Renee Asher Books

Renee Asher is an indie author with an unusually clear mission statement: she is building a multi-series dark fantasy crossover universe inspired by Roman mythology, with the kind of in-depth worldbuilding that most self-published romance skips entirely. Where the bulk of the genre borrows Greek gods and fae courts, Asher went to Rome, and that choice alone makes her catalog stand out on a crowded shelf.

Her flagship is Savage Monsters, the first book in the As Above, So Below series, billed as dark romantic fantasy and published independently. A Curse of Gods and Ruin extends the same universe, and Asher has been open that these are early bricks in a much larger structure, with multiple series planned to interlock as the universe grows. For readers who love catching crossover threads and shared-world payoffs, getting in on the ground floor of something like this is part of the fun. For readers who prefer complete, self-contained stories, the honest advice is that this universe is still being built, and buying in now means growing with it.

Asher is also very much an author of the modern indie ecosystem. She runs her mailing list through free previews of Savage Monsters, shows up consistently on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube as renee.asher.author, and engages directly with the dark romance community. She has announced plans to attend the Smut Lovers Conference in September 2026 as a signing author, cosplaying as her own character Vespera, which tells you two things: she writes on the steamy side of the aisle, and she is having fun with it. That kind of author-reader closeness is something traditional publishing simply cannot replicate, and her early readership has the tight-knit energy of a community rather than an audience.

On heat, we rate Savage Monsters a 3 on our spice scale, with the marketing and community positioning pointing firmly toward readers who want their fantasy dark and their romance explicit. The Roman mythos framing comes with the expected accessories: dangerous immortals, power imbalances, and morally gray love interests who earn the label. If your taste runs to the dark romantasy end of the shelf, this is aimed directly at you. If you prefer sweet or closed-door, it is not.

The honest assessment for an author at this stage: Asher is early-career, her review base is still small, and indie dark fantasy is a genre where quality varies wildly between releases. What separates promising indies from the rest is usually ambition plus follow-through, and the ambition here is obvious. The follow-through, multiple connected series delivered on schedule, is the part her next few years will prove out. Readers who discovered authors like Carissa Broadbent or Katee Robert before they blew up know exactly what this stage of a career looks like, and why it can be the best time to start reading someone.

It is also worth noting what Roman inspiration actually buys a romance universe. Rome comes with divine bureaucracy, blood sport, empire, and gods who behave less like archetypes and more like a dangerous extended family, all of which suit dark romance better than the over-farmed Greek pantheon. An author willing to do the reading and build from that material has room to surprise people, and surprise is the scarcest resource in a subgenre this crowded with lookalike covers and interchangeable shadow daddies.

Start with Savage Monsters, since it is both the series opener and the book Asher herself leads with. Grab the free preview through her newsletter if you want to test the voice before committing. Then, if the Roman gods and ruin hook lands for you, A Curse of Gods and Ruin is the next stop, and her socials are the best place to track what the universe becomes from here. Not sure dark and spicy is your lane? Our spicy romantasy collection will calibrate you quickly.