This is Ink & Intrigue—the blog where romance ignites, secrets simmer, and every love story hides a twist. I’m your blog host, Sheila Kell, romance author and lover of plot twists, slow burns, and morally questionable book boyfriends.

Today, I’m thrilled to introduce you to an author whose stories weave together unforgettable romance, mythology, and sweeping historical fantasy—S. R. Brýna! If you love Historical Fantasy Romance with a Viking flair, you’re in for a treat.

S. R. Brýna is known for crafting emotionally driven romances where love is tested by duty, destiny, and the tides of a mythic Viking world. Their upcoming release, available August 1st, Chasing Remembrance, is a slow-burn epic tale of lost love, political intrigue, and a prince’s fight to reclaim both his throne and the woman he never forgot.

In this spotlight, S. R. Brýna shares the inspiration behind the Rising Tides of Ragnarök universe, the enduring themes of memory and devotion that shaped Chasing Remembrance, and a behind-the-scenes look at the story’s unforgettable journey.

Whether you write love stories, devour them, or dream of doing both, you’re in the right place.

Let’s get into it and give a warm welcome to S. R. Brýna!

SPOTLIGHT on The Rising Tides of Ragnarok:

Behind the Sagas: Building a World Worth Remembering

When readers ask where the idea for The Rising Tides of Ragnarök came from, they’re often surprised to learn it didn’t begin as a novel at all.

It began around a gaming table.

More than a decade ago, I started building a Viking-inspired world for a long-term tabletop role-playing campaign. At first, I only needed enough history to explain why kingdoms rose and fell, why old rivalries endured, and why ancient ruins dotted the landscape. Much of the context is historically rooted and fleshed out through collaborative storytelling, which serves as the foundation of any enduring TTRPG. But as the campaign continued year after year, those bits of lore became something much larger. Every forgotten king, every broken oath, every war had a story behind it. The legends my players uncovered couldn’t simply be names in an old chronicle—they deserved to be lived.

Eventually, I realized the greatest stories in this world weren’t the wars themselves. They were the people caught in them.

The romances.

The sacrifices.

The promises that echoed across generations.

The Rising Tides of Ragnarök became my way of telling those legendary sagas—the stories that shaped the world long before the campaign’s heroes ever stepped onto the stage.

One of those stories is Chasing Remembrance.

At its heart, Chasing Remembrance asks a question that has fascinated me for years:

What happens when the memory of someone never truly leaves you?

Demian and Alina meet as children under circumstances neither of them fully understands. Their friendship grows quietly, innocently, into first love before politics, ambition, and cruelty tear them apart. Neither knows what became of the other. Years pass. Kingdoms change. Lives are rebuilt.

But memory is a stubborn thing.

Sometimes the people who shape us most are those we lose far too soon.

Demian has spent years convincing himself that moving forward is the sensible thing to do, yet no one else has ever claimed the place Alina still holds in his heart. Alina, meanwhile, has had to survive in a world that has rarely shown her kindness, carrying memories she cannot quite bring herself to bury.

For me, Chasing Remembrance isn’t simply about finding a lost love.

It’s about asking whether the people we once were still exist after time, hardship, and grief have reshaped us.

Can love survive years of silence?

Can two people rediscover one another after becoming strangers?

And perhaps most importantly, can they choose each other again?

Those questions made this story one of the most rewarding I’ve written within the Rising Tides of Ragnarök universe.

Like every novel in the series, it blends Viking-inspired history with mythology, political intrigue, and romance. But this time, memory itself became another character—one capable of comforting, haunting, deceiving, and ultimately guiding the path home.

I hope that when readers close the final page, they remember not only the kingdoms, the battles, and the legends, but the quiet moments between them: the promises made in childhood, the years spent wondering, and the enduring belief that some bonds refuse to be forgotten.

After all, every great saga begins with someone choosing to remember.

BIO:

S. R. Brýna is the author of The Rising Tides of Ragnarök, an epic Viking historical fantasy universe where Norse mythology, political intrigue, and sweeping romances intertwine across generations. Originally conceived as the living history behind a long-running tabletop roleplaying campaign, the world has grown over more than a decade into an expansive saga filled with unforgettable heroes, ancient kingdoms, and the enduring echoes of love, loss, and legacy.

I hope you loved hearing about S. R. Brýna and her upcoming release, Chasing Remembrance. If you haven’t added this to your TBR yet, now’s the time—trust me, you won’t want to miss it. 💖

You can connect with S. R. Brýna here:

📱 Socials: https://mez.ink/s.r.bryna.author 

🛒 Grab the book: Amazon

Thank you for joining me in spotlighting a fellow author who’s giving us all the feels. Stay tuned for more author features, book talks, and behind-the-scenes romance goodness.

Until next time—keep reading, keep swooning! 💖