Starting off my storytelling journey as a thriller webcomic author, I have an unusual background for a romance author! However, I think that's part of my stories' charm; I love to write intimate, emotional, and wholesome relationships where characters navigate trauma processing and self-discovery. This makes for a thrilling-yet-sweet blend that my readers often describe as a rainy day coziness. I write my characters with chronic illness, OCD, PTSD, depression, anxiety, and LGBTQ+ identities through both personal experience and years of knowledge and research. These identities have a lot of social stigma and harmful myths attached to them, so I'm dedicated to creating more authentic representation within these identities that I wish I had as a disabled/chronically ill and LGBTQ+ reader.

Other than keeping up to date with me on Patreon and social media, my monthly newsletter contains all of my most important announcements! I'll often tell Patreon, my newsletter, and Instagram broadcast channel hype team(s) first when there's a huge book announcement on the horizon, but I don't stop there - if you're looking for early release cover reveals, access to ARCs, and behind-the-scenes updates, these 3 places are where it's at! I consistently update this website with public announcements, but if you're looking for an all-in-one link for all of my current important updates, visit my Linktree here.

Some might think WHAT-SEXUAL?? was my first webcomic, but it was actually CHRONIC NIGHTMARE SYNDROME, my discontinued horror comic. CNS is so special to me that I altered its universe, creating a fresh story I adore even more with my novel SOUL SURVIVORS.

Absolutely NOT! TL;DR is that I will write stories I relate to immensely, but not about me or my life! From the beginning of publishing WHAT-SEXUAL?? I've heard assumptions that I wrote myself into the main character Tyler, but really, that rumor started because of 2 things: I came out to myself around that time and had never had my hair cut short before, so one month I made the grave mistake of testing out Tyler's haircut and accidentally worsening this rumor People assume that because he's a trans guy and I'm a trans guy, he must be me (???) Sure, I can relate to the basis of Tyler's upsets around his gender/depression, but I promise I'm a different type of disaster gay. As for my other stories, I wouldn't want to self-insert into any of them - especially not into a webcomic/web novel where I have to read every mean comment ever written about my characters. I'm way too reserved about what I've experienced for that. I've had many people IRL say they'd love for me to write my life story since I've survived some impossible-seeming things, but I can't stand the thought of an autobiography so much that I don't even want to say it'll "never" happen because that will probably make it happen. I CAN say, however, that WHAT-SEXUAL?? helped me process a lot of my internal feelings about identity, although in no way did I write my exact thoughts/feelings into the story. The same goes for all of my stories. I write fiction to take the reader on a journey, myself included. I never come out of writing one as the same person, and that's exactly why I love it.

By far, my absolute favorite manga series of all time are FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST by Hiromu Arakawa and TOKYO GHOUL by Ishida Sui. I really connected to the main characters of both stories, but I also deeply enjoyed how dynamic they were in their tones (they got very dark, but they also had so much personality, love, and humor), as well as such rich characters with complex motivations. I loved them both so much that I kept up with both series as they were actively released. I was extremely intent on sleuthing in every panel to see what I could discover in the background before it was revealed (like the powerful numerology laced into TOKYO GHOUL panels, god, what a trip). From reading, watching, and writing so many stories, I'm often not surprised by twists, but both of these stories managed to surprise me - even with my extreme sleuthing! When I did guess what might happen next, it was always still a huge surprise how/when it would happen since it was usually something with an epic buildup. I feel like that depth of planning in such a longform story takes a lot of mastery, so it's something I always strive to include in my stories.

I'm a transgender man and bisexual - specifically pansexual.* My pronouns are he/him! *You might see me say I'm bisexual around general audiences because I consider pansexual to be on the bisexual spectrum, and it gets tiring very quickly to have to constantly define "pansexual."

Chronic Lyme Disease almost killed me until I kicked its ass in intense, sometimes horrific treatment for 9 years straight. Yes, nine. Storywriting for my first comics saved my life because it's all I would wake up for during the worst of it. It's no surprise why I started off as a Thriller genre author! Thanks to untreated Lyme, I developed a host of gastrointestinal autoimmune diseases, OCD, depression/anxiety, PTSD, and more. I didn't receive most of my diagnoses for anywhere from 16-27 years. I've worked hard (or many times fought for my life) to get myself into a stable place on all fronts, and I'm so grateful to be physically and mentally able to do more than I have been in years! Selling my work at local conventions and markets has been a major recent milestone for me. Since this all began in childhood, I developed a very dark sense of humor around illness to cope, so if I mention it at all, you'll most likely see me joking about it. For example, you might've heard me say that thanks to PTSD, I never run out of material for my Thriller novels. (It's true, though.)

In general, I don't like talking about my disabilities on social media. I've lived through multiple traumatic events caused by ableism that caused major distrust within me around the general public's view of me as a disabled person. I'd much rather write about disabilities through fiction, which I do plenty of in every story if you're looking for disability representation! Soon, I'll have a blog post featuring all of my disabled characters! For now, there's a series I'm starting on Instagram and TikTok highlighting them, starting here:

This one is somehow universally said about me, even from people who have no idea this is a thing my friends and family say. Some things are obvious: my closet is black with a dash of red, I have resting emo face, I've become a quieter/apparently mysterious(?) person throughout my life, and I'm really pale. Then there's the uncanny "this is too much to be true" type of stuff, except it is all true. Like how my chronic illnesses make me have sensitivity to the sun, not allowing me to spend even 5-10 minutes with my exposed skin beneath the sunlight before my energy is ZAPPED for the entire day (so when I say pale, I'm genuinely translucent). I've also had insomnia since I was a child, and I swear my brain doesn't turn on until 8pm, making me function mainly at night. And let's be real, with harm OCD there's no way I'd ever feel okay about walking into anyone's house uninvited. But the portion of my vampire-ness that I find most hilarious is that people with Crohn's disease often have much more severe inflammation whenever they eat garlic. Basically, garlic is my kryptonite. Oh, and the only thing non-vampire-y about me is that I don't drink blood. Thought I should clarify that.

United States Orders Physical products will be shipped within 1-5 business days, and usually arrive within 3-10 business days. International Orders River Kai here! I understand physical shipping is expensive for international orders, so I've reduced worldwide shipping prices as low as I can (taking a big chunk out of my international order profits). Products will be shipped from River Kai Art within 1-5 business days, and commonly arrive within 5-14 business days for international orders. Please visit https://www.riverkaiart.com/shipping-and-returns for full Shipping, Returns, & Exchanges details.

We're sorry to hear you've had an issue with your order. Not to worry - we're here to help! Physical items may be returned within 30 days. Due to the downloadable nature of digital items, they cannot be returned or refunded. Please visit https://www.riverkaiart.com/shipping-and-returns to begin a return/exchange.

Starting off my storytelling journey as a thriller webcomic author, I have an unusual background for a romance author! However, I think that's part of my stories' charm; I love to write intimate, emotional, and wholesome relationships where characters navigate trauma processing and self-discovery. This makes for a thrilling-yet-sweet blend that my readers often describe as a rainy day coziness. I write my characters with chronic illness, OCD, PTSD, depression, anxiety, and LGBTQ+ identities through both personal experience and years of knowledge and research. These identities have a lot of social stigma and harmful myths attached to them, so I'm dedicated to creating more authentic representation within these identities that I wish I had as a disabled/chronically ill and LGBTQ+ reader.

Other than keeping up to date with me on Patreon and social media, my monthly newsletter contains all of my most important announcements! I'll often tell Patreon, my newsletter, and Instagram broadcast channel hype team(s) first when there's a huge book announcement on the horizon, but I don't stop there - if you're looking for early release cover reveals, access to ARCs, and behind-the-scenes updates, these 3 places are where it's at! I consistently update this website with public announcements, but if you're looking for an all-in-one link for all of my current important updates, visit my Linktree here.

Some might think WHAT-SEXUAL?? was my first webcomic, but it was actually CHRONIC NIGHTMARE SYNDROME, my discontinued horror comic. CNS is so special to me that I altered its universe, creating a fresh story I adore even more with my novel SOUL SURVIVORS.

Absolutely NOT! TL;DR is that I will write stories I relate to immensely, but not about me or my life! From the beginning of publishing WHAT-SEXUAL?? I've heard assumptions that I wrote myself into the main character Tyler, but really, that rumor started because of 2 things: I came out to myself around that time and had never had my hair cut short before, so one month I made the grave mistake of testing out Tyler's haircut and accidentally worsening this rumor People assume that because he's a trans guy and I'm a trans guy, he must be me (???) Sure, I can relate to the basis of Tyler's upsets around his gender/depression, but I promise I'm a different type of disaster gay. As for my other stories, I wouldn't want to self-insert into any of them - especially not into a webcomic/web novel where I have to read every mean comment ever written about my characters. I'm way too reserved about what I've experienced for that. I've had many people IRL say they'd love for me to write my life story since I've survived some impossible-seeming things, but I can't stand the thought of an autobiography so much that I don't even want to say it'll "never" happen because that will probably make it happen. I CAN say, however, that WHAT-SEXUAL?? helped me process a lot of my internal feelings about identity, although in no way did I write my exact thoughts/feelings into the story. The same goes for all of my stories. I write fiction to take the reader on a journey, myself included. I never come out of writing one as the same person, and that's exactly why I love it.

By far, my absolute favorite manga series of all time are FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST by Hiromu Arakawa and TOKYO GHOUL by Ishida Sui. I really connected to the main characters of both stories, but I also deeply enjoyed how dynamic they were in their tones (they got very dark, but they also had so much personality, love, and humor), as well as such rich characters with complex motivations. I loved them both so much that I kept up with both series as they were actively released. I was extremely intent on sleuthing in every panel to see what I could discover in the background before it was revealed (like the powerful numerology laced into TOKYO GHOUL panels, god, what a trip). From reading, watching, and writing so many stories, I'm often not surprised by twists, but both of these stories managed to surprise me - even with my extreme sleuthing! When I did guess what might happen next, it was always still a huge surprise how/when it would happen since it was usually something with an epic buildup. I feel like that depth of planning in such a longform story takes a lot of mastery, so it's something I always strive to include in my stories.