I keep a running list of the questions readers ask me — by email, in reviews, on the rare occasion I surface on social media. Some are about the world. Some are about the writing process. And one comes up so often it might as well be the series tagline.
Is Thistle okay?
Yes. Thistle is okay. Thistle is always okay. Now let’s get to the rest.
Do I need to read the books in order?
Yes — and I know that’s not the answer people want when they’ve just discovered the series at Book 5. But the character relationships build across books. Wren’s arc from bitter exile to someone who actually lets herself care only works if you’ve walked the route with her from the beginning. Each book has a complete, satisfying ending (no cliffhangers, ever), but the full weight of the story accumulates.
Dead Letters (Book 1) is where to start. Always.
Is there spice?
Closed door. The romance between Wren and Rowan is the emotional heart of the entire series — it’s central, not a subplot — but intimate scenes are fade-to-black. If you’re looking for a number on the spice scale, it’s a 1. The slow burn is the point. The tension comes from two people who are terrible at admitting what they feel, not from what happens behind a closed door.
Is it suitable for younger readers?
Yes. No graphic violence, no explicit sexual content, no dark themes. I’d say comfortable for readers 14 and up. A few parents have emailed me to say their teenagers are reading it, which is genuinely one of the nicest things about this whole experience.
How many books will there be?
Twenty. That number is locked in and has been since before I wrote Book 1. The series follows a seasonal rotation — autumn, winter, spring, summer — across twenty years of Wren’s life. Each book covers one season. By the end, she’s forty-eight, happily married, semi-retired, and growing old in Mosshaven with Rowan and a very elderly hedgehog.
That’s not a spoiler. It’s a promise.
Does anyone die?
One character, much later in the series, dies peacefully and surrounded by the people who love them. I won’t say who or when. It’s handled with warmth and it’s the only significant death in twenty books. No shock deaths, no tragedy for the sake of stakes, no killing characters to prove the story is “serious.”
And before you ask again: Thistle is fine. In every single book. That’s a guarantee.
What’s Aeldra like?
Aeldra is roughly the size of Britain, with a temperate climate and four distinct seasons. The Last Route runs through the northwestern corner: coastal cliffs along the Thorncoast, highland moors in the Greymist Hills, and ancient forest in the Oldwood. It’s the kind of landscape that changes how you breathe when you read about it — salt air, heather, old stone, deep trees.
I’ll have more about the world in an upcoming blog post, but the series hub has the overview.
What’s Object Empathy?
It’s Wren’s magic — the ability to sense the emotional history of objects she touches. The Academy called it a failure because it didn’t fit their classification system. On the route, it makes her the best courier anyone’s ever had. She can feel which letters are urgent, which packages carry grief, which deliveries need gentleness. For a character who claims not to care about people, it’s a deeply inconvenient gift.
Will there be audiobooks?
That’s the plan. I don’t have a timeline to share yet, but it’s something I’m actively working on. When there’s news, I’ll announce it to the reader community first.
Keep reading: Meet Thistle: The Hedgehog Who Stole the Series, Why I Wrote The Last Route.
Want a free bonus story? Quills & Quiet is told from Thistle’s perspective. Get it free at heppesmithpublishing.com/thistle.
James Heppe-Smith is the author of The Last Route, a 20-book sapphic cozy fantasy series published by Heppe-Smith Publishing.