HEIDI CIECIURA #thrillerwithlove

It’s the first book in an envisioned multi-part romantic adventure/thriller series with a speculative twist… hence #thrillerwithlove! Think Da Vinci Code meets Outlander, The Bourne Identity meets The Historian, or Indiana Jones meets A Discovery of Witches = Action/Adventure/Thriller with a simmering/steamy Romance at its core between a mortal, puzzle-solving woman and the immortal man she must team up with in order to ultimately save humanity. It has code cracking, history and mythology, treasure hunts, moral ambiguity, themes of life and death, and what it is to be human, and what it is to be a hero.

Essentially, I want to write something that is pure escapism but with some darker, deeper aspects to add texture and reality to the story; real life and drama but executed in an enjoyable-to-read way. My first novel was a Crime/Serial Killer Thriller with a paranormal edge. After dealing with the death of my parents in 2017 and 2019 though, and Covid lockdowns from 2020, I found the Crime/Murder genre to be emotionally draining. I needed something that made me feel good opposed to sad. I’m drawn to action/adventure thrillers (my bookshelves are groaning with novels by Dan Brown, Clive Cussler, Andy McDermott, Steve Berry, Scott Mariani, Robert Ludlum, Lee Child etc) and sizzling love stories with a speculative twist (Elizabeth Kostova, Sarah J. Maas, Diana Gabaldon, Deborah Harkness), the kind of all-consuming, romp of a read that keeps you turning the pages, breathless to find out what happens next, but is far enough removed from the atrocities bombarding the news outlets that you can keep the real world at a distance, for a time, at least. The type of books that make you think about interesting concepts, and teach you about history and human nature, but leave you feeling exhilarated, alive, and most importantly joyful at the end, with a mysterious, and dare I say it sexy guy (not necessarily stereotypically so) and the interesting, engaging, independent heroine who could break down his defences and ultimately rule his heart. This was the type of book I wanted to tackle next.

No…

This was the type of book I NEEDED to write next.

I wanted fast-pace, action, globe-trotting adventure, archeology and mythology, codes to decipher and puzzles to solve, a bit of sizzling Romantasy DNA, camaraderie and banter, multi-faceted villains and well-formed and engaging protagonists. There are a lot of male adventure/thriller authors, which is great, I love an adventure from a male perspective, but there is definitely a gap in the market for action-adventure written from a female perspective and I knew this was the area I wanted to explore. It was missing from my reading life, and if it was missing from mine, then maybe it was missing from other readers’ lives. It might actually be a book that I could write that might also fill a bigger purpose, and that seemed like a good enough reason to investigate the idea.

So here I am, writing this post on December 26th 2025, thinking about what 2026 might hold. It has been a rollercoaster of a decade but I feel stronger and more determined than ever, ready to take on whatever writing adventure lies before me, and inviting you to follow along, maybe even mention your own writing goals and journeys in the comments. This project is a work in progress… here goes…