Some stories are written to reach their final page. Others refuse the quiet dignity of endings. They linger beyond the last sentence, inhabiting the silent rooms of memory, accompanying their creators through the passing years like faithful companions who know that their journey is not yet complete. They wait—not impatiently, but with the quiet certainty that true stories possess—for the moment when imagination once again opens the door. Such is the remarkable return of Azorean writer Andreia Lima, whose newly published novel, The Princess of Limaland and the Crucial Decision, revives, after thirteen years of silence, a magical universe that never truly disappeared. It merely rested, gathering depth, waiting for the day when both its author and its readers were ready to believe once more in the extraordinary power of fantasy.
The publication of this third volume marks far more than the continuation of a beloved literary saga. It is the culmination of a promise the author made to herself when the second novel appeared in 2013. For Andreia Lima, the story of Jade Arima—a young princess and sorceress born in a village where magic did not exist, only to discover at sixteen that her destiny reached far beyond ordinary life—was never truly finished. There remained questions that refused to fade into silence, emotional threads that demanded resolution, and characters whose lives continued to unfold long after the covers of the second book had closed. “When I published the second book in 2013,” she reflects, “I already knew I wanted to continue the story. There were still important questions left unanswered, especially Jade’s relationship with her boyfriend, Santiago Korando, who secretly became cursed by the Moon Stone and was transformed into a monster.” Those unfinished lives remained with her, quietly insisting that every ending is merely another beginning disguised as farewell.
Yet it was not only the characters who called her back. It was also Limaland itself—that enchanted city born entirely from her imagination, a place that exists nowhere on any map and yet feels profoundly real to those who have wandered through its pages. “I loved using my creativity to build a magical city that didn’t exist,” she says. “The possibility of developing that universe even further was incredibly exciting, and I also knew it would help me grow as a writer.” Every fantasy author eventually discovers that invented worlds possess a curious independence. They cease belonging entirely to their creator and begin asking to be explored on their own terms. Limaland became precisely such a place: a landscape where imagination could continue expanding long after its first foundations had been laid, inviting both writer and reader to discover corners that neither had previously imagined.
The road back, however, was neither direct nor easy. Like so many meaningful journeys, it unfolded slowly, interrupted by the ordinary demands of life. Responsibilities accumulated. Time became fragmented. Writing retreated before other priorities, sometimes for months, sometimes for years. The manuscript remained unfinished, waiting patiently in the background while life insisted on being lived. Yet it was never abandoned. “For many years,” Andreia recalls, “this project had to be set aside. But every time I returned to writing it, what I felt most was longing.” That single word—longing—perhaps explains more about the creative process than volumes of literary theory ever could. True stories are not forgotten; they are missed. They become absences that quietly ask to become presence once again.
That enduring attachment reveals something essential about Andreia Lima’s relationship with literature itself. Although she reads widely across many genres, she has never doubted where her own literary homeland resides. “Fantasy is undoubtedly my genre,” she says with quiet conviction. “I often say that fantasy chose me.” It is a beautiful reversal of the usual narrative. Rather than claiming to have chosen fantasy, she suggests that imagination itself recognized something within her long before she fully understood it herself. Since childhood, fairy tales, enchanted forests, mythical creatures, and magical kingdoms have accompanied her imagination. When the opportunity first arose to write her own story—even as little more than a playful exercise—she did not hesitate. “I never hesitated,” she remembers. The answer arrived before the question had fully formed, as though the stories had always been waiting inside her.
There is, within her understanding of fantasy, a depth that transcends simple entertainment. She rejects the common misconception that magical worlds exist merely to provide escape from reality. On the contrary, she sees them as one of the oldest and most profound ways of understanding it. “Fairy tales carry symbols that become teachings,” she explains. “They have a therapeutic and educational effect on readers.” It is a vision that echoes the great traditions of myth and folklore, where dragons are never merely dragons, forests are never simply forests, and every magical journey ultimately becomes an inward journey toward courage, compassion, sacrifice, forgiveness, or hope. Fantasy, in Andreia Lima’s hands, is not an escape from truth but another language through which truth reveals itself.
Her ambition, therefore, extends well beyond simply telling stories. “My goal is to promote reading while allowing readers to reflect on the messages hidden within the story,” she says. “I believe I’m on the right path when it comes to fantasy literature.” Hidden within those words is an understanding shared by the finest writers for young readers: children and adolescents are capable of profound emotional and philosophical reflection when stories trust them enough to invite it. Magic becomes not an ornament, but a bridge toward understanding the human condition itself.
Ironically, Andreia’s own literary story began long before readers ever encountered Jade Arima. Although the first volume of The Princess of Limaland was published in 2011, she had begun writing it three years earlier, at just eighteen years old. Yet even that beginning reaches further back still. Writing, she says, has accompanied her for as long as memory allows. As a child, the moments she loved most at school were always the free-writing exercises, those rare occasions when imagination was allowed to roam without limits. “We could simply let our imagination flow,” she remembers. She filled diaries with private thoughts, wrote words of comfort for friends whenever sadness visited them, and gradually discovered that language arrived naturally whenever the heart needed expression.
Like so many young artists, however, that early instinct became temporarily obscured beneath the practical demands of education. Academic expectations grew. Time for creativity diminished. Writing fell silent—not because it had disappeared, but because life often asks us to postpone the very things we love most. It returned unexpectedly during adolescence while participating in the youth group Os Mensageiros da Palavra in the parish of Ribeirinha, where she was invited to write an article for the parish newsletter. That modest assignment rekindled something that had merely been sleeping. From that small spark would eventually emerge an entire literary universe.
Publishing her first novel at twenty-one introduced her to a world she had never previously imagined. “I entered a world I didn’t know,” she recalls. “I saw it as an opportunity to grow in literature.” What followed surprised her. Across Terceira Island, readers welcomed the young author with warmth and generosity, encouraging her not merely to celebrate one book but to continue building an enduring literary voice. In a small island community, where encouragement often carries extraordinary weight, those gestures became the quiet foundation upon which her career would continue to grow.
Today, writing for children and young adults remains less a professional challenge than a natural extension of who she is. “Because I love writing, I don’t see it as a challenge,” she explains. “It’s something that brings me happiness.” Nor does she attempt the impossible task of pleasing everyone. “I don’t write for everyone,” she says simply. “I write for those who connect with my world.” There is remarkable artistic wisdom in that statement. Authentic literature has never sought universality through compromise. Instead, it achieves universality by remaining profoundly faithful to its own unique voice.
She is equally hopeful about the future of reading itself. In an era increasingly dominated by screens and perpetual distraction, Andreia refuses the easy pessimism that often surrounds younger generations. Instead, she senses something quietly hopeful emerging. “I think young people are returning to reading,” she reflects. “Perhaps they’re rediscovering something they enjoyed before it became overshadowed by technology.” Her optimism recognizes that stories possess an extraordinary resilience. Long before digital devices existed, human beings gathered around fires to listen to tales that explained the stars, the forests, and themselves. That ancient hunger for narrative has survived every technological revolution. It is unlikely to disappear now.
With The Princess of Limaland and the Crucial Decision, Andreia Lima has done far more than publish another fantasy novel. She reminds us that imagination is one of humanity’s oldest forms of hope. Magic does not vanish simply because years pass or because life temporarily demands our attention elsewhere. Like forgotten kingdoms hidden beyond familiar roads, it waits with remarkable patience. Sometimes thirteen years. Sometimes a lifetime. Until one quiet day, a writer opens a door once more, a reader turns the first page, and both discover that the enchanted world has been there all along—waiting, faithfully, for them to believe again.
Based on an interview published in Diário Insular, José Lourenço-director. Photos from DI.