Q&A with Elba Luz

 

Elba Luz is the author of the new young adult novel Legally Yours, Violet Lopez. Her other books include the new novel How to Ruin a Wedding. She is based in New York. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write Legally Yours, Violet Lopez, and how did you create your characters Violet and Theo?

A: It was a mix of things! I wrote a different book about a girl trying to get her dad dating before she went off to college, and reworked it. I started thinking more about who Violet was and what she really wanted.

 

I knew she was the kind of girl who could do anything, but more importantly, she wanted (and had to) be the best at it. So I gave her the biggest goal I could think of for a teen, to go to Harvard.

 

From there I came up with Bell Haven and the legal society. I love Legally Blonde and Suits, and legal dramas have this really fun kind of tension where people are fighting without ever throwing a punch. You have to be smart, fast, and strategic. I really wanted to bring that energy into a YA book.

Violet grew from there. She loves law, she loves intelligence, and she loves to win, maybe because she feels like she’s lost too much in her life already.

 

Theo was a really fun contrast to that. Violet has worked incredibly hard for everything she has, while Theo seems to move through life with this charm and ease that drives her absolutely wild. Of course, once she gets to know him, she realizes there’s much more underneath that surface.

 

Q: How would you describe the dynamic between them?

A: Very grumpy x sunshine! Violet is serious, ambitious, and structured, while Theo is charming, frustrating, and thrilled by how much she claims to hate him. He loves getting under her skin because, to him, even Violet yelling at him means she’s paying attention. She’ll be scolding him, and Theo’s basically standing there thinking, “Well, I’m just happy to be here.”

What I love about their dynamic is that neither of them is perfect. Theo can be self-centered, and Violet can be rigid, so getting closer forces them both to see past the versions of each other they created in their heads.

 

I think that’s why enemies-to-lovers is so great. There’s a sweetness to falling for a person after you’ve already seen their flaws and worst qualities and realizing you still want all of them.

 

Q: What do you think the novel says about privilege?

A: I think a lot of the book is about how differently people can experience the exact same world.

 

Violet is surrounded by students who have so much more than she does, financially and otherwise, and she has to work twice as hard to reach opportunities some of her classmates were essentially born into. That creates a lot of resentment in her, and I wanted that resentment to feel understandable without taking up her whole character.

I’d love for readers who have more privilege to come away from the book thinking a little more about the people around them and realizing how hard some people have to work to get even a fraction of what they already have.

 

And for readers who see themselves in Violet, I hope they give themselves a little grace too. Violet is so focused on building a better future and taking care of the people she loves that she sometimes forgets she deserves care and rest too.

Q: You’ve written for adults and young adults—do you have a preference?

A: I genuinely love both! If you forced me to choose one genre forever, it would probably be romance because I’m such a sucker for it. I love reading it, watching it, and I’m incapable of writing a book without making somebody fall in love.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: I’m bouncing between a few projects and right now I’m working on more romance, with all the things I love most which is of course banter, messy characters, people making questionable decisions, and love!

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Elba Luz. 

Q&A with Melissa R. Collings

  

 

 

Melissa R. Collings is the author of the new novel The Love Operation. Her other books include The False Flat. She is a former spine surgery physician associate, and she lives in Nashville. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write The Love Operation, and how did you create your character Dr. Cordelia Wren?

 

A: The book grew out of my fascination with memory, but also with how obsessed we are with the past. We replay old conversations, imagine the paths we did not take, and wonder whether we would make different choices if we could return to certain moments with everything we know now.

 

I began asking what would happen if the past were no longer murky and we could revisit our memories exactly as they occurred.

 

Once I decided to use my medical background as part of the story, Cordelia appeared almost fully formed. She was a brilliant, ambitious spine surgeon who trusted science more than sentiment and believed discipline and hard work could solve nearly any problem.

 

That made her exactly the right person to have her carefully controlled life disrupted by a technology that asks her to reconsider her past.

 

Q: Can you say more about how your medical background influenced the writing of the novel?

 

A: I worked as a physician associate in spine surgery, so the hospital setting and Cordelia’s career were shaped by a world I knew very well.

 

I wanted the medicine to feel authentic, but I was equally interested in the emotional culture of medicine—the ambition, sacrifice, hierarchy, and pressure to remain composed no matter what is happening internally.

 

That background also helped me write Cordelia as a complete person rather than simply “a woman doctor.” She is very good at what she does, and her career is not just a backdrop. It is part of her identity and one of the great loves of her life.

 

Q: What do you think the novel says about memory?

 

A: I think the novel suggests that memory is both powerful and unreliable. We build our identities around the stories we tell ourselves about the past, but those stories may be incomplete, distorted, or shaped by who we were when something happened.

 

Even if we could remember every detail perfectly, we would still be interpreting those moments through the person we are now. The facts of the past matter, but so does the meaning we choose to give them.

 

Q: Did you know how the novel would end before you started writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?

 

A: I knew a great deal about the book when I began, at least the general storyline and memory aspects, but I was not entirely sure how I wanted it to end, especially the romance aspect of the story. I love leaving room for my characters to surprise me and allowing myself to discover what happens—or what should happen—as I write.

 

My stories almost invariably evolve along the way. Characters reveal things I did not anticipate, relationships deepen, and new developments send the original plan straight out the window. For me, that discovery is one of the most exciting parts of writing.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I write romantic books as Melissa R. Collings and psychological thrillers as M. R. Collings, so I’m working on two projects at once.

 

I’m excited about a really fun romance idea that once again plays with memory, but in a completely different way. I’m hoping my publisher loves it as much as I do!

 

I’m also working on my next psychological thriller, a dark, medical tale that is scheduled to come out September 2027, following my first thriller release January 2027.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: Although The Love Operation is romantic and funny, I hope readers also find it thought-provoking. It explores ambition, friendship, identity, and the strange ways we allow the past to shape the lives we build.

 

At its heart, it asks what happens when the life you carefully planned collides with the life—and the person—you once left behind.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

Oct. 19

 

 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
Oct. 19, 1931: John le Carré born.

Q&A with Lauren Willig

  

Photo by Amanda Suanne Photography

 

 

Lauren Willig is the author of the new novel What Happens at Nightfall. Her many other books include The Girl from Greenwich Street. She lives in New York City. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write What Happens at Nightfall, and how did you create your characters Jess and Adam?

 

A: Some books happen as the result of long planning and considered thought. Other books ambush you out of nowhere. What Happens at Nightfall was one of the latter! 

 

I was working on an entirely different book, a very serious historical about the 1793 Nancy Randolph trial, when my editor emailed with an offer I couldn’t refuse: she’d got hold of the keys to her husband’s family’s mausolea at Green-Wood Cemetery. Did I want to come open them up with her? She’d bring coffee. 

 

How could I say no to coffee and a crypt? Let’s just say that exploring those mausolea was just as amazing as you would imagine—but the cemetery itself was more amazing still, with its quirky tombs, its gorgeous landscaping, and a Gothic dream house.  

 

When I asked my editor who lived in the Gothic mansion at the Fort Hamilton entrance, she replied, “The hot arborist!” And that was that. Suddenly, in my head, I could see that (imaginary) hot arborist, a widower with two kids. I knew that one of those kids was going to open up one of those tombs and accidentally unleash an ancient evil. 

 

And my heroine, recently unemployed, dragged on an evening tour of the cemetery by her best friend, was going to have to use powers she didn’t know she had to contain that evil—and fall in love. It was all right there in the space of a moment.  

 

As you can imagine, I never did finish writing that Nancy Randolph book! But I am so glad Jess and Adam popped into my head that day and dragged me into their adventure in Green-Wood Cemetery….

 

Q: As you noted, the novel is set in Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery--how did you research its history, and what did you learn that surprised you most?

 

A: I wore out so many pairs of shoes exploring the cemetery! I’m not joking about the shoes. Green-Wood is 478 acres and best explored on foot. You can spend days there, and I did, finding something new every time, taking notes on monuments, tracing the paths of my characters, and experiencing Green-Wood’s macabre and marvelous Nightfall festival. 

 

I read up on both Green-Wood in particular and American cemeteries generally (I recommend Jeffrey Richman’s Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery, Andrew Garn’s Brooklyn Arcadia, and Jessica Ferri’s Silent Cities, among others), but the real research gold mine was the blog of Green-Wood’s resident historian, Jeffrey Richman, which provided so many ideas, plot points, and details for this book. 

 

As for the most surprising thing….  Did you know that in the 1860s, Green-Wood was considered America’s second biggest tourist attraction, right after Niagara Falls? 

 

Q: The Publishers Weekly review of the book calls it a “beautifully crafted paranormal romance that doubles as love letter to the history and people of New York City.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: Every author thrills to the words “beautifully crafted,” but I have to confess, it was the “love letter to the history and people of New York City” that really made my day.  

 

I grew up in the city; some of my strongest childhood memories involve days spent at the Museum of the City of New York and taking part in Lower School plays where we sang about “uptown, downtown, all around the town,” and I got to be half of a yellow cab (the urban equivalent of being the hindquarters of a donkey?). 

 

When I sat down to write What Happens at Nightfall, I knew Green-Wood Cemetery was going to be the star of the show. What I hadn’t anticipated was how many other New York places and legends would work their way into the book, from installations of Gilded Age rooms at the Metropolitan Museum of Art to the stacks of the New York Society Library… 

 

I’ve been so thrilled to receive emails from readers this week telling me they’ve now visited the Society Library for the first time or made plans for a trip to Green-Wood because of What Happens at Nightfall!

 

Q: How would you describe the dynamic between Jess and Adam?

 

A: As you know, I am a longtime romance reader (I even taught a class on the romance novel as literature at Yale back when). One thing I’ve noticed in some of the books I’ve been reading is a return to the breathless heroines and overbearing alpha heroes of my youth. I did not want to write that kind of dynamic. 

 

With Jess and Adam, I deliberately flipped the trope. Jess is the type A MBA finance person with a wardrobe full of black pants. Adam is a go with the flow guy who performed in musical theatre in college, talks to plants, and has an extensive collection of very faded t-shirts. 

 

Jess bottles up her emotions. Adam? He tries his best to keep tabs on the feelings of everyone around him. Mostly. Adam’s warmth lets Jess relax and open up, and Jess’s focus keeps Adam on track, helping them both be the people they need to be. And isn’t the point of any relationship?

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I wish I could tell you, but I am currently sworn to secrecy! All I’ll say is that there is a finished manuscript and hopefully I’ll be able to share more about it soon. Right now I’m working on the sequel to the Book I’m Not Allowed to Tell You About Yet.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: This book is a love letter to New York—but it’s also my love letter to autumn, to falling leaves and waning light, to ghost stories and the glow of a lamp against the early dusk, and to the peculiar camaraderie that comes of facing the darkness together and surviving.

 

It’s a story of second chances, which I think is a profoundly autumn sort of theme, found family, and finding light in darkness. So grab your apple cider or your pumpkin spice, curl up with a soft blanket, and come on this autumn adventure with me!

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Lauren Willig. 

Q&A with RaeAnne Thayne

  

 

 

RaeAnne Thayne is the author of the new novel Cozy Little Christmas. Her many other books include Snow Kissed. She lives in Utah.

 

Q: Why did you decide to highlight your character Hannah in your new novel?

 

A: I loved Hannah from the moment I first introduced her in the first book of Shelter Springs, Christmas at the Shelter Inn. She was funny, kind, sassy. I didn't know her whole story, but I knew she was someone I would love.

 

Throughout the other books in the series, The December Market and Snow Kissed (which can all be read as standalones), Hannah continued to intrigue me. I was so happy to be able to give her the happy ending she deserves!

Q: How would you describe the dynamic between Hannah and Wes?

 

A: They are two people who truly belong together, it simply took them several years to find their way back to each other.

 

I loved the idea that they both knew they were perfect for each other but had been split by circumstances beyond their control years ago. Neither of them ever really got over that heartbreak. Giving them a second chance was so rewarding.

 

Q: Your character Morgan’s illness plays a large role in the novel--why did you decide to make that a focus?

 

A: I wanted children to play a big part in this book, as they seem to make the holiday season so much more joy-filled.

 

I originally wrote several chapters where [Morgan’s] children ended up in foster care, but then decided that wasn't working for the storyline. I wanted their mother to still be in their lives, just needing temporary help with them.

 

I have known people who had to go down and stay at the Huntsman Cancer Institute, where Morgan goes for treatment, and that seemed the perfect fit for what I wanted to do.

 

Q: Did you need to do any research to write the book, and if so, did you learn anything that especially surprised you?

 

A: I did a great deal of research on different rare cancers when I was trying to find what Morgan might be dealing with. I wanted her to be struggling with something potentially life-threatening but with treatment options that had a high success rate.

 

It was fascinating to learn more about individualized oncology treatment plans and all the amazing researchers and medical professionals fighting so hard to help people survive this terrible disease.

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I’m currently working on my 2027 Christmas book, which is my version of Planes, Trains and Automobiles. It’s been so fun throwing all kinds of travel difficulties at my characters when all they want is to find their way back home for the holidays.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: Only that I am deeply grateful to my amazing readers. This year marks the 30th anniversary of my first book hitting shelves and I still sometimes have to pinch myself when I realize this is actually my life—that I get to write stories that make people happy and bring them a little respite from the stress of the world.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with RaeAnne Thayne. 

Q&A with Sheila Roberts

  

Photo by Robert Rabe

 

 

Sheila Roberts is the author of the new novel Have Yourself a Merry Little Meltdown. Her many other books include A Little Christmas Spirit. She lives in the Pacific Northwest. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write Have Yourself a Merry Little Meltdown, and how did you create your characters Jordan and Charles?

 

A: Good question! Every book I write starts with an idea, a concept. Then I create the characters to fit it.

 

For example, when I wrote A Little Christmas Spirit, I wanted to pay homage to Dickens and his amazing story A Christmas Carol. But I thought, what if, instead of my Scrooge getting haunted by three ghosts, only one comes to him. And what if he’s a widower and that ghost is his wife, who’s determined he’s going to find his Christmas spirit?

 

For this to happen my modern-day Scrooge had to be grumpy, and he had to have given up on life. And his wife had to be sweet, the one who always made the holidays happen. (Like so many of us women do!) Once I had the basic version of who those people should be then I was able to flesh out the characters.

 

For Jordan and Charles, their story started with “What if?” What if a woman wrote a Christmas book based on her over the top family and too late realized it was a mistake? Enter Jordan, who has always been a reader and filled countless journals, a woman who always had a bit of a dream to be a writer.

 

As for Charles, I knew Jordan needed a love interest who understood her, so I gave them a history. As friends. And who better to understand a writer’s dilemma than a bookstore owner, right? So I gave Charles a bookstore.

 

Slowly, as the story went along these two got fleshed out, and so did her family. And that family had to be over the top and easily recognizable in a book. And I had great fun coming up with crazy family memories to bring those characters to life.

 

Q: How would you describe Jordan’s relationship with her family?

 

A: Loving and close. Which of course, makes her feel like such a traitor for putting all their embarrassing moments out there for the world (and worst of all, the whole town) to read.

 

Q: What are some of your own traditions for the holiday season?

 

A: Like Jordan, I have a very close family. And Christmas Eve is a big deal for us. There is always tons of food, laughter, games. Someone reads the Christmas story from the Bible. And there is carol singing. We go through all the classics. Sometimes, just like in the book, there’s even a game of dark tag.

 

Another favorite tradition involves getting together to bake Christmas cookies. Which, of course, we must sample. Calories don’t count when you’re with family.

 

Q: How would you compare the bookstore in this novel to the one in Love on the Shelf?

 

A: Charles’s bookstore is certainly just as friendly, but it doesn’t carry exclusively romance novels. It certainly has enough to keep a guy inspired though. And the store carries all the popular holiday novels. (Except maybe not Jordan’s. She hopes!)

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: Right now I’m preparing to launch a historical novel I wrote with my husband come spring. Castles, a crazy king and a mysterious death – how does that sound? ☺

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I will be serving up a lot of fun on my Facebook, Instagram and TikTok channels and I hope readers who can’t join me in my appearances in Washington State will join me on one of those platforms. It’s going to be a fun holiday season!

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Sheila Roberts. 

Q&A with Nikki Nash

  

 

Nikki Nash is the author of the new memoir Collateral Stardust: Chasing Warren Beatty and Other Foolish Things. She also has written the book 72 Raisins. She worked as an associate director on a variety of TV shows, including 12 years with Conan O'Brien.  

 

Q: Why did you decide to write this memoir?

 

A: The surface answer would be that, over the years, I’ve told people some of these stories, for example: when I was 16, I wore a nun’s habit to buy alcohol so I wouldn’t get carded. This always got a laugh.

 

After I recounted many other nutty stories, people eventually said, “You should write a book,” and I thought I would one day. However, I knew I didn’t want to write a “look at me” book, or a book about all the fun people I dated, or all the adventures I’ve had, or how fabulous I am. That is selfish writing and ultimately boring. And not true.

 

I did, however, know that the stories were funny, but for something to be funny, I knew I’d need to investigate and understand the pain underneath the humor. It took me 10 years to ponder tone and POV, and when hearing loss and COVID ended my job in television, I knew I needed something fun I could do at home, in silence, that required solving problems.

 

On a deeper level—though I didn't realize it then—I must’ve felt it was time to strip away the laminated persona I’d unconsciously presented to myself and others over the years. Investigate the secrets. Not secrets like who I slept with, but secret shame over imperfections, foibles, foolishness, my desire for fame, my self-doubt about being at all lovable.

 

At first, it may seem like a book about chasing a childhood idol, but beneath that are questions: Why was it necessary to search for a larger-than-life love, how could I understand and embrace—rather than reject—pain, and ultimately, how did I learn to be human?

 

Q: How was the book’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?

 

A: The title didn’t come first in a flash of inspiration. Instead, I like to put themes and ideas and concepts into the percolator and leave it alone.

 

The book explored the ideas of fame, longing, and deferred satisfaction, and I found myself in situations where I was adjunct to a famous person (celebrity adjacent in the current parlance) but still got a buzz. I thought about the lure of stardust—the kind of stardust Warren [Beatty] had (in my mind) and how and when I needed a dose of that stardust.

 

After writing most of the book, the title came to me in what felt like a flash, forgetting that I'd been throwing things into the percolator and the title wouldn’t materialize until the book had.

 

Stardust is ephemeral, so I needed constant dosing to get the chemical boost, in conjunction for a time with drugs and alcohol, until I’d matured enough to see the truth: that collateral stardust is really just a puff of distracting sparkle, and it’s gone.

 

Q: How would you describe your relationship with Warren Beatty?

 

A: The young Nikki would see it as a slow-building relationship that included engagement, consistency, and contact. That it was something that mattered, or would matter.

 

But as I both got older, I saw more clearly (as the stardust lost its potency) that I’d created most of the relationship. I’d initiated most of the calls. Granted, Warren answered, and I’m grateful for that, as I needed that contact to pull me through life, but the relationship was more of an overlay that I’d created and maintained by calling him.

 

Warren was incredibly kind, and bluntly honest when I needed it, but I have a feeling that if I hadn’t kept making contact, he would’ve forgotten about me, but I was determined to have more, and he just sort of went along with it. He was a barometer of sorts—as I looked back at our times together—of my growth.

 

When I finished the first draft of the book, I realized that by owning all my own demons and pain and fabrications, I no longer needed him to distract me from the truth of myself.

 

Q: What impact did it have on you to write this book, and what do you hope readers take away from it?

 

A: I think the takeaway for me was the amazing paradox that showing all my foibles and flaws and fears (that’s a lot of alliteration) led to greater openness and connection with others. The things I feared being seen were the things that made me human and eventually more open to others.

 

Once it’s all out there, there is nothing to “protect” (constant self-protecting takes a lot of energy) and I am now simply myself. I can talk to strangers more easily. I have nothing to prove. And I am curious about others.

 

Being free would have been enough of a takeaway. However, having people tell me how the book opened them up, or comforted them, is amazing.

 

People have reached out to tell me about their feelings of longing, or their fears, or the lure of fame, and I love connecting with people on this deeper level. It makes me so happy.

 

Anyone can do whatever they want, but there is such freedom in being oneself. I have compassion for myself, for what I did to survive, and now I have a greater capacity to love others. It’s hard to love others while defending oneself.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: My first book, 72 Raisins, was fiction, but it was based on a head writer on a version of Conan O’Brien’s show. I knew that world, and kept to a singular point of view (for the most part).

 

Collateral Stardust, on the other hand, is nonfiction (duh) with a singular and subjective point of view.

 

I wanted a different challenge. My new book is a mystery/thriller with multiple points of view, and an intricate story. It’s been fun and freeing to have tertiary characters claim more space and become primary characters. It is strange to collaborate with fictional characters.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I will close with my favorite Colette quote, which is the book's epigraph. “You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm.”

 

Another thing just came to mind from a book I read 40 years ago. (I think it was called The Seat of the Soul, back when I was reading more spiritual stuff.) The soul doesn’t want consistency; it wants to be heard.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb