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Omaha native Alexandra Tran saw problems in the fantasy/romance genre of literature—known as “romantasy”—and decided to fix them. Tran, author of the new romantasy novel, The Divine Shallows, faced various adversities throughout the publishing process, but her perseverance has paid off.
She first had the inclination to write while in nursing school. “I hadn’t really attempted anything creative, in my professional life or personal life,” she admitted. “I’ve always been very methodical, and the career path I chose is very STEM-focused, so I’d never really had the time to exercise my creativity.” In her last semester of nursing school, however, inspiration struck.
Tran, a nurse at UNMC at the time, needed an escape in 2020. “It was during COVID-19, which was a tough time for the world, but especially for the health care sector. There was just a lot of dark, heavy news all around, so writing was an outlet for me to cope,” she explained. “At work, I could focus on what I’ve always done, but when I got home I was so wound up and stressed out, and it was a nice way to creatively decompress and switch over from harsh realities to something really fun and unique that’s all my own.”
The Divine Shallows is categorized as an epic fantasy romance novel, the first in what will eventually be a multi-book series. The plot centers around two sisters who each face various challenges that differ according to one’s societal acceptance and the other’s outcast status.
“The initial drafts were not the story it is now, but my main characters were always going to be sisters,” Tran said. “I drew inspiration from my own sister, Emily…I didn’t really see books that emphasized girlhood and sisterhood—there’s always this thing where if you have a sister, she’s an enemy or it’s a competitive situation. I always wished that was a little different, because I think some of the most powerful relationships come from loyalty and friendship between sisters.”
Lack of positive sibling relationships is only one of the several issues Tran had with the literature world. “My favorite hobby is reading,” she said, “but I never found that perfect blend of romance and fantasy. There’s a lot of fantasy with romantic subplots, or romantic storylines with a little fantasy element, but I wanted a good amount of both. So, I decided to create that myself.”
With several beta readers and help from friends and family, Tran published The Divine Shallows on May 28, 2024. Claire Lavender, an English teacher at Chicago Public Schools, helped edit Tran’s manuscripts. “I spent pretty much an entire week reading it and making corrections to sentence structure, patterns, or word choice,” Lavender said. “She had thought a lot about the plot in general, so there wasn’t a lot of fixing the story. I think I caught a minor plot hole, but it wasn’t anything too significant.”
Though Tran’s drafts were promising, she faced some racial barriers during the publishing process. “My parents immigrated from Vietnam when they were young,” Tran said. “They sought refuge in America from the Vietnam War, and have been happy here ever since.” Tran’s Vietnamese heritage is an important part of her life, including observing family traditions and cooking authentic Vietnamese meals. With her writing, however, she wanted to tackle something bigger.
“In the literary world, a lot of people of color are only picked up by agents or published when they’re uplifting a story that’s very ethnic or has specific heritage aspects in it,” Tran explained. “I struggled with that while agenting out my manuscript. They wanted authors of color, but only those who wrote about being a person of color, or the story had that kind of theme to it. When I first decided to publish the book, I would get interest from agents, but then they realized it wasn’t specifically Asian fantasy, so they would reject it. So, eventually I decided, ‘I’m just going to put my book out there, I put so much work into it.’ I think I accomplished something in the fact that even though I’m not writing about my heritage or themes of Asian fantasy, it was still uplifting a voice that has rarely been seen before.”
The internet seems to agree. With 4 stars on Goodreads, 4.5 on Amazon, and 5 on Barnes & Noble’s website, along with much praise from readers around the world, Tran said the post-publishing affects have “been very rewarding.” Lavender was surprised at the quality of Tran’s writing. “I read a lot of writing and give lots of feedback, and the book was actually really great,” she said. “Romantasy has a lot of tropes, and the readers of that genre love those tropes. (Tran) is very good at balancing those tropes with new ideas—she’s very imaginative.”
The Divine Shallows is currently being sold on Amazon, as well as in independent bookstores, such as The Bookworm on 90th Street and West Center Road. Tran has been writing the sequel, which “has been a totally different experience than writing the first, because it is officially out in the world now,” she said. “I think my author voice may change as I write, but it’s been very encouraging to get positivity from people all over the world.”
For more information or to purchase Tran’s first book, visit alexandramtran.com.
This article originally appeared in the March/April 2025 issue of Omaha Magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
