Rites of the Starling
Rites of the Starling
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Devney Perry on Rites of the Starling
In her own words: quotes and insights from the author.Why she wrote it
Years of saved ideas, finally the right storyPerry spent nearly a decade in tech before quitting to be home with her family, and the restlessness that followed is what put her at a keyboard. She has traced everything back to that moment of needing a mental challenge that reading alone could no longer supply.
Honestly? I was bored. That, and going a little crazy at home with my kids. I’d just quit a very demanding job and had my youngest son. I was reading a book a day – or more – and it wasn’t cutting my need for a mental challenge. So, I opened up a Word doc and started writing away.
More than fifty contemporary novels separated her debut from the Shield of Sparrows series, the romantasy world in which “Rites of the Starling” is the second book. She has described the project as a container for material she had been holding in reserve across all those years of contemporary work.
There’s a lot of me in this book. A lot of special characters and names and elements that I have been saving for years for just the right story. It’s the longest book I’ve ever written and absolutely my favourite.
That comment was made about “Shield of Sparrows,” the series opener, while she was already writing the sequel. The accumulated waiting it describes applies to the world both books share.
When the first book came out in May 2025, Perry was already deep in “Rites of the Starling” and declined to say more than a single sentence about it. The tone of that sentence tells you something about how seriously she was protecting the work in progress.
I’m not ready to talk about book two yet. But I’m working on it right now, and as my preteen children say … let me cook.
How she wrote it
Plotting forward, reading back on a KindlePerry has always been categorical about where she sits on the outliner-versus-pantser question, and her answer hasn’t shifted from her 2017 debut era into her romantasy work.
Plotter. I like to know where I’m going.
The reason she outlines is structural rather than creative: she uses the map to catch what she might otherwise let slip through the draft, and she has a specific habit for the editing pass that helps her feel the book as a reader rather than as its author.
An outline really helps me keep the over-arching story in mind and make sure I’m not dropping plot threads. When I’m editing, I read the book on my Kindle so I can get a better feel for the flow.
Her writing-to-publication rhythm was set early and has stayed fixed. The three-month window she describes below governed more than fifty contemporary novels before she turned to fantasy.
I spend about two months writing and self-editing and then kick the draft off to my editor. We go back and forth for about a month to get things just right. The three-month schedule works really well for me right now.
Secondary characters in her world are not always assigned a role in advance. She has described her planning as genuinely responsive to what a character turns out to do on the page, which matters for readers of a sequel where supporting figures from the first book take on new weight.
Sometimes I have a book planned for them, and sometimes I don’t. It just depends on what stories I’ve got in my head. There are times when a secondary character surprises me and plays a bigger role than I’d expected. So then I’ll plan them a book.
The personal thread
The thing she was always meant to doPerry came to writing late by industry standards, and she has framed that lateness as something that makes the work feel more earned than accidental. The connection she draws between reading and writing is the through-line she returns to when explaining why she kept going.
I didn’t discover my love for writing until I was in my thirties, but it all stems from how much I love to read. Writing feels like that thing I was always meant to do, I was just waiting for the right time.
When the Amazon MGM film deal for “Shield of Sparrows” was announced, Perry turned publicly toward her existing readership. She had spent years building an audience in contemporary romance, asked them to follow her into a new genre, and the scale of their response was something she felt the need to name out loud.
A while ago, I said I was going to ask you to become romantasy readers, and you have exceeded my wildest expectations.
That ask carried real risk. A long-established contemporary audience has no obligation to follow an author into fantasy, and she knew it. The fact that they did shaped the conditions under which “Rites of the Starling” was written and received.
What she wants us to sit with
A romance first, no matter the worldPerry has been consistent about the contract she sees herself making with readers of the Shield of Sparrows series. The fantasy setting, the magic, the monster migrations, the world-building: all of it is in service of something she has kept constant across every book she has written.
Shield of Sparrows is 1000 per cent a romance, first and foremost. So, no need to be an experienced fantasy reader. It’s longer than my small-town contemporary books and there’s a bit more action, but it’s still a Devney Perry book with a big romance and lots of feels.
That framing is the implicit promise behind “Rites of the Starling” as well. Readers who arrive expecting the genre conventions of epic fantasy will find them subordinate to the relationship at the center of the story. That is not an accident of execution; it is the stated design.