the story itself — beautiful, damaged, dark, and a little haunting.

The broken mirror became the centre of it because Bella's story is so much about identity and reflection. A mirror shows you what is in front of you. But a broken mirror shows you pieces. Different versions. Different angles. Different ways of seeing the same person. And that felt very much like Bella and Zavian.

The darkness represents everything that exists underneath the polished world they live in — the things they don't say, the wounds they carry, and everything from their past that refuses to stay buried.

Then there's the flower. It's a belladonna flower. Deadly and beautiful. Zavian refers to Bella as his Belladonna — beautiful, yet deadly. A reminder that destruction doesn't necessarily mean the end of something. Sometimes it's where something begins again.

I wanted the gold typography to bring in that feeling of luxury and ambition, while the darker textures keep the cover rooted in the emotional side of the story.

The final cover became something I love because it doesn't simply say romance. It says: Something broke here. And somehow, something still grew.

The next story is already taking shape.

I'm currently working on Trapped in Shadows, a story that takes me somewhere very different from Built from Ashes.

It's the beginning of a trilogy, and I'm slowly building a world filled with secrets, complicated relationships, dangerous choices, and characters who aren't always what they seem.

I'm not ready to reveal everything yet. Some stories need to remain in the shadows for a little while longer.

But I can tell you this: I'm writing another story about people carrying things they don't know how to say out loud. And this time, I'm taking you somewhere darker.

For now, I'll let the shadows keep their secrets. More soon. 🕯️