Faith, Fantasy, and the Sacred Imagination

As both a scholar and a storyteller, I often find myself walking the edges of worlds. Not just the fantastical ones I build on the page, but the deeply human ones we carry inside—belief and doubt, desire and discipline, tradition and imagination. Writing the Ashes of Chastity series gave me a chance to bring all of it to the surface.

The Christian elements in my stories aren’t accidental. Angels like Gabriel and Cassiel, along with a Fae named Jophiel, carry names steeped in centuries of religious and mystical tradition. Their presence isn’t just to dazzle with wings and war—they function as archetypes of faith, protection, and the tension between duty and desire. The concept of prophecy in Ashes of Chastity and Awakening Little Rabbit speaks not only to fate, but to the burden of being chosen in a world that doesn’t make space for your becoming.

But my work isn’t devotional—it’s exploratory. I’m not offering a system of belief. I’m asking: What if the spiritual battles we hear about in sacred texts were also emotional, erotic, and deeply human? What if the divine wasn’t distant—but devastatingly intimate?

This tension plays out through:

• Reimagined Biblical themes – The Cain and Abel story resurfaces in Awakening Little Rabbit, set in a fae kingdom where twin heirs wrestle not just with succession, but the soul of their realm.

• Spiritual warfare as identity work – Hellscape, in my series, isn’t just a looming external threat—it’s a metaphor for the internal collapse we risk when we suppress our calling or silence our power.

• Redemption through intimacy – Many of my characters carry trauma, disconnection, and spiritual confusion. Their healing doesn’t come from being saved—it comes from choosing themselves, choosing love, and choosing to awaken.

• Sacred sensuality – In a tradition that often pits purity against passion, I write women who discover that their bodies are not battlegrounds—they are portals. That their pleasure isn’t a detour from holiness, but a kind of prophecy in its own right.

And of course, I write as a Black woman—a daughter of the church, shaped by ancestral faith and generational fire. My characters wrestle with faith and power in ways that echo the questions we often don’t feel safe enough to ask in real life. They find belonging not by conforming to doctrine, but by becoming whole.

At the heart of it all, I believe fantasy is sacred work. It allows us to reimagine the rules, to confront what haunts us, and to write new endings—not just for our characters, but for ourselves.

—Annalise Monet

Annalise Monét is a genre-bending author redefining sensual faith through stories of magic, desire, and spiritual awakening. Subscribe to her blog and discover her books on Amazon and wherever books are sold.

Disclosure: I take liberties for the sake of storytelling. While my books are infused with spiritual and mythological themes—especially those inspired by Christianity—they are works of fiction. Nothing in these pages is meant to replace personal belief or religious doctrine.

For some readers, these themes—particularly the blending of faith, sexuality, and fantasy—may be uncomfortable or even triggering. I understand that, and I offer this with respect: these stories may not be for everyone. They are bold, sensual, and spiritually layered. If you choose to enter this world, know that you’re invited into a space where mystery reigns, boundaries blur, and nothing sacred is off limits to the imagination.