Allow Me to Introduce Myself…

Hi!

In case we’ve never met before, my name is Alley Rehfeldt and I am a Young Adult fantasy author!

A little about me; I’m a high school English teacher living in South Carolina. I’m originally from Ohio - grew up there since I was 6 years old - but moved to South Carolina for a teaching job when I graduated college from the University of Akron. I graduated with a degree in AYA - Integrated Language Arts (a fancy way of saying I’m qualified to teach 7-12 grade English) and got my Master’s in English from Southern New Hampshire University a few years later.

I was raised in a household consisting of my mom, dad, and twin sister. We were a very tight-knit family and still are to this day. Though I’m about 500 miles away from my family now, I still call my parents multiple times a week and FaceTime my sister almost every day.

I’m currently engaged to my fiancé, Michael. We’ve been together for about 2 1/2 years and are getting married this summer which we’re both super excited about! We’re both originally from Ohio but actually didn’t meet until we moved down to South Carolina separately.

I’m, of course, a huge fan of anything and everything fantasy-related. I’ve loved reading fantasy and fiction since I was young, I especially loved the House of Night series by P.C. Cas & Kristen Cast (if you’re a fan of vampires and vampire academy novels, check it out!). I’m a huge nerd when it comes to D&D, I’ve played in 2 campaigns - one as a dragonborn sorcerer and one as a half-elf druid - and love video games with magical/D&D elements like Baldur’s Gate 3.

I have 2 dogs; Azula and Babs. As you can tell, I’m also an ATLA fan. My fiancé and I were watching ATLA together when we adopted our first dog which is a Great Dane. We wanted a strong name for such a big sized dog but didn’t want to fall into the typical names like Athena, Atlas, etc. and decided on Azula since she is the princess of the Fire Nation, after all. We just recently adopted Babs about a month ago and have absolutely no idea what type of dog she is. She’s got the face of a wolfhound but is about a third of the size as Azula. We love them both very much, though I plan on no more animals after these two - two’s just about all I can handle!

I’ve also been diagnosed with an autoimmune disease called POTS (stands for Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome). POTS affects all types of people differently but the basic way of explaining this is my blood pressure and heart rate will flip or do the opposite of what they’re supposed to in situations such as exerting myself or when I stand up after sitting or laying down for long periods of time. I get migraines very often as one of the symptoms of POTS and can occasionally pass out from it. I talk about this because I’ve recently been introduced to other educators and even some of my students that also have POTS, which I never would’ve known if I hadn’t been open about having POTS myself. I’m incredibly lucky that it doesn’t affect my day-to-day life as much as others, besides the usual symptoms like migraines, brain fog, and occasional nausea, I haven’t passed out from POTS in almost two years!

Crown of Blood is my first fantasy series, though I don’t plan on it being my last! I have a lot of ideas in the works and in my head that I’m excited to bring onto the page in the coming months and years. I’m currently working on getting book #2 of the Crown of Blood series officially published in the coming months (title and cover reveals are coming soon!) and am going back and forth between completing the Crown of Blood series after that or begin my next series and sort of publish every other book in order from both series.

Moral of the story is that I’m super excited to be here and have these opportunities to share my creativity with the world and create a group of like-minded people with similar interests. Whether you are a fantasy and fiction lover, an avid reader, a lover of YA, or a writer yourself, you’re welcome here on my page and I’m excited to get to know you more!