Ava Kelly

Ava Kelly writes speculative romance with an emphasis on transformation, identity, and relationships that resist familiar genre assumptions. Havesskadi is a fantasy retelling shaped by the Beauty and the Beast tradition, but Kelly recasts the expected roles through an asexual central character and a wider range of romantic identities. The story uses a magical castle, a curse, and physical transformation while questioning the idea that desire must follow a single conventional pattern. The first edition appeared through Less Than Three Press in 2018, and NineStar Press issued another in 2020. Kelly has discussed approaching the book through panromantic and pansexual perspectives as well as asexual representation, making character identity part of the tale’s structure rather than an added label. Havesskadi therefore combines recognizable fairy-tale architecture with a deliberate reconsideration of who can occupy its romantic roles, how intimacy is expressed, and what kind of change breaks a curse.