About the Novel

Monarch of the Heart is a sweeping romantic women's fiction novel about grief, courage, sensual awakening, and the sacred act of choosing yourself after years of being the strong one.

Rylee Taylor has survived the kind of heartbreak that changes a woman. She has raised children, rebuilt from betrayal, protected her sobriety, buried the complicated love of her life, and learned how to keep standing when the people she needed most were no longer there. But somewhere between survival and strength, Rylee has forgotten what it feels like to be fully alive.

When a career-defining assignment takes her to Mexico during Día de Muertos and the monarch butterfly migration, she enters a world where memory is not hidden away, grief is not rushed, and the dead are honored with candlelight, marigolds, music, and love. Against this vivid and sacred backdrop, Rylee begins to confront the parts of herself she has silenced, the dreams she has postponed, and the ache she has mistaken for peace.

Then she meets Joaquín Castillo. Steady, guarded, and carrying his own sorrow, Joaquín is not a rescue. He is not an answer. He is a man who understands that grief does not disappear simply because the heart begins to beat differently. In his quiet strength, Rylee finds both a mirror and a challenge, a reminder that love after loss does not have to be a betrayal. It can be a transformation.

Rich with romance, travel, family, culture, emotional depth, and the luminous beauty of Mexico, Monarch of the Heart is a story for every woman who has carried too much for too long, loved imperfectly, grieved deeply, and wondered whether the best parts of her life might still be waiting.

Because sometimes the bravest journey is not to another country. It's back to yourself.