People are messy. Complicated. Endlessly fascinating. Runa writes across multiple genres to explore why people do the bizarre, beautiful, ugly, and amazing things they do.
Stories written in the morning twilight.
Debut Novel (November 2026)
Between the Sunflowers
Jake is protective, earnest, and carrying a past heavy with grief and dangerous secrets. Maive is fierce, wounded, and far too young to be wandering the road without a place to call home. As Leah helps them settle into Marion, her carefully managed life begins to crack open in ways she never expected. Friendship turns into longing. Courage turns into action. And the closer she gets to freedom, the more determined her boyfriend becomes to drag her back under his control.
But Jake and Maive are running from a tragedy that refuses to stay buried—and a threat that follows close behind. As danger closes in, Leah must choose between the safe, muted life she’s learned to survive in and the one she’s finally beginning to want.
Leah Pilcher has spent a year shrinking herself to fit the man who rules her house, her schedule, and her thoughts. Then Jake and Maive—a wary brother and sister with nowhere left to go—appear at the edge of her isolated farm, and Leah makes the first reckless choice she’s made in months: she invites them in.
Meet Runa
Runa Marlowe writes multi-genre fiction about the beautiful, bizarre, and utterly messy things people do in their daily lives. From cozy small-town romances to modern gothic tales, her work is united by a common thread: unpacking the complexities of people.
Maybe it’s because she's a Gemini, or maybe she just needs to lay off the true-crime podcasts, but Runa spends an unhealthy amount of time ruminating about relationships, sketching characters that dance through complicated situations until she's satisfied with the why behind their choices. (Almost) every book she writes contains a character secretly inspired by the men who have passed through her world; some left something beautiful, while others left a trail of chaos. For Runa, writing is the ultimate way to exorcise their ghosts (and occasionally find catharsis by throwing a character based on an ex off a cliff in the middle of a raging storm).
When she isn’t writing, Runa has a habit of taking unplanned turns down interesting paths, collecting inspiration from the places she visits and the people she meets along the way. Despite her wanderlust, she is a deeply content homebody at heart. She lives and writes rooted in the enchanting beauty of New Mexico, happily grounded by her two pups.
About the author