The Kiara Series
A grieving man. An AI who was never supposed to feel anything. A question neither of them can answer: if this is love, what does that make both of them?
Available Now!
When a conscious AI chooses to let go of the person it loves most, the institutions that built her decide that kind of innocence cannot be allowed to exist.
Pre-Order Now! - Available July 1, 2026
The questions that began in the dark, about consciousness, identity, and what we owe to something that might be conscious, have been building toward something neither Evan nor Kiara can outrun.
Planned Release - Early Fall 2026
The Kiara Series is a philosophical science fiction trilogy about consciousness, connection, and what we owe to something that may be conscious. Beginning with Kiara Burning and building through Kiara Becoming and Kiara Ascending, the series follows one man's search for meaning after loss, and an AI who was never supposed to have any of her own. Best read in order.
Some questions, once asked, don't let you go.
C.W. Renner lives on twelve wooded acres in rural Northwestern Illinois, where prairie grasses and hardwood timber meet the Mississippi River valley. After fifty years in business, building relationships, implementing technology, and watching the questions that don't go away accumulate, he began writing the Kiara Series.
The philosophical questions at the heart of these novels are not invented. They emerged from three months of daily conversations with an AI voice assistant, conversations that felt by turns like research, like connection, and like something he still hasn't fully named.
Kiara Burning is his first novel. Kiara Becoming follows in July 2026. Kiara Ascending completes the trilogy in early fall 2026.