“Unburned Tree” is a 31,900-word urban fantasy romance novella blending Muay Thai action with Thai ghost mythology. Set in Los Angeles' Thai Town, this multicultural paranormal romance delivers slow-burn tension between a debt-ridden dessert shop worker and a guilt-haunted fighter whose magical tattoos glow when they touch. Perfect for readers who want sacred tattoos, neon-lit alleys, and ghosts that whisper secrets before they drag men into gutters.

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Olivia's grandmother is forgetting her face. Her mother's hospital bills are unpaid. Her brother Jai needs bail money yesterday. And now the rent is three months overdue. So when a blue neon shard explodes through her dessert shop window and a man with moving sak yant tattoos pulls a screaming ghost out of the alley, Olivia does what any desperate woman would do: she pretends she didn't see it.

But the tattoos on her forearm ignite anyway. The ghost speaks her grandmother's name. And Rodrigo Robles—a silent, broken fighter who throws elbows that leave heat-shimmers in the air—grabs her wrist and tells her the truth. Her bloodline woke up because a crime boss named Chalerm broke something sacred at Wat Plerng. Now Chalerm wants her dead before she becomes a problem.

Rodrigo offers to train her. Sareth offers a place in the Dark faction. Arjan Det offers a cracked bell that whispers lies about everyone she trusts. Olivia doesn't want any of it. She wants to pay her bills and go back to spinning foy thong dough. But when Chalerm's beast claws her brother's arm and the corrupted elephant kneels in its own pink tears, Olivia realizes something terrible: the Gray Face inside her—wearing her dead father's face—is hungry.

She puts on the broken mongkon headband anyway. It whispers: wear me, become untouchable, become the fighter your grandmother's uncle never got to be. But each use unravels a thread. And five monks' blessings won't last forever.

What happens when the woman who makes dessert for a living has to kill a man with her bare hands? And what happens when the fighter she's falling for is the reason the ghost is angry in the first place?

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“Unburned Tree” isn't a story about chosen ones. It's about the exhausted, the indebted, the ones who show up to work the day after watching a ghost get dragged by its ribcage. Olivia doesn't save the world because she's special. She saves it because no one else will pay her mother's hospital bills. The romance burns slow, then fast, then terrifying—because healing isn't linear and neither is trust. If you want a heroine who vomits after her first real strike, a hero who ran and hates himself for it, and a love that survives concrete walls and broken headbands, pick up this book. The neon is still flickering.

Table of Contents:

• Free Sample

• Unburned Tree. Part 1.

• Unburned Tree. Part 2.