Hayley Ann Solomon
Where Austen meets enchantment, and kindness is always in ink.
HAYLEY ANN SOLOMON is an author and poet living on the North Island of New Zealand. She double-majored in Psychology and English, later graduating with a Baccalaureus Bibliothecologiae (Honours), followed by a Master of Arts degree.
She is a four-time recipient of an International Proverse Publication Prize for English Literature.
Her early novels are set in the Regency era and were published under the Zebra Regency Romance label. They are similar in genre to the works of Georgette Heyer. Her later writing spans poetry, fantasy, literary short stories, and a full-length continuation of Jane Austen’s final, unfinished fragment.
Hayley is fascinated by the sheer power of language as a succinct gateway to the subconscious. She finds concision intertwined with substantive expression, lyricism, and soundplay to be an entrancing medium. Her more recent work is philosophical, with an emphasis on kindness and social justice. She frequently immerses herself in the cognitive and emotional landscapes of poetry.
Once Upon a Fairer Time is a collection of poetic fairy tales that redress traditional imbalances of justice through rhyme. Rhythm, cadence, and tenor differ, but all tales lead to fairer outcomes through the medium of fun, frivolity, a sprinkle of philosophy and a lot of tongue twisting high jinx. Justice, kindness and fairness is preeminent. The book was released in 2025, a winnwe of a Proverse Publication Prize. Her second anthology, Bewitched and Beguiled, features classical themes drawn from The Odyssey and Greek mythology, much of it composed in iambic pentamer and crowns of Heroic sonnets. This is due for release in November 2025.
She was described as “a gifted new writer” by Melinda Helfer of The Romantic Times.(RT)
She has just completed a richly layered adult historical fantasy set in the early 1800s, blending espionage, a hint of mischief, romance, and magical secrets.
On a more personal note, Hayley sings, has plentiful pink hair, and believes—just a little—in magic, especially the magic of kindness. She would far rather write with an echanted feather quill in inks of cobalt and vermilion, than with a keyboard.
Genre:
- Adult Fiction
- Children's Fiction
- Fiction
- Romance
- Poetry
- Short Stories
- Young Adult
Skills:
- Academic Writing
- Competition Judging
- Editing
Branch:
Central Districts
Location:
Palmerston North
Publications:
Assorted Published Collections
Recent Full Book Publications
Once Upon a Fairer Time (poetry anthology), Proverse Publication Prize Winner Proverse, Hong Kong 2025
Bewitched and Beguiled (poetry anthology), Proverse Publication Prize Winner Proverse, Hong Kong (TBA) 2025
Under the Shade of the Feijoa Trees, (short stories) Proverse Hong Kong, 2019 — Proverse Supplementary Prize Winner 2018
Celestial Promise (poetry), Proverse Hong Kong, 2017 — Proverse Supplementary Prize Winner 2017
Wishbinder, Calumet Editions, Minnesota, 2017
From Tolerable to Tempting: A Pride and Prejudice Variation, Balboa Press, 2014
Book Titles published by Kensington Publishers USA (regency romance)
My Lady Luck • Raven’s Ransom • A Wife for Papa (with Lynn Collum & Laura Paquet) • Lady Caraway’s Cloak A Rag-Mannered Rogue • A Scandalous Connection • My Dashing Groom (with Sharon Donnelly & Donna Simpson) • Raven’s Ransom • By Way of a Wager • Seeking Celeste • His Bride to Be (with Catherine Blair & Kathleen Clair) • Enchanting Kittens (with C. Holbrook & N. Lawrence) • Seducing Lord Sinclair • Madrigals and Mistletoe • Viscount Victorious
Upcoming completed Manuscripts
Fantasy
Historical Romance
Celestial Promise/ Hayley Ann Solomon, Proverse Prize Edition; Hong Kong 2017 (Proverse Prize Supplemetary winner)
Celestial Promise is the winner of the International Proverse Prize 2016 Supplementary Prize.
In this collection of poetry, written over half a lifetime, Hayley Ann Solomon focuses primarily on the pursuit of excellence, immortality achieved through finite life, love in all its forms, and social justice.
As it waxes and wanes, the collection cycles through sequences of lyrical ballads, sonnets, elegies, haiku, snippets of nonsensical verse; all blended with a substantial dose of existential philosophy and social comment.
The collection covers a full spectrum, from the darkest psycho-social moments, to zeniths of absolute joy.
The liberal use of consonance, assonance, alliteration, echoes and half-echoes, rhyme and cross-rhyme make for a style rich in sound-play. This, together with strong metrical awareness – very often iambic or trochaic pentameter and tetrameter – evokes a flow that is quite typically euphonic. There is therefore a sense of lyricism despite a broad diversity of topics and moods.
The anthology evolves to become a promise of regeneration, in synchrony with the phases of the moon, from which it takes its celestial title.
Zebra Regency Romance Titles
Solomon, Hayley Ann My Lady Luck (Zebra Regency Romance) Kensington Publishing NY, Kindle Edition April 1 2004
Collum, Lynn; Paquet, Laura, Solomon, Hayley Ann A Wife for Papa (Three Zebra Regency Romances) Kensington Publishing NY, May 1 2004
Solomon, Hayley Ann Lady Caraway’s Claok (Zebra Regency Romance) Kensington Publishing NY, Aug 1 2003
Solomon, Hayley Ann A Rag Mannered Rogue (Zebra Regency Romance) Kensington Publishing NY, Sept 1 2002
Solomon, Hayley Ann A Scandalous Connection (Zebra Regency Romance) Kensington Publishing NY, May 1 2002
Solomon, Hayley Ann; Donnelly, Sharon,; Simpson, Donna My Dashing Groom (Zebra Regency Romance) Kensington Publishing NY, June 1 2002
Solomon, Hayley Ann Raven’s Ransom (Zebra Regency Romance) Kensington Publishing NY, June 1 2001
Solomon, Hayley Ann By Way of a Wager (Zebra Regency Romance) Kensington Publishing NY, Nov 1 2000
Solomon, Hayley Ann Seeking Celeste (Zebra Regency Romance) Kensington Publishing NY, June 1 2000
Blair, Catherine ; Clair, Kathleen; ,Solomon, Hayley Ann His Bride To Be (Three Zebra Regency Romances) Kensington Publishing NY April 1 2000
Holbrook, C; Lawrence, N; Solomon, Hayley Ann Enchanting Kittens (Zebra Regency Romance)Kensington Publishing NY, August 1 1999
Solomon, Hayley Ann Seducing Lord Sinclair (Zebra Regency Romance) Kensington Publishing NY, 1999
Solomon, Hayley Ann Madrigals and Mistletoe (Zebra Regency Romance) Kensington Publishing NY, Dec1 1999
Solomon, Hayley Ann Viscount Victorious (Zebra Regency Romance) Kensington Publishing NY, Nov 1 1998
Wishbinder Hayley Ann Solomon Calumet, Minnesota, USA 2017
Wishbinder is a children and young adult's fantasy brimming with magic, wish bubblles, laughter, dragons and some very mean elves. Officers of the Department of External Dream Regulation are inundated with malicious wish bubbles. They are brimming and brewing, threatening to weave malice into the intricate balance of enchantments that stabilise the known worlds.
The Wishmaker is deeply troubled. Septimus, seventh son of a seventh son, raised on earth but half elf, must now fulfill the prophecies to restore the balance of the worlds. He is helped by a dragon hatchling with a remarkable propensity for trouble and a band of elves - some lovely, some less so.
Hilarious, magical, heartbreaking at times, this amazing novel presents a world we can only wish existed. Calumet Editions 2017
Under the shade of the feijoa trees and other stories/ Hayley Ann Solomon, Proverse Prize Edition; Hong Kong 2019 (Proverse Prize Supplemetary winner)
Under the Shade of the Feijoa Trees is the Winner of the 2018 International Proverse Supplementary Prize.
The collection offers a representative sample of Hayley Ann Solomon’s particular brand of high quality, emotionally resonant short stories. The styles and intensities vary extensively, but the common denominator is humanity in all its complexity, woven with philosophy.
This eclectic and very personal collection of short stories by successful writer of genre fiction and emerging poet, Hayley Ann Solomon, describes in lyrical detail widely dispersed places and situations. The stories are well-constructed and intensely-felt and the author’s joy in the sounds and sequencing of beautiful words is evident.”—Philip Chatting, Winner of the Proverse Prize 2014, author of "The Snow Bridge and Other Stories" (Proverse, 2015). Deeply eclectic, philosophical, lyrical and at times joyous, the anthology cverse justice, betrayal, kindness, jealousy, guilt, introspection, irony and karma.
There are tales of whimsy, of introspective hell, of innocence lost, of hilarity, of fantasy. There is regency era, historical, contemporary, autobiographical, lyrical and a lot in-between. The stories are art, literary fiction, written with hope and with heart.
Poetry Selections
"Tell Me and I Will Try" (Third Prize Winner) in Mingled Voices 5, Proverse 2021
"On Season's Whim" in Mingled Voices 5, Proverse Hong Kong, 2021
"Shadow-thought Shielding" (Special Mention Overall) in Mingled Voices 6, Proverse 2022
"Silence, a Shield" (Special Mention Overall) in Mingled Voices 6, Proverse 2022
The Fountain Still Falls" in Mingled Voices 7, Proverse Hong Kong, 2023
"You'll Be Dipping at Shadows" in Mingled Voices 7,Proverse Hong Kong, 2023
"Heart-song" in Mingled Voices 8, Proverse Hong Kong, 2024
"Together" in Mingled Voices 9, Proverse Hong Kong, 2025 (forthcoming)
"Wishing on Dandelions" in Mingled Voices 9, Proverse Hong Kong, 2025 (forthcoming)
"There Never Was Nothing" (Third Place Winner) in Mingled Voices 3, 2019
"Once Grown, Now Gone" and "Green No More" in Mingled Voices 1, 2017
Numerous short stories and poems in Momaya Review, The Binnacle, Compose Literary Journal, New Dialogues and New Beginnings, Rose and Thorn Literary Journal, and Horizons 2
From Tolerable to Tempting/Hayley Ann Solomon Balboa USA 2014
From Tolerable to Tempting, is a fictional variation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.
Can Darcy ever be absolved of his wicked remark “She is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me?” From Tolerable to Tempting diverges from the original with the death of Mr. Bennet.
Lizzie is evicted from Longbourn after Mr. Collins, the heir, proves his usual insufferable self.
Every Bennet daughter has a new and more difficult road to traverse. Lizzie finds herself governess to Georgiana Darcy, with heartrending complications, including an appearance by Wickham, who has not improved.
What of Anne De Bourgh?
What luminously cunning scheme is contrived to thwart Lady Catherine De Burgh?
Does Wickham’s insidious charm still have consequences? For whom?
When does an astonished Lizzy discover that the last man on earth she could ever be prevailed upon to marry is actually—quite sinfully—tempting?
Once Upon a Fairer Time; Classic Tales Revised in Rhyme
Once Upon a Fairer Time: Classic Tales Revised in Rhyme, has just been released with Proverse Publishing (Hong Kong) as a Proverse Publication Prize
This collection of tales, all in rhyme, all with differing cadence, rhythm, magical heartbeat and tone, is my rebellious attempt at a little subversion. I guess it is a lyrical urge to question what we take for granted in fairy tales.
When I was a child, I pondered long on whether a pea should be the mark of a true princess. Surely character and kindness should be more important? Why does the gingerbread man have to be gobbled up by a nasty fox? Surely he should outfox the fox? Why does Jack get to steal from a giant and cause his death? Is this fair, or even just? Why is the self-righteous little red hen, who bakes her own bread, so utterly selfish? I never liked her. Yes, she teaches her friends a lesson and makes them sad, but is that kind? Wouldn’t her baking taste better shared ? So many questions... Perhaps, with a little empathy we would know that wolves aren’t always villains: sometimes they are just hungry. And three little pigs, clever as they are, can help, rather than boil him alive.
What about Rumpelstiltskin, who spins gold for the queen in exchange for her first born? It is a clear contracts case and she breaches. Is this fair? Are promises meant to be broken? Why is poor Rumple the villain in all this?
With a little compassion, motivation and innovation, the tale could find a very satisfactory compromise, and - spoiler alert- it has!
Certainly, true villains should never escape justice, and they so often do in these tales. But not here! I am big on poetic justice! Watch what happens to Rapunzel’s witch, Snow White’s stepmother and Sleeping Beauty’s Malifecent... quite satisfying....
Author notes explain the changes in trajectories (and why I have made them) and then it is fun the whole way, in rollicking rhyme, mischief - (a lot!) and small injections of philosophy, pathos and the lyrical. I liberally use assonance, alliteration, consonance, freeform rhyme, internal rhyme and half rhyme and every last trick I can think of to create vividity, bounce, nonsensical liveliness, or lyrical, dream-like qualities in more measured iambic pacing.
Best thing, I got my wonderful husband, Clive, to do the illustrations, so this is our first combined venture and it is wonderful. I sometimes get lost in those beautiful pictures and stare at them as much as I did when I was a child pouring over some treasury of nursery tales. They are breathtakingly beautiful, with a definite quality of enchantment.
Come explore my world of Once Upon a Fairer Time, with the emphasis on fairer; and the happy ever afters embedded in kindness, compassion, justice and compromise. Whether you’re young, young-at-heart, or simply curious what happens when Goldilocks apologises, have a read and let your tongue linger on all the tongue twisting tales and mischief I have been up to. Yes, I am like a slightly subversive fairy godmother!
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/9888834126
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FJ8KT2XB
