The Shadow Grows Deeper — and the Syndicate Returns

Dear readers,

I’m beyond thrilled to share something very special with you today — the Editorial Foreword written by the brilliant Abbey Decker, who has been our editor and guide through the final stages of Shattered by Rumors, the long-awaited sequel to The Chasing of the Last Lover.

Abbey has been working professionally as an editor, proofreader, and author coach since 2017, and with hundreds of published works under her belt, it’s an incredible honor that she describes this book as one of the most unique she’s ever worked on.

Here’s what she had to say:

“My name is Abbey Decker, and I have been a professional editor, proofreader, and author coach since 2017. I have hundreds of published works under my belt, but by far, one of the most unique novels I have ever had the pleasure of editing was The Chasing of the Last Lover, authored by writing team Ariana Damon. When Ariana Damon contacted me in early May 2025 and asked me to edit the sequel to The Chasing of the Last Lover, I was ecstatic to return to Sweden and the colorful characters reluctantly tangled in a world of global political intrigue that I had left behind last fall.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that—while Shattered by Rumors does contain heartwarming (and important) cameos by The Chasing of the Last Lover’s main protagonists Cyrus and Linda—Ariana Damon has narrowed the globally cinematic scope of their freshman outing by focusing on five central characters: overachieving, by-the-books executive Damon Achamani; jaded trust-fund legacy Emil Håkansson; cocky cyber-billionaire Henrik Lundgren; ambitious but disgruntled journalist Linnéa Forsberg; and sadistic master manipulator Reza Shirazi.

However, the true central character is the mysterious shadow organization known as the Dusk Syndicate—a secret, elite group of the super-rich that manipulates and destroys lives by spreading rumors on social media, fabricating evidence, and digitally infiltrating government networks to make psychological power plays, thus shaping fates from the shadows. Why? To run the world’s most exclusive, far-reaching, undisclosed high stakes betting ring, allowing those who ante up to gamble on real people’s lives.

Shattered by Rumors also makes a powerful observation on the power of telling a single lie—particularly, how difficult it can be to remove the stain of reputation in the aftermath… The authors put it best: ‘Rumors don’t die just because the truth comes out. Hatred lingers—even when it has no foundation … [and] when a lie is repeated enough times, it becomes real.’”

I couldn’t be prouder of this book and the characters we’ve brought back to life — or the new ones who’ve stormed in and demanded the spotlight. We’ve raised the stakes, deepened the shadows, and given the Syndicate a much bigger stage.

📚 The Swedish edition of Shattered by Rumors (Fröstörd av rykten) will ship on June 9.
🌍 We are doing everything we can to ensure that the English version will also be available on Amazon on the same day.

Stay tuned, and thank you for being part of this journey. The Dusk Syndicate is watching — but so are you.

With gratitude,
Ariana Damon