New Name, Same Author...

Cielle Aurens — Mon, 3 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I grew up Southern Baptist, on the outskirts of purity culture - so when I started my self publishing career, any books my extended family would find acceptable were published under my birth name, and everything else that might scandalize them went under one of two pen names depending on if they were contemporary romances or something a bit more fantastical.

At the time that was pretty typical as it was recommended that you have a different pen name for every genre you might write in. The assumption was that readers might feel betrayed if they picked up one book expecting one thing, only to find something entirely different in the next.

However, managing multiple pen names is exhausting.

At times, I felt a bit like I had a split personality trying to manage three different accounts across various social media sites. I also thought the idea that readers couldn’t tell the difference between something spicy and something closed-door was a little insulting to readers. Are there those that would complain? Possibly, but it's not the author's fault if they didn't read the blurb on the back book. But I carried on with the charade anyways because heaven forbid my mother and aunts find out that I sometimes dabble in stories where characters have sex.

After taking a long break from writing due to a myriad of personal reasons — and a really bad case of writer’s block — and then rediscovering my fire, I decided it was time for a change. Time to stop hiding pieces of myself behind various pen names and be a little more authentic.

But maybe not too authentic, because even though I’m in my forties now, I am still very much afraid of my mother.

So I launched a new pen name.

One pen name to rule them all, as it were.

Enter Cielle Aurens.

What can you expect from Cielle?

You can expect stories featuring strong women learning to live their own authentic lives. Women learning to love regardless of gender, age, or whether the object of their affection happens to be human, supernatural, or a dragon shifter. You can expect high spice. You can expect no spice. It all depends on what the story story calls for. There will be romantasy, there will be sci fi, some steampunk, and maybe even some contemporary.

Most of all, you can expect stories about women who refuse to fit neatly into the boxes they’ve been given.

]]>

Cielle Aurens | Updates

New Name, Same Author...