Sara A. Mueller Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Anthologies

Sara A. Mueller is a horror fiction novelist best known for her debut novel The Bone Orchard. According to the author, she had her first impetus to become a writer when she was a child living in a house full of avid readers. During this time she used to write just about anything she had in her imagination. Nonetheless, Sara never tried to write with publication in mind until she was in her twenties. As a long-time fan of historical fiction and horses, she began writing fan fiction fantastical stories about ponies which she believes was good training for her future endeavors. Sara rarely wrote any essays or nonfiction and never kept a journal. She published The Bone Orchard her first novel in 2022 under Macmillan. The novel tells the story of Charm a witch descended from a long line of necromancers. Combining the aesthetic of Edwardian architecture and clothing, the mystique of Victorian high society life, and Gothic literature, it is a brilliant work that made her name.

Growing up, Sara A. Mueller read the usual books that every other girl who lives in small-town settings reads. During this time she loved to read the likes of Jane Eyre and Anne of Green Gable and libraries were a huge part of his life. Around this time, her father used to read The 13 Clocks to the young Mueller which was her gateway into The Count of Monte Cristo. Her father then worked for a mining company as a geologist and the family used to move around a lot. She was born in Michigan’s upper peninsula which is a country with rolling beautiful landscapes in the south and lakeshore, mountains, trees, and forests in the north. Out there enjoying the rural scapes, she came to love books. Reading was something everyone she knew did and her parents read to her too even though she found it tough given that she was dyslexic. To help her, her parents used to read part of the page and have her read the next part. They also helped by taking her to the library which would become a formative part of her reading and educational journey.

Outside of her reading and writing endeavors, Sara A. Mueller also loves the outdoors. She got into horseback riding as her mother wanted her to get outside and not read too much. When asked to pick a sport, she chose horseback riding since she had fallen in love with a horse that needed rescuing and together with her mother, they rescued it. For the most part, all Sara did was train the horse to develop balance, flexibility, and obedience. When she was in high school, she got into gaming when she was introduced to Dungeons and Dungeons through a book a friend loaned to her and She has been playing role play games ever since. A little later she had to sew her costume when she worked with a friend at a Rennaisance fair doing natural dying demonstrations. Ultimately she did a full bustle ball gown project from 1880s Victorian England. As such she likes sewing as it involves being creative in some very exacting ways which is a little like writing fiction or so she believes.

When it came to the inspiration for her novel, it all came from a friend’s gift. One of her friends had drawn a picture of a fruit tree with bones as the fruit and she thought it looked very cool. Since her friend knew she was a writer, he suggested that she use it in a story. At this time, she had been reading a lot of Gothic and Victorian literature and was learning a lot about past demons coming back to haunt the lives of people living in the present. At the same time, she attended a dissociative identity disorder talk and these events folded into one another and provided inspiration for her novel. But she still needed to do the research and develop the historical world even though there were some things she already knew. Over the years, she had been exposed to massive Victorian houses and knew everything about them. She had also experimented with clothing from a bygone era and had a rough idea of what was required. As such much of her specialized research was on the topic of dissociative trauma which she depicted in a highly fantasized version in the book. Nonetheless she still needed to confront it and write about it objectively enough for the sake of people who live with it. Sara Mueller also made a point of reading many first-hand accounts so that she could honor the survivors of the condition in her novel.

Sara A. Mueller’s The Bone Orchard is a brilliant horror fiction novel that tells the story of Charm. She is the last of the women descended from a long line of necromancers now imprisoned within the yard of regrown bone trees at Orchard House. Charm is a survivor and prisoner who tends the trees and their fruit for the sake of Pain, Shame, Pride, Justice, and Desire for her children. She is also a madam and a whore and thr many powerful and wealthy men of Borenguard usually visit her house to have a good time with fantastical girls. But on Tuesdays, the Emperor of Borenguard leaves his palaces and comes to spend time with Charm his mistress. But now Charm happens to be the only person that can keep the empire together and hence the Emperor calls her to his chambers and asks her to choose the son that will carry on his legacy. They are faithless and awful sons and the king needs to know which one is responsible for his murder. If she does this for him she will finally get the freedom that has been denied to her for decades. But in doing it she will also betray ghosts present and past that live in her heart. She will have to choose between the whispers of her own ghosts and the will of the emperor. She will also have to choose between her own revenge and justice for the empire.