The Lore That got Me Here

When I first started building the idea of Saela and Zaire, I built out a whole Pinterest board. It looked a lot different than the one I have today. I actually originally used Sharon Alexie as the “fan cast” behind Saela. Totally different vibe from who we have today, huh?

The entire story behind Saela and Zaire was quite different too (more on that when we get to ‘book week’). I will say that the original plans I had for Saela and Zaire were… safe.

Backstory? I’ve said many times how growing up, I’d always wanted to write. If you asked me back in high school what my favorite class was, my answer would always be English. But, writing, or becoming a writer, wasn’t exactly looked at as a lucrative career. Long story short, even though I always had dreams of going to some really old school to study writing and become an author (I’m talking full blown dark academia vibes, an old school like Hogwarts, you get the gist), I ended up in school for business.

Thankfully, life brought me back to my love of writing and reading. For ten years I hadn’t touched a book unless it was self-help. Ten whole years. I shelved my dreams and did the logical thing. I, very much like Saela, started business after business, doing all the right things, making the money, but shortly after, I’d switch to something else. Nothing satisfied the itch I had. The craving. The yearning.

But, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what that desire was. That’s how deep I had buried that teenage dream of mine.

One day I was on TikTok, scrolling through my feed before posting one of my many business posts for the day (at the time, I was teaching manifestation tips) when I came across a video promoting a book. A romance book. Haunting Adeline by HD Carlton. Unless you live under a rock, I’m sure you’ve at minimum heard of this book because of the very taboo-ness of it all.

I won’t lie. It piqued my interest. So, I read it. And… I loved it.

Thus began my re-entrance into the thing I loved most growing up: reading.

I couldn’t seem to stop. I’d read book after book after book, gulping them down as if I had been starved for years.

The self-help books I’d been reading before? Completely forgotten about. In fact, I ended up selling a lot of them back to the bookstore (shout out Half Price Books for making that an option).

I fell in love with reading fiction. I became happier. Lighter. More carefree. More joyful. But this was only my beginning. It wouldn’t be until months later that I’d stumble upon Black Romance.

Yes. You read that right.

You see, for me… I didn’t even know Black Romance was a thing. All my life I’d been that token Black friend because I grew up in predominantly white neighborhoods. When I went to college though? All that changed. I had been craving to be surrounded by people who looked like me. I wanted to get to know my culture, because truly, I never felt like I fit in with those I had been surrounded by. Now, was it fascinating getting to learn about their traditions and culture? Absolutely. But none of it felt like home. And even though I went to a predominantly white college, I surrounded myself with Black men and women. That’s also where I met my husband (a story for another day). He was the one who truly began to teach me about Black culture, catching me up on all the movies I had missed, showing me new music I’d never heard (because not only did I grow up in the white suburbs, but I also grew up in the church, so for me Christian music and gospel music were the only things I was really allowed to listen to). But even back then, I never met anyone who was reading Black Romance. So, when after months of diving back into reading I came across the genre? I was sucked in.

For months I immersed myself. Read book after book, and the healing that took place within me? Words can’t even describe. I felt seen for once, because truly, and no offense to white authors, but I could never fully connect with the characters in the white books I read. And even when they would feature a Black character, it never felt real—more like their perception of what we as a culture, as a people, are like.

It wasn’t long before I began an Instagram account—That Girl’s Reads—where I shared my reviews of Black Romance books I’d been reading. It wasn’t long after that, that my teenage dream started knocking back at my door. I started having dreams… daydreams and night visions of a world I could write in. Now, originally this island had a different name, and it was more culturally diverse (chalk that up to my need to people please, something I would work through later on). I originally had this story in my mind of a girl who had been adopted, finding out she had been accepted to the college of her dreams on this island that many did not have access to. This girl’s name at the time was Amber. She was Black and had green eyes and red hair. The college was called Bellgrave. Long story short, the plot line was that she gets to this college and finds out her parents were indeed the Bellgraves and died in a tragic accident (I won’t spill too much more cause I still feel this plot is viable in the future… maybe). Her love interest—I forget his name—was an enemy of sorts that became a lover. And this island? Full of magical powers and secrets.

That was where I started.

I spent weeks digging out this story. Writing. Planning. Building visuals. But something just did not feel right.

So, I put it down. Picked the books back up. Let the dream die again.

Then I got called out. There was another book reviewer I’d met online—B. Nicole Anderson. She announced one day that she was going to be starting her journey of becoming an author. She dropped her cover for her first book and the release date. I was so proud, so excited. In awe. I rooted for her and was all up in her comments. One day she told me I should write a book too. Join her as a newbie author. I admitted it was a dream of mine and she hopped right in my DMs to call me out, tell me I had to do it, offering any assistance or tips that she could.

I took that as a sign to pick the dream back up.

So I did.

I took the original idea I had and shelved it, because too many things about it felt undercooked. I scrapped it. Started fresh. I asked myself: what do I really want to write right now?

The Beginnings Of Saela LaRue

That’s when Saela and Zaire’s story dropped through. At first it was just a second chance romance. A failing marriage. Saela finding her spark again. Finding herself. Zaire learning to love her at a deeper level.

I’d originally chosen Aldis Hodge to play Zaire and Sharon Alexie to play Saela. I built a Pinterest board dedicated to their story. Got the images printed and put them on a massive black canvas board (anybody picking up on how Saela did this too? No?).

I thought I was set. Had it figured out.

Then I came across Author Kami. She was promoting character visuals. Basically, you could, for a small price, buy a character image she had created. I began perusing her site, seeing what visuals she had to offer when I came across an image.

“That’s Saela!” I exclaimed excitedly. Shortly after I found one for Zaire too.

The problem? The visual I chose for Saela looked nothing like the inspo pic I’d pinned. Same for Zaire. And, if you know anything about me, you know visuals matter. A LOT.

If at first you don’t Succeed

So I went back to the drawing board. I perused so many images and landed on Savannah Smith as the new Saela inspo and then Ovie Soko for Zaire. By then I had already started my author social media account (my name back then was Charee Amor—back when I thought a pen name would be the move). I’d already posted some visual inspiration using Aldis Hodge and Sharon Alexie, and removed those posts. Everything about it felt too soft. Too warm. Not dark enough. And, with the new inspo board I had, I needed things to feel more… moody. That’s why Savannah worked so well for Saela. Not that I’d ever seen her act before, but she had this versatility—this ability to be both light and dark and I felt that was right. So I used that. Tapped into it. I allowed myself to go deeper into what Saela felt like. Her grief for a version of herself she’d never met. Her sadness. That sunken place she was stuck in.

And to be honest, it wasn’t that hard because I, too, felt stuck in that place myself.

For me, Saela was a personal character. I was able to reflect on how I saw the world. I was able to express a part of myself I often hid from the world. The part of me that was disappointed in myself. The part of me that felt like I had failed because no business I started stuck. And when it came to her style? All black everything? The baggy clothes and sweatpants? Always being cold? Yeah, that was a piece of me too.

I truly dove deep into her. Into Saela. Because at her root base… she was me in so many ways. The parts of me I hadn’t exposed. The parts I hadn’t touched. The parts I wouldn’t admit to… at least not in the light.

She was the me that I often wrote about in my millions of journals—the ones I’d write in at 3 o’clock in the morning when I couldn’t sleep.

She was the version of me that would stay up all hours of the night because it felt like the only time I could truly be myself.

Writing Saela truly helped to heal… to love… that teenage version of me whose dreams got put on pause. Whose ideas were buried so deep, they’d been forgotten.

I wrote Pray You Catch Me in a matter of months, in the summer of 2025. After B. Nicole Anderson gave that push of encouragement, that permission slip I needed to go after my dream.

I released Pray You Catch Me on November 11, 2025. The first book to be released in Saela and Zaire’s story. The first installment of the Love Like Honey series.

Then my Instagram account got deactivated. Right around the beginning of 2026. I went to post my author wrap up for 2025 and boom—account deleted.

I was devastated to say the least.

I sat for a while, wallowing in my sadness… my grief for the account I’d worked hard on. This was the account that got me so many page reads for my debut novel. This was the account I’d cultivated a community with.

Now, it was gone with no way of getting it back.

Days went by before I got the courage to start a new account. But then it hit me: let me take this time to solidify everything before I do, and by everything, my mind was on the characters.

As anyone can tell from my social media account alone, I use AI heavily to create the visuals for my world, characters, locations, etc. At the time I was still using the character visuals I had purchased from Author Kami. With the program I was using I would simply use that purchased image as a reference and then give the AI a prompt to detail how I wanted the character to be dressed, posed, etc. The issue? I wanted my characters to look a little less ‘animated’ or ‘cartoonish’ and using a reference image with a prompt kept creating cartoonish people. I wanted them to look a little bit more real. This prompted me to go a bit deeper into the world of AI. To learn how to create my own character visuals from scratch.

I spent weeks tinkering with this. I would work with ChatGPT to learn how to better write prompts, how to better describe not just skin color but tone along with details on facial structure, hair, eyes, body build, etc.

Then came the major change: I asked myself one last time—the current visual for Saela… is this her?

The answer? No.

Dust yourself off and try again

I looked back at my Pinterest board, my character inspo. I looked at the visual I had purchased for Saela. And while everything felt nice… it still felt too safe. Same for Zaire, for the more I spent time with these individual characters, the more their personalities came through. And while Saela had been based off a version of me I’d kept hidden from the world, she was also so much more. That small piece of me she was based on was meant to be a spark. It was meant to be the question that would lead me deeper into who she was as a character. It was then that I stopped trying to force a storyline. It was then I started listening to the characters themselves (something I had previously heard authors mention but hadn’t yet experienced myself, at least not at this depth).

I scrapped my vision board one last time. I took down all the images of Savannah Smith. I took down some of the story inspo images. I started fresh.

This time, Saela’s visual would come straight from me first. I wrote down the characteristics I knew she had. I worked with ChatGPT to formulate a well thought out, detailed prompt. Then I inserted that prompt into Kling (the AI I currently use and love for all things visuals). I generated that same prompt more than a few times, tweaking things here and there. I can’t tell you which generation it was ‘cause I truly do not remember, but I do know the moment I felt it: this is her. This is Saela.

At least that’s what I thought.

I sent the visual to my alpha/beta readers, thinking this was it. Some loved it.

Then I sat with it some more.

Something was still off.

So I generated her again.

And again.

Finally, she revealed herself.

This was it. This was the one.

I sent it to the group and they agreed. “This feels like Saela.”

That’s how I landed on the Saela we have today.

It wasn’t long after that that I came across Cecilia Laulanne while browsing Pinterest.

“That’s Saela’s fan cast,” I whispered to myself. I then laughed because one of my alpha/beta girls—hey Redd—had used this very woman’s visual in her ARC review for Pray You Catch Me. I was shooketh to say the least. It was the confirmation I didn’t know I needed.

I locked the fan cast for Saela in along with the character visual I had created and I haven’t looked back since. If anything, I’ve only gone deeper.

But it wasn’t easy. Saela, while partially built on tiny pieces of me, is her own complete character; one I had take my time and learn.

Going beyond the visual, creating her persona

Now, I’ll admit getting to know her has been MUCH easier than Zaire (that man is a fortress, I swear) but it’s still taken time.

Saela, to me, is very much like an onion. Corny, I know, but also true.

So what has she made known to me thus far?

I’ve gotten bits of her style (all black with pops of red and white, sensual yet cozy, gothic and alt elements, but also urban), her music tastes (definitely R&B, very sensual lyrics, very much giving dark feminine vibes with her top 3 artists being Rihanna, Doja Cat, and Beyoncé), and food preferences (rich and savory, warming since she’s always cold, and anything noodles).

I know that she’s a people pleaser (slightly recovering now that we’ve seen her in book two of the Love Like Honey series aka Sand Castles), she doesn’t feel safe or at peace unless she’s balanced the emotional field of any space she’s in (because yes, she not only feels the emotions of others but often takes them on as her own), and she battles between the lighter and darker sides of herself (an internal battle we get to see play out quite a bit in Sand Castles).

She’s the eldest daughter in her family and is thus a lot less likely to admit she even needs help. She just sinks deeper and deeper and deeper, carrying the weight of the world while putting on the front that everything is just fine.

She’s also a Virgo.

She’s not typically confrontational (hello queen of balancing all of the things) unless pushed to that edge. Truly, she lacks the backbone she needs to stand up to people, usually because she fears that rocking the boat might just cause them to leave. And ultimately? That’s her biggest fear.

Not being alone, but being rejected.

Her voice is sweet and soft, thick like honey, but it can also cut like a blade—so quick you won’t even realize what she did until it’s too late.

She’s highly creative and can figure out how to make just about anything. She’ll read a recipe once and have the dish down that very same night. She started her body butter/skin oil business on a whim, coming up with the recipes seemingly out of thin air.

She can read people real well. Sense their energy. Now, is she always conscious of what she’s doing? No, but it’s like she can’t help it—like she has millions of feelers or antennas emanating from her, reaching out and brushing up against people’s energy fields. That’s how she’s able to make custom scents for people. But reading their future actions? Their patterns? Yeah, she ain’t got that far yet, hence why she always seems to get hurt.

Graymont is the ultimate city for her out of the nine cities we find in Umberland. It matches her natural moodiness, her need to cozy up in a corner and just be, for hours. The people, the food, the weather, the aesthetics—the rain, the tall trees, the fog and mist… it’s like her own little cave she can huddle in and feel safe. And while she might visit and enjoy other cities from time to time, she truly feels right at home in Graymont.

She’s also a major homebody, so just the idea of getting her to leave and go anywhere makes her ass itch.

That, in a nutshell, at least for now, is what I can share about the persona that is Saela Noemi LaRue.

Building Saela’s Profile On Umberland’s Finest

Alright so we’ve talked visuals and persona. Now? Now it’s time to put alladat together.

Welcome to the creation of Saela Noemi LaRue’s UF (aka Umberland’s Finest) profile.

If you ain’t know, Umberland’s Finest is THE premier everything platform in the world of Umberland. Think of it like Instagram meets Threads meets YouTube and even a splash of Facebook. It’s messy. It’s informative. It’s all the things.

And I’ve done my best to recreate its vibe right here on the UF website.

Character profiles are set up a lil’ bit like a social media profile. For characters, you’ll find their basic information (name, age, birthday, alladat), their top 13 (cause yes, the MySpace days still live in my head rent free), name meanings (cause their first, middle, and last names are chosen with a purpose), known family members (but keep in mind things are always changing here in Umberland), fun facts, books they’re featured in, along with all their favorites— I’m talkin’ music playlists, shopping lists, camera rolls, and social feeds.

Now of course, not every character has every single thing listed just yet, ‘cause getting to know these citizens takes time…

But Saela?

Her shopping list. Her music playlist. Her fun facts. Her social media. All of these details can be found on Saela’s character profile in the directory. Her’s is actually the most completed profile to date.

So, for now, I wanna feature some of my favorite parts of her profile… but you? You can go see the whole thing now right here.

Her basics? This where you gon’ find all her details. Her height (5’7). Her age (34). Her birthday (August 23). But then you get things like her gifts (which yes, link to actual breakdowns where you can learn deeply about them and even see the various types each gift has—think you can guess which types Saela falls under?), her career, and even where she lives (hello, Walnut Home!).

Her ‘Top 13’ is like anyone’s and will continue to shift as we see her story unfold. Side note: this is one of the things I LOVE about the world of Umberland. The rug can get pulled from under you at ANY TIME. So don’t get too comfy or think you know it all… ‘cause you most likely don’t.

Her name? Like I mentioned before, every character’s name has meaning. Before assigning a character a name, I not only feel into it to make sure it fits their vibe and personality, but I look up the known definitions of said names. And yes, this applies to first, middle, and last names.

For Saela though, her name is extra special. The backstory? One of the first entrepreneurial endeavors I embarked on was a lil’ business I named Selah, Be. The name came to me while sitting in the middle of a church service over 10 years ago—the pastor going deep into the Hebrew language to break down the word ‘selah’. I learned then that it meant to pause. At that moment, that’s exactly what I did. I couldn’t tell you anything else the pastor said after that because my mind took off running off just that one word. I heard distinctly in my being, “Selah, Be. Just, be.”

That business went through many iterations in my lifetime. Coaching. Motivation. Body butter. Skin care. Manifestation. The list goes on. But that name stuck with me for over a decade.

Until Saela.

Like her visuals, like her persona, Saela came to me in bits and pieces. Fragmented. Her name was one of the last things to come through when I first envisioned her story. It was close enough to the word Selah without being the exact thing. Yet, it carried the same meaning. I knew instantly that would be her name.

Her middle name, Noemi, flowed easily after that. And LaRue was a guarantee since she was married to Zaire. You can visit her profile to see the full name breakdown (nickname included) along with the pronunciations of everything.

Other things I love about her UF profile? Her family members. Sis has a lot of connections, and we’ve just only hit the tip of the iceberg.

Then, we have her fun facts. Favorite places to eat. Her quirks. This list will randomly expand whenever Sae sees fit.

We’ve already covered her playlist and her style, but she does have a whole shopping list you can access if you’re wanting to tap into your inner Sae, or if hey, maybe you just like her style. I’ve got something fun up my sleeve comin’ soon so stay tuned for that.

The last bits of her profile are all photos. Her personal camera feed. Images of her with family and friends. And lastly? Her social feed.

Building her profile (along with all the other characters), truly brings me joy. It’s a way for you to be able to dive deeper into the world of Umberland, but it’s also my way of getting to know my characters better. So don’t ever think that these profiles are one-and-done. They are the furthest thing from static.

I know I’ve said it before, but I’m gon’ say it again. Everything in Umberland is always moving. This is a living and breathing world. That’s why at the top of every profile you see a line that says ‘Last Update’. When something new comes up for a character, it gets added to the profile. And if that new thing requires a new section? Then, so be it.

Developing Saela’s First Scene

We first meet Saela in chapter one of Pray You Catch Me, book one in the Love Like Honey series. She kicks off the book wrapped up in a thick blanket, lost in the world of whatever romance book she’s reading. She’s in the thick of a hot smut scene when Zaire, her husband, asks her if she’s ‘bout to shower. At this point, Sae’s about two seconds away from throwing her e-reader and jumping three feet up in the air.

Let me tell you… figuring out how to start a book is tough. You hear all these tips online from established authors, publishers, and editors alike, telling you the best way to hook a reader, to get them reading. And while yes, tips can be helpful, I also find they can cloud your channel, making it so you hear nothing but white noise with how chaotic everyone is, shouting their opinions into the ether.

So, when it came to writing that first paragraph, I let go of a lot of that chaos, and listened to me. Deep within I knew that I needed the first two chapters to establish where Saela and Zaire were in their marriage since this was very much a second chance, marriage-in-crisis style of book. The next question then became: whose POV will be first? Saela or Zaire’s?

Saela easily won. Not because she’s a woman, but simply because she was a bit more open for me than Zaire. Zaire has been a tough nut to crack so naturally, I had to let Saela do the talking first. It wasn’t too hard after that for Zaire’s words to come through.

Why that exact scene though? I won’t lie. I wanted a bit of ‘shock value’ if that’s what you wanna call it. But also, Saela is an avid reader. It’s the one thing that’s been able to lift her just a lil’ bit out of the sunken place she’s been in for years. It only made sense that we would be dropped into the world of Umberland with her doing just that—reading.

And on the real? I can be honest and admit I was in a sunken place of my own not long before writing that chapter. I truly believe reading saved me in more ways than one. That may also be a reason why writing it was so easy for me. That, and I tend to jump ten feet in the air anytime my own husband enters the room.

‘Cause why the hell you walkin’ so got damn stealthily in the house? Then got the nerve to laugh and say, “I do live here.”

I told him he needs to start announcing himself when he enters a room. But really, I just be so deep into whatever I’m doing—reading, writing, researching, listening to music, etc—that I just don’t hear him coming.

So there you have it. Saela’s first words on the page. Both her and Zaire have taken me on a damn ride ever since.

And that’s it. That’s my little spiel on Saela Noemi LaRue. On how she was created.

For now.

Lots of iterations. Lots of, “Dive deeper Shenaye.” Lots of learning to trust what the character wanted instead of trying to soften them to fit a trend or a narrative.

And baby… let me tell you. With book three in the Love Like Honey series currently being written… just know we’re gonna get access to yet another layer of Saela LaRue.

In fact, here’s a lil’ sneak peak into her thoughts on the page:

So that’s it. That’s Saela… for now.

Meet me here next week to go behind the scenes of another piece of Umberland. We’re either talking about Zaire… or Graymont. I haven’t decided yet, so keep your eyes peeled.

We’ll talk soon.

xoxo,

Shenaye

The Creation Of Saela LaRue