PHOTO: Zoe Dawson, multi-genre romance author, brings powerful emotion and imaginative storytelling to life from her North Carolina home.
From Military Heroes To Magical Worlds And Heart felt Happily Ever After
Zoe Dawson reveals her vibrant creative world, from romantic suspense to urban fantasy, exploring character depth, emotional growth, and the unwavering pursuit of love across genres and storylines.
Zoe Dawson writes with the urgency of someone who knows that love—however wild, broken, or beautifully improbable—is always worth the risk. Her stories are laced with adrenaline and anchored in deep emotional truths, where Navy SEALs grapple with grief, women lead with fire and precision, and even the cosmos bends toward connection. Her imagination stretches boldly across genres, but her heart remains fixed on one unwavering belief: every character deserves their ending of hope.
There’s an electric tension in her writing—the kind that lives between action and intimacy, between trauma and tenderness. Dawson doesn’t just sketch characters; she immerses them in worlds that test their resolve and bare their vulnerability. With every book, she challenges the boundaries of genre, crafting narratives where chaos sharpens, not dims, the clarity of love.
Her life, too, reflects this rich weave of complexity and colour. From her roots in Vermont to her creative sanctuary in North Carolina, from her digital quests as a Night Elf Druid to the quiet joy of Wednesdays with her grandson, Zoe channels it all into her work. The result is fiction alive with emotion, humour, and a fierce devotion to beauty—in every form it takes.
To read Zoe Dawson is to be reminded that healing is possible, even in the aftermath of battle—especially there. And that amidst the wreckage and wonder, love is not a soft landing. It’s the bravest leap.
What inspired you to write across such a wide range of genres, from romantic comedy to urban fantasy and syfy?
I just love telling stories no matter where they take place. Characters speak to me from all corners of the world and beyond. Sometimes they’re a bunch of friends caught in laugh-out-loud chaos, chasing dreams and wrangling dogs. Other times, they’re ducking bullets, covering each other’s backs—hardened by war but still aching for connection. They nudge at me when magic sparks mayhem, when secrets run deep, and when hearts are on the line. And sometimes, they’re traveling the cosmos searching for answers, navigating emotions, and trading quips with a sassy robot.
The one constant is love found at the worst possible moments, or the best.
To me, every character deserves a happily ever after. Whether it’s laced with laughter, soaked in blood and brotherhood, wrapped in enchantment, or written in the stars. I follow them wherever they lead.
How do you approach character development when writing military heroes like the Navy SEALs in your series?
I start with what he’s willing to die for and then I dig deeper. Beneath the discipline and danger is a man aching for connection, even if he’d never admit it. My job is to strip back the mission until love becomes the real risk.
“Ruckus” and “Kid Chaos” feature strong, complex female leads—how do you balance romance with action and character growth?
I don’t think romance and action are separate forces. They’re accelerants. They burn brighter when layered together. In Ruckus and Kid Chaos, the female leads aren’t just reacting to danger or waiting for rescue. They’re carrying baggage, agency, and sharp edges of their own. The action sets the emotional stakes. The romance exposes the fault lines. Character growth happens right in that messy middle, where two strong people keep colliding and choosing each other anyway.
What I’ve learned is that high-stakes action doesn’t drown out intimacy. It demands it. The more dangerous the world gets, the more you crave those raw, unguarded moments between two people. So I write women who can hold a scalpel or a sidearm, who won’t shrink from a firefight or a hard truth and men who see them fully, who fall not in spite of that complexity, but because of it.
Romance is the heartbeat. Action is the pressure. Character growth is what happens when neither one lets the other look away.
Your books often include emotionally charged themes such as PTSD and grief—how do you research and handle these topics sensitively?
I rely a lot on intuition and on the truth each character is trying to see through their pain. Whether it’s PTSD, grief, or loss, the need to heal is always at the heart of my stories. It’s a messy, inconvenient journey toward growth, not just for themselves, but for the person they’re learning to love. There is always hope. And love, in the end, is the strongest medicine of all.
Can you describe your typical writing day and how you keep up with such a high output across multiple genres?
My typical day? Plant butt, write words, repeat until the chapters sing with meaning. I start early, coffee in hand, and dive into the emotional heartbeat of the scene. I outline first, always, using in-depth character development and tools like the Enneagram and K.M. Weiland’s Creating Character Arcs to guide me. Once I know what a character needs to learn, I can shape the journey around it. Some days the pages fly. Other days, they fight me. But I show up, because storytelling is how I breathe and I believe in writing until the work speaks with truth, tension, and love.
How has your move from Vermont to North Carolina influenced your writing, if at all?
I moved from Vermont to escape the deary days and the cold winters. Virginia was a great stopgap, but the cost of living for a single mother was brutal. North Carolina. Home. That’s how I felt when I moved here. I don’t have an explanation. It just felt right. Like Goldilocks and the Three Bears. It was here I started self-publishing, and here where I quit my day job to fully embrace, and trust in myself to succeed. I’ve never looked back.
“If my characters had a group chat, what would they say about me?”
They’d say I’m relentless. That I throw them into danger, rip their hearts out, then have the audacity to ask, “But how did that make you feel?”
Zorro would probably call me a menace, but with affection. Kid Chaos would swear I thrive on chaos (he’s not wrong). Dagger would grumble that I make him talk about things he’d rather bury. And Brawler? He’d probably call me a “damn emotional ninja,” right before hugging someone when no one’s looking.
The heroines? Oh, they’d be worse. Saylor would start a petition to make me go easier on the men (not happening). Everly would say I have a thing for emotional landmines. And Grace? She’d just smile that knowing smile and say, “She doesn’t write us for comfort. She writes us to survive. And then she gives us love.”
They’d roast me. They’d roll their eyes. But they’d also know I believe in every one of them. Even when they don’t believe in themselves yet.
What advice would you give to authors trying to write successfully across multiple genres?
Know your core. Genres shift, tropes evolve, but your voice, the emotional truth you bring to every story, is what carries readers across worlds. Whether it’s laughter, heartbreak, bullets, or magic, your characters need to feel like you wrote them.
Stay organized. Keep your series bibles, timelines, and themes straight because trust me, juggling multiple genres is like spinning plates while one’s on fire and another’s trying to kiss you.
Don’t let fear of the market keep you in a box. If you have stories pulling at you from different directions, honour that. Readers can feel passion on the page and if you’re all in, they’ll follow you anywhere.
Oh, and write every day, if you can. Not because of word counts, but because momentum is everything when your brain’s living in more than one fictional universe at a time.
