Rachelle Nelson grew up reading fantasy novels and getting her clothes muddy in the pine forests of Idaho. These days, she still loves hiking through forests and libraries, though she’s a bit less fond of mud. Her debut novel, Sky of Seven Colors, released in 2023 through Enclave Publishing, and was a recent Carol Award winner and Christy Award finalist. Rachelle doesn’t write true stories, but she does write about truth. When she’s not doing that, she sings in a band with her husband who makes her happier than should be legal. If you like good food and honest conversations, you’re her favorite kind of person.
In this interview, Rachelle share how her experiences as a volunteer youth leader influenced her writing in Embergold.
FF: What inspired the story in your book?
For the past decade or so, I have been a volunteer youth leader for teen groups. Some of my favorite memories have come from that position. Camp pranks, hilarious games involving edible mealworms, scavenger hunts, singing together at the top of our lungs, and speaking life into the lives of young women. When a girl sees herself through the eyes of Jesus, everything changes.
Some of my hardest moments have come from being a youth leader, too. There’s a kind of hurt that happens when we watch someone suffer, and we cannot take the suffering away. I have cried tears with teens who have been wounded by betrayal, carelessness, and abandonment. Those wounds go deeper when they come from a parent. The truth is, God is the only perfect father, and we’re meant to be parented by Him. Learning to trust Him is a process, even if we had a pretty great (if imperfect) example of an earthly dad. But we live in a fatherless generation, when so many have experienced separation and pain in their family from divorce, or addiction, or generational cycles of pain. I’ve seen what that kind of pain can do to a heart, and how trusting others becomes almost impossible. Almost.
Embergold is a story about betrayal and abandonment. It’s about two young people who never expected to find kindness in a harsh world. It’s about the healing of hearts. I wrote it for myself, to remember what is possible. I wrote it for the young people I have loved. And for the parents who are still recovering from their childhoods. Sin and brokenness happen in community. But, the amazing thing is, God designed the healing to happen in community too, among people. We need each other.
FF: What can you tell us about the main characters in your book?
When I was little, I loved the story of Rumplestiltskin. Mostly because the miller’s daughter got to become a princess, which was my highest goal as a child. But I always wondered why Rumplestiltskin wanted a child so much? Did he eat people? Seems like there’d be easier ways to do that. Was it for some magical spell? Was he lonely out there in his creepy woodland cottage, and he wanted companionship?
Kids can be a handful. So, I started pondering a strange man raising a child in isolation, and what might be his motivation. It turned into a whole family with a whole world and magic system. Embergold follows the story of the child as she comes of age. Gilde. Except she wasn’t stolen from the miller’s daughter. Her past is much more complicated than that.
FF: Why do you think storytelling is such a powerful way to share truth?
Stories are part of being human. They are a piece of the survival instincts we were created with. Humans are meant for community, and relationships are important to us. So, if we hear about a mistake or a victory someone else experienced, we remember it for ourselves. We lock it away for later and implement that wisdom into our lives.
Fictional stories are thinly veiled true stories. Dragons and magic may not exist, but the emotions the characters experience come from the author. With a story, I can entertain you, and make you feel something true, and help you to see something true that I have discovered about the world. You will remember it because it is inherently relational, and so are you.
FF: What can you tell us about your next book?
Embergold is a standalone, as was my debut novel, Sky of Seven Colors. I’ve always loved reading standalones because it feels like receiving a gift with the batteries included. It’s complete. I am currently writing another fantasy novel about a hunger deep in the sea, and the man who is bound to serve it. I don’t have any publication plans yet for my work in progress. I am just enjoying the writing process.
FF: What kind of research did you do for this book?
I have German ancestors, and I’ve always been fascinated by the part of German history that intersected with the Roman Empire. There are Roman ruins in Germany, complete with stone columns and crumbling fortresses. The Germanic Tribes were considered barbarians, yet they fought back Rome and eventually established their own interconnected and politically powerful kingdom.
I set Embergold in a world inspired by the frontier of Germania, post Roman occupation. It’s a wild, isolated place, with unsettled lands and coexisting factions. Gilde, our main character, grows up in the marshlands, away from all of that, so we discover the world alongside her as she ventures from her childhood home. Of course, Embergold is a fantasy world, full of hidden mountains and dark fire. But I did have fun doing some historical research for the project. All of the characters have German or Roman names, and some of the history is written into the folktales and legends of Embergold.
FF: What are the biggest challenges for you as an author writing in your specific genre?
When I write books for teens, I never want to talk down to them. Teens are smart, and they see through things. I want my stories to speak to any age, whether the reader is seventeen or seventy-five. A good story can do that.
FF: What authors or books have inspired you as an author?
Of course C.S. Lewis and Tolkien. Karen Hancock was one of the first current Christian speculative writers I read, and she further opened my mind to writing fantasy. Embergold is probably greatly inspired by Robin McKinley’s retellings, especially her book Beauty, which will always be dear to my heart.
FF: How has your faith or world view impacted the way you tell stories?
I don’t enjoy grimdark stories where goodness falls into corruption and chaos wins. Of course life is full of darkness, and I will never shy away from truth. But there is light too, and it overcomes the dark.
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Embergold
Rachelle Nelson
Enclave Escape
Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult/Teen
Release Date: March 18, 2025
ASIN: B0DFLK9XWR
ISBN-13: 979-8886051865
Book Summary:
Gilde has spent her life isolated in the wild marshlands, a place too wet for the dragon to go. She’s safe there, according to her father. So why is he asking her to leave with him now that she has come of age? There is more to Gilde’s family than she knows, and debts need to be paid.
Betrayed and shattered, she wakes in a crumbling mountain castle with the beast of her nightmares. Except this dragon speaks like a man and reads books. His kindness confuses her and opens a forgotten longing in her heart, all while Gilde plans her escape from a mountain full of secrets.
This place can unveil her past and why she was sacrificed to the beast—truths that may put both their lives in danger if they can’t learn to trust each other. But how can Gilde ever trust again? Especially after she discovers what dragons truly are.
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