About Rebecca Attfield
Hello, and welcome.
I'm Rebecca Attfield, author of The Dawnshield Order.
The world of the Dawnshield Order began unexpectedly during a summer holiday in 2025, when I created a paladin named Evander Drake for a Dungeons & Dragons campaign. My sister joined the campaign as his cleric sister, Elowen, and what began as a simple character exercise quickly became something much larger.
As I explored who Evander was, I found myself asking questions that felt surprisingly familiar. What keeps someone going when the thing that once gave them certainty begins to feel distant? What happens when an institution no longer reflects the values it claims to uphold? What does service mean when you are constantly asked to give more of yourself?
Although I am agnostic, I have always been fascinated by questions of faith, purpose, duty and belonging. Through Evander, a man whose faith is central to his identity, I found a way to explore those ideas from a perspective very different from my own.
Those questions also resonated with my own life. For more than ten years I have worked in education, a profession built on service, compassion and belief in others. Like many educators, I have experienced the tension between wanting to help and the growing demands placed upon those who do.
Evander became a way of exploring those ideas. He developed into a man with a warm public face and a private burden: someone trusted by everyone around him, yet quietly uncertain of his own place in the world. At the same time, he remained a romantic at heart, someone who loves beauty, history and the simple wonder of the world around him.
That part of him comes from me too. I love visiting old places, photographing them, wandering through cathedrals, castles, harbours and forgotten streets, then preserving those memories in my scrapbook. Many of the locations, landscapes and moods that appear throughout The Dawnshield Order began as places that captured my imagination in the real world.
The story continued to grow. Serenya emerged from the idea of a woman Evander loved, but never believed himself worthy of. By the end of that same week, Thalen had appeared as his trusted confidant and closest friend, while Kaelen arrived as the curious young squire who asks questions nobody else dares to.
What began as a holiday campaign eventually became an epic fantasy series about hope, loyalty, faith, family and the courage to choose kindness in difficult times.
I live in the UK with my husband and two cats. My husband has been the long-suffering first reader of The Dawnshield Order from its earliest drafts, while the cats contribute mainly by sitting on my keyboard at inconvenient moments.
Thank you for visiting, and for supporting independent fantasy.
I hope you enjoy the journey.
— Rebecca Attfield
Traveller’s Notes
Favourite book themes
Friendship, kindness, adventure, love and hope in dark times.Favourite characters to write
Evander Drake, because I love digging into his motivations and psychological profile; Kaelen Brant, because his scenes are always fun to write; and Branth Ironbrook, who reminds me a little of my husband.Current project
Editing Book Two of The Dawnshield Order, mapping out Book Three, and exploring potential prequel content.Writing fuel
Tea, coffee and lots of sweet popcorn.Where story ideas come from
Students often inspire the soldiers, while my family have given many of my characters their kinder traits. Historic places, old churches, woodland walks and National Trust locations across the UK also find their way into Altheryeon.Unexpected inspiration
A D&D paladin created during a summer holiday, an anecdote that inspired Evander’s dry sense of humour, songs that hit the right emotional note, and my husband’s book about the weapons of The Lord of the Rings, which I didn’t even know we owned.Most likely to appear in my camera roll
Flowers, bees, cats, family and friends, occasionally photographs of student work I’ve forgotten to delete, and sometimes food.Favourite part of writing
Character conversations, quiet moments of friendship, and scenes between Evander and Serenya.Most difficult part of writing
Council scenes. The manipulation and calculation are heavy to write because they go so strongly against how I work. Also, trying not to use the same word repeatedly — there has been the “softly” chapter, the “helmet” chapter and the “thinned” chapter.Writing soundtrack
The Da Vinci Code and Inception soundtracks work well for tense scenes. The Holiday, Love Actually, Final Fantasy VII and The Theory of Everything often accompany scenes between Evander and Serenya. I also discovered the composer Gavin Luke during a National Trust visit, and his music has been my background noise since November.Writing companions
Two cats whose main contribution is sitting on the keyboard — and inspiring Sonnet in the Lantern Archive.First readers
My husband, who has patiently read the series from its earliest drafts, along with my sister and her partner Simon, our DM, who have given feedback too.A theme I keep returning to
Choosing kindness when it would be easier not to — a message I am constantly trying to reinforce with my young learners.A place I’d happily spend all day
A museum, a beautiful garden, a beach, or anywhere with my husband. He genuinely is the best company I could ask for.Favourite season
I’m torn. Autumn has some of the best colours, but Christmas starts getting exciting for me in November. I’m one of those people.
