Writing a Trauma Survivor in Urban Fantasy

One thing readers tend to notice about Bunyip Jones is that her trust is limited and earned. She expects the worst from people. She’s always wary.

That doesn’t come from nowhere. If you’ve read the books, you’ll know she’s someone who learned early that even the people who should be safe—like family—can still let you down in the worst ways.

That wariness shapes almost everything she does. It’s why she assumes no one will believe her. It’s why she believes she has to handle things alone. It’s why she so often goes rogue, and why that sometimes puts both herself and her team in danger.

It also affects her more quietly—in the way she avoids sitting too long with her own feelings, and how easily she misses what’s right in front of her.

That’s not accidental.

When I created her, I needed someone with strong survival instincts—someone observant, someone who could read people, someone who notices tells and danger before others do.

The most honest way to build that was to write her as someone shaped by trauma, and permanently changed by it.

I didn’t want the familiar “chosen one” archetype—the effortless fighter, the destined hero. I wanted someone closer to real experience: messy, uncertain, trying, failing, continuing anyway.

Someone who wants connection, but doesn’t always feel safe in it.

That’s also why the slow-burn romance takes time. Trust isn’t automatic for her—it’s something she has to learn, step by step, across multiple books.

Healing, for her, isn’t a single arc. It’s uneven. It backslides. It pauses. It returns.

And that’s what I wanted to get right.

Not as a gimmick. Not as darkness for its own sake. But because survivors don’t heal in straight lines.

Bunyip Jones isn’t a victim. She isn’t a “broken” character waiting to be fixed.

She’s a survivor.

And even when things knock her down, she keeps getting back up.

That resilience—that stubborn refusal to stop trying—is what matters most to me.

If she resonates with readers, I hope it’s because they recognise something honest in her journey: not perfection, not resolution, but persistence.