Caroline Peckham Books

Caroline Peckham is one half of the sister duo, with Susanne Valenti, that built Zodiac Academy into a genuine publishing phenomenon. The two British authors started out writing separately, then joined forces and self published The Awakening in 2019, a bully romance set at a magical academy. What happened next is indie legend: TikTok found the series, the fandom went feral, and the books started selling in the millions, all without a traditional publisher. They have since become fixtures on bestseller lists and their special editions sell out in hours, proof that two sisters with a shared document can outgun entire marketing departments.

Zodiac Academy is the flagship and the fandom's obsession. Twins Tory and Darcy Vega discover they are Fae, heirs to the throne of Solaria, and enroll at an academy where the four ruthless heirs of the ruling families are determined to break them. It is bully romance turned up to eleven, and the authors do not flinch: the heirs, Darius, Caleb, Seth, and Max, along with the shadow soaked Lionel plotline, put the twins through genuine hell before anything softens. The series runs long, nine main books through Restless Stars in 2024, plus novellas, and the emotional payoff is spread across thousands of pages. Readers who bounce off the cruelty of the early books are legion; so are readers who consider the eventual romances among the most earned in the genre. A holiday themed installment, On the Cursed Day of Christmas, is slated for October 2026, so Solaria is far from finished.

The sisters are also relentlessly productive beyond the main series. Ruthless Boys of the Zodiac spun off Dark Fae and its follow ups, the Sins of the Zodiac series launched with Never Keep in 2024 and continued through Echo Fort in 2025 and Cinder Vale in 2026, and their Crown of Hearts & Chaos series delivered Hollow in 2025 and Lightwing in July 2026. Nobody in indie romantasy ships books at this pace while keeping a fandom this engaged, and their release calendar reads like a small publisher's entire annual list.

On The Fae Shelf spice scale, expect a 3 to 4 that climbs as the series progress. Zodiac Academy starts slower on heat, the early books are more torment than touch, but once the relationships ignite the scenes are explicit, frequent, and enthusiastic, including some sharing dynamics. Content warnings apply throughout: bullying, violence, harm to characters you love, and one mid series event so infamous the fandom speaks of it in hushed tones.

For romantasy readers, Peckham and Valenti matter because they define the maximalist end of the genre: enormous casts, zodiac based magic with Orders and Elements, cliffhangers designed as war crimes, and a fandom culture of theories, fancams, and tattoos. This is not tidy, literary fantasy. It is a soap opera with fireballs, self aware and unashamed, and its grip on readers is real.

Part of the duo's secret is that they treat the fandom as collaborators. They run enormous online reader groups, tease chapters and character art, lean into the memes, and name fan theories in author notes. The books themselves reward that investment with running jokes, Seth's wolfishness, Caleb's snack habit, Geraldine Grus and her unhinged loyalty speeches, that turn a long series into an inside joke thousands of pages deep. Geraldine alone, the Vega twins' devoted champion with her word salad battle cries, may be the most beloved side character in indie romantasy, and she is a fair symbol of the whole enterprise: ridiculous on paper, adored in practice.

Start with Zodiac Academy: The Awakening, and give it until at least book three before judging; the series is a slow avalanche. If bully romance is not your thing, try Never Keep for a newer starting point. Clear serious shelf space either way, because these sisters do not write short.