From ‘Butcher & Blackbird' To ‘Harvest Season,' Brynne Weaver Delves Into the Art of a Killer Rom-Com (Exclusive)

Brynne Weaver quickly became a household name for all the dark romance fans out there. Butcher & Blackbird flew off the shelves, as she brought a blend of dark romance and comedy in a way no other author had managed before.

The Ruinous Love trilogy is a firm favorite for many, and it wasn't surprising that fans quickly bought Tourist Season, the first book in the Seasons of Carnage trilogy. The second novel, Harvest Season, is out on June 9, 2026, and everyone is eagerly anticipating it.

Parade sat down with Weaver to discuss adding the comedy into the dark romance, the development of Seasons of Carnage into a real trilogy, and so much more.

After all, Weaver is the author who has really brought the dark rom-com genre to life. I had to know why she chose to add the comedy into the dark romance genre, because it gives the novels a different feel than everything we've had before.

"I already self-published a vampire series that is a very dark rom-com," Weaver explained her start in the genre, "I was just writing, having fun. I didn't realize that I had already started down that road, and then I deviated more into the dark romance, proper dark romance with a couple of books, Marrow and Black Sheep."

Eventually, she wanted to go back to the comedy routes, but she also wanted to create a more modern or contemporary setting, and "that's how Butcher & Blackbird really kicked off."

The benefit of already building the dark rom-com engine meant that she had the readership, and she credits that to the reason Butcher & Blackbird skyrocketed.

"It was a wild experience," Weaver admitted when we chatted about what seemed to be an overnight success, "I had self-published it without a pre-order. I just wanted to see how it would go, and how that might affect the Amazon rankings."

It turns out that Weaver is a data nerd, and she couldn't help but compare results, and she admits that for the first two weeks, nothing outrageous happened. Then the book picked up, and much of that was due to TikTokers and Bookstagrammers reading the novel and sharing it with their followers.

"I never sent it to them," she laughed with me as we talked about the beauty of social media for authors now. "They just picked it up and started reading it and shouting about it. It was virtually overnight, and I was getting all these inquiries from foreign publishers."

It led to the whole Ruinous Love trilogy, which is a series of standalone books. That's something many readers likely expected with Seasons of Carnage, only to get to the end of Tourist Season and have a huge cliffhanger to contend with.

"When I first talked to the publisher about the trilogy, I thought it was going to be interconnected standalones," Weaver told me, as I asked about why she opted for a true trilogy.

"However, when I started writing the first book - and I'm a pantser - I knew that there was much ore to excavate out of their story. I texted my agent about two-thirds of the way through to tell her it wouldn't be an interconnected standalone."

From there, her agent had to get in touch with the publisher, who wanted a few more details since they expected the standalone books that have been so popular in recent years. It's not just Weaver, but we've seen the success of Ana Huang and T.L. Swan with these interconnected stories.

In the end, everyone agreed that Nolan and Harper hated each other so much, especially Nolan's hate for Harper, that they needed more than one book to fully explore that. Weaver doesn't regret making that choice, as now it means exploring the consequences of actions. Nolan has found out the secret Harper has been holding for so long.

The Ruinous Love universe and the Seasons of Carnage universe are the same. As mentioned in the Acknowledgements for Tourist Season, it came up when Chris McKay, who is the director of the Butcher & Blackbird movie, asked about Autumn Bower. What happened to her after she escaped her ordeal?

"I felt like she had gotten away from Harvey Mead's house and went back to her life," Weaver initially admitted, but then she started to think about it even more. Much of the book came form her tinkering with that idea, and then it stuck.

She doesn't plan on always writing within the same universe forever, but she does say, "Never say ‘never.'"

"I've already finished the third book. That's in edits right now," Weaver teased, as we chatted about ideas for the future, "I have a lot of ideas for things that I want to write, and I don't want ot stick in the same universe indefinitely. But, you never know when an idea is going to pop up, and it's too good to pass up."

It's the fun of pantsing your way through a novel!

Part of the heartbreak of Tourist Season is seeing how Arthur's dementia is progressing. That's something that continues in Harvest Season, and it's a topic that is important to Weaver. Not only did she grow up with her maternal grandparents, but she also relished the relationship between younger and older people, and she experienced their decline with dementia. She also worked in neurodegenerative research for about a decade, "primarily focused on Alzheimer's disease research."

"I was providing a caregiving role to [my grandparents], a bit more to my grandfather," Weaver was heartfelt in her story, making it clear that there's a personal connection to Harper and Arthur's story, "So I saw what it meant to lose your personhood and try to hang onto that so desperately, and what i meant with the moments of joy and the heartbreaking moments."

She wanted the opportunity to fully represent that realistically and to honor the experience, and that's what she has offered with Arthur's arc in the Seasons of Carnage trilogy. There is a warning to expect more of a decline in Harvest Season, as this is a degenerative disease, and it's heartbreaking for everyone around.

The Alzheimer's Disease trigger warning is the most serious one of the lot. Weaver still brings her comedic essence to the rest of them, and she shared that "there are always a few wild things in there." Some of them could have gone either way, depending on the reaction of the readers, but the trigger warnings are suited to the style of the book.

Yes, there is another type of food that's coming up, which Weaver chuckled with me about, "I never expected that was going to be a big thing. I thought, when I wrote Butcher & Blackbird, it would be the mummy, but for some reason, food has become the big thing, and it's just continued on. I suddenly get these ideas, and I don't know where they come from, like hamburger and fly eggs.

Since we had talked about the movie, I asked for any updates. Unfortunately, there's nothing to share, except that it is still moving forward! She will hopefully have something to share soon, so make sure you're following her on TikTok, Instagram, and everywhere else she is!

"Things are progressing so well," Weaver was able to tell me, "I love the team. They're so great to work with, so collaborative. It's really like everyone is open to everyone else's ideas."

I, for one, can't wait! For now, we have Harvest Season out on June 9, 2026.

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This story was originally published June 7, 2026 at 7:00 AM.