Leslie Vedder (she/her) is a queer ace author who loves girls kicking ass in fantasy! She grew up on fantasy books, anime, fanfiction and the Lord of the Rings movies, and met her true love in high school choir. She graduated from San Francisco State University with a B.A. in creative writing and currently lives in Colorado with her wife and her kitty Fox Mulder, who believes the treats are out there.
When she’s not reading or writing, you can find her watching anime and sci-fi shows, walking in the woods and pretending they’re enchanted forests, or playing old video games. She always collects all the Skulltulas in Zelda and all the Dalmation puppies in Kingdom Hearts.
Her debut YA THE BONE SPINDLE was an indie bestseller.
The Siren’s Kiss has been described as “Pirates of the Caribbean meets The Little Mermaid,” but the novel also feels deeply rooted in grief, curses, and longing. What first inspired you to merge swashbuckling adventure with such emotionally intimate themes?
I love a good swashbuckle—but the thing I always connect with the most in books is characters. So a big part of the inspiration for The Siren’s Kiss is the relationship between Rayleigh, the cursed pirate, and Maren, the hot-tempered mermaid. Both characters have lost their way in life, they’re both grappling with losing people they love—and they’re both very lonely, even if they won’t admit it.
The curses in The Siren’s Kiss are all bound up in grief and regrets. The power of curses has always fascinated me. More than any other kind of magic, curses always feel deeply personal—they’re punishments, consequences, secrets, and sometimes even bitter promises. And breaking a curse almost always requires giving something up.
Rayleigh and Maren begin the story with entirely different motivations—one trying to reclaim her freedom, the other trying to save her brother’s soul—yet they’re forced into an uneasy alliance. How did you approach building the emotional tension between two characters who are constantly balancing distrust, attraction, and survival?
Enemies-to-lovers is one of my favorite tropes because it gives you so much intensity between the characters right from page one. For Rayleigh and Maren, I wanted to make sure I balanced the fiery fighting/flirting fun of their early meetings with a genuine growing affection. I feel like attraction between them is the easy part—who hasn’t wanted to swoon for a hot lady pirate or a gorgeous mermaid? Harder is falling in love with someone who’s only showing you their sharp edges, making you work for every tiny step forward.
So I really focused on bringing depth to the love scenes—making sure that the moments Maren and Rayleigh start to fall for each other feel earned. These are two people who are slow to trust, sort of wrecked on the shoals of their own lives, and I loved playing with how they’re drawn to each other, even when they’re trying so hard to dig in their heels.
The world of the novel is filled with sea gods, curses, ghost ships, mermaids, and pirate lore, but it never loses its sense of emotional clarity. When developing fantasy worlds, what matters most to you first: mythology, atmosphere, or character psychology?
For me, writing always starts with the characters. But the lore is a close second—I feel like it’s impossible to truly get to know a character without building the world around them and understanding how it’s shaped them.
In The Siren’s Kiss, I imagined a fantasy ocean after a disaster: a battle of the gods that’s left islands wrecked, kingdoms shattered, and lawless pirate crews rising to power. I wanted the seas of the Boneyard and the lore of its gods to feel rich and immersive, with its own lost histories and mythologies. Honestly, there was almost too to cram in!
There are short epigraphs at the start of each chapter of The Siren’s Kiss; they’re lines from made-up history books, letter fragments, bits of folk songs, and even proverbs. I love the way these snippets can tease out little hints of the world you otherwise wouldn’t get to see.
You’ve spoken before about your love of fantasy, anime, fanfiction, and adventure stories. Were there specific influences – literary, cinematic, or otherwise – that helped shape the tone and pacing of The Siren’s Kiss?
Pirates have always been one of my favorite genres. I grew up with One Piece as my favorite anime, and then absolutely fell in love with the irreverent fun of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Our Flag Means Death is also a queer pirate show that will have your sides splitting with laughter—so definitely go watch that one, too!
For The Siren’s Kiss, I really wanted to capture that big cinematic feeling with all the madcap fun and high-seas adventure, but with a swoony, sweep-you-off-your-feet sapphic romance at the heart. And honestly, I’ve always wanted to fall in love with a mermaid…or maybe become one. There is definitely a re-imagined Little Mermaid story tucked into these pages, too.
The novel seems to embrace both epic fantasy stakes and unapologetically romantic sapphic yearning. How conscious were you of balancing action-driven storytelling with slower emotional development and character vulnerability throughout the writing process?
It’s funny—for me, I feel like action-driven storytelling actually helps with those deeper, more emotional moments, especially in a romance. My characters seem to have an easier time falling in love after they’ve just had the big adrenaline rush of fighting off another pirate ship or escaping a bar fight. It also forces me to vary the pacing and mood from scene to scene, to make sure I’m not retreading something I’ve already done. And as a reader, there’s something so satisfying, I think, about the payout of finally getting the love scene you’ve been waiting for!
Your previous books, including The Bone Spindle trilogy, established you as a writer who blends adventure with emotionally resonant queer storytelling. With The Siren’s Kiss, what did you challenge yourself to do differently as a writer, and what do you hope readers will carry with them long after the final page?
The Bone Spindle was very much about a small band of adventurers taking on the world—but in many ways, it’s a classic ensemble fantasy, with a rotating cast of perspectives and even prologues from characters we otherwise never follow, building a complex web of fairytales. In The Siren’s Kiss, I gave myself permission to really focus on two characters—two girls falling in love—and let their romance take center stage. I loved being able to focus on all the tiny details between them: every touch, every little glance and held breath, every word they can’t bring themselves to say. As for what I hope readers take away from it: I hope that readers, especially queer readers, just have so much fun! I want readers to see fearless girls becoming heroes, and queer characters who are unapologetically themselves in a world that accepts them for who they are. I want readers to believe in themselves and believe they can find joy in this world—inside the pages of books, and outside of it too.
INTERVIEW: YA SH3LF