Series

The Abandoned Gods

Is this world for you?

If you’re drawn to dark fantasy where ancient gods awaken, forbidden power has consequences, and fate is something to be challenged rather than accepted. Where gods and mortals must decide who they trust, what they are willing to sacrifice, and whether some promises were ever meant to be kept.

Where memory can be a weapon, found family can become something worth fighting for, and the line between destiny and choice is never quite what it seems. And where love is simply love, unconstrained by binaries or labels.

Then, welcome to The Abandoned Gods.

Expect immersive lore and epic quests. Powerful women and dangerous gods. Fast-burn spice and feels, and the kind of real love that takes its time.

THE BOOKS

Cover of the book titled 'The Keepers' by Alys Mackay, green hardcover with gold embossed text and a central design of a tree.
Cover of a book titled 'The Guardians' by Alys Mackay, part of a series 'Book Two: The Abandoned Gods', featuring an illustration of a golden anatomical heart on a dark background.

Book 2

The Guardians

November 2026

A red book cover with gold text that says 'COMING SOON'.

Book 3

The Oath Breakers

Commenced drafting

About the Series

The Abandoned Gods is a romantasy series set in a mythic world where divine power was stolen by mortals, and the gods have spent centuries fractured, forgotten, and bleeding.

It is a story about erasure. About what survives it. About the dangerous thing that happens when the divine are forced to feel human again.

This is not a series about chosen ones. This is a series about what it costs to choose yourself.

Aspects of The Abandoned Gods do not belong neatly to one time, one convention, or one way of loving.

Ancient and modern exist side by side. Gods walk among mortals. Language shifts. Rules fracture. And the boundaries humans build around power, identity, and desire do not always mean very much to the divine.

The gods have little interest in binaries around gender or attraction. They do, however, understand what happens when love is used as a weapon.

Perhaps that is all the more reason to find our way back to a world where love is simply love.


Author Perspective

Born from lived experience and the memories that linger long after the moment has passed.

I was raised on stories that lingered rather than shouted: myths half-remembered, power held in silence, and the idea that what is forgotten still shapes us. Those early fascinations taught me to watch the margins — the places where identity fractures, reforms, and chooses itself again.

I write from those in-between places.
Where what is remembered awakens truth, and even the divine must reckon with its humanity.

✺ Reader Questions ✺

Q: What kind of story is this?
A: A character-driven dark fantasy with romance woven throughout, mythological elements, and emotionally complex stakes.

Q: How much romance is in the series?
A: The Abandoned Gods is dark fantasy with romance woven throughout. And when deities are involved, attraction, desire, and spice can sometimes burn hot and fast. But real love? That can take time.

Like life, an intense connection may become something enduring—or it may belong only to a moment or a season. Across the series, relationships are allowed the time to reveal which is which.

Q: How are love and sexuality represented in the series?
A: The gods have little interest in human binaries around gender or attraction. Love, desire, and relationships take different forms throughout the series, without needing to fit neatly into labels. Who someone loves matters far more than what that love is called.

Q: What themes does the series explore?
A: Identity, power, memory, devotion, and what it means to choose yourself when everything else is stripped away.

Q: Why do parts of Books One and Two feel unexpectedly modern?
A: It’s deliberate. While The Abandoned Gods sits within a more traditional fantasy setting, Books One and Two introduce a world where the language, clothing, customs, and other elements can feel distinctly more modern—and the contrast can be striking.

There is a reason for that dissonance. Discovering why is part of the wider story.

Q: Do I need to read the series in order?
A: Yes. Each book builds on the last, with a continuous character and world arc.

Q: Is this a completed series?
A: The series is planned as four books. The Keepers is the first, with subsequent books releasing as the story continues.

Q: Is there content guidance available?
A: Yes — content notes are available for readers who prefer them.