Interview With Author Lia Adams
Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I'm an English teacher from Chesterfield, Virginia. I began trying to write when I was about 12 years old, tried again in high school, writing stories in notebooks instead of paying attention in geometry or chemistry. I guess it was a way to entertain myself when I didn't have a book in my hand, which was the rest of the time.
It's very difficult to talk about myself because I have no desire to be famous, and I'm not even very interesting, but I would still like to share my books because even though they are romance, they are not like the hundreds of books my sister and I have read over the years, where most of them we forgot immediately because they all were so alike, or remembered because they were so awful.
So far, I have written eight books. Some are under a different name because the genre is different.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
The Great Scandal of 1879: Banished to Torquay is my latest published work. It was inspired by Julian Browne, Lord Seaforth's appearance in the Great Wooing. He was so enigmatic and mysterious, a gorgeous recluse I couldn't understand. I wondered who would end up marrying a man like that, or who he would fall for. Did he inherit any of his mother's eccentricities?
His story ended up being much more dramatic than I expected, and the second storyline was a completely shocking bombshell no one could have imagined.
I don't know anyone like these characters. The only one who is based on a real person is Lady Seaforth, who is my mother. The rest just came in dreams or fully fabricated, so I guess they inspired me to write about them.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
Yes. As alluded to above, I don't write outlines. I write what would be akin to people speaking in the dark to one another, because that is how they appear in my mind. I write the entire book this way, getting their words transcribed as quickly as possible. Then, I have to go back to the beginning and sort of paint the scenes. Add the people around them walking on the street, the noises and smells of the city. The third time, I go back through to edit, which I always seem to miss something and have a fit when I see it after it's been published. This step is the one I hate only second to making the cover and writing the back cover synopsis.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
I read my first romance when I was 32. My friend and I were dumpster diving and we found a bunch of books with the front covers ripped off. I just grabbed them because all books are precious to me, and then began reading them, not even knowing what I was going to read about. One happened to be a modern romance, but that author wrote historical romance, too.
I found through her a world of books I never knew existed, because I had previously read a lot of classical fiction and thought romance books nowadays were ridiculously soppy. Some are! As it happened, my sister had been reading these books for years, and so we began trading them and discussing the authors and plots.
After some years, I got bored because I could see a very glaring plot device used in almost all of the books, which usually included a stupid misunderstanding or deception which no one seemed to be able to handle rationally.
I told my sister I'd just start writing my own, and I did, though it's taken very many years for me to even have the confidence to publish them. They are not like the usual historical romances. The people are imperfect, sometimes the books are written from the point of view of the man instead of the woman, and they are not at all a fluffy dream world of castles and dukes. The only duke mentioned in my books is gay, though he is a diehard romantic.
What are you working on now?
The book I'm in the process of finishing is the third book in The Great series, about Detective Aindreas Caimbeul. I have no idea what inspired it, because I never write outlines and don't even know what's going to happen until it does, but I'm very happy with the outcome so far. Past characters like Lady Seaforth, Beaufort, His Grace Lord Lothian and Daniel appear, and of course, the heroine Miss Agnes Rennell.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I worked in marketing for 12 years, however that does not make it any easier to market myself, because that requires a level of self-confidence I just don't have. I am extremely quiet and even cold when meeting new people, and I abhor getting stuck listening to someone drone on about how wonderful they are. Therefore, writing a bio or promoting my book as the greatest thing ever just isn't going to happen. This is the first and only place I have promoted my books, and it has taken many cups of coffee and supportive snuggles from my cats.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Please give us something bizarre and unexpected, but don't be weird just to be contrary. It needs to mean something. I've read a lot of new books which feel contrived and almost overwhelming in their absurdity, and did not finish them.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
I have not been given any advice whatsoever because most people I know don't know that I write or do know and have never read anything I've written. I don't know any writers, either. It's just me and the cats and the fish. My husband is still learning English, so he can't even understand what I'm writing about, but he does bring me coffee.
What are you reading now?
I'm reading the Enlightenment series by Joanna Chambers for at least the fifth time.
What’s next for you as a writer?
I'm going to write four books total in The Great series, but might add more, like Lord Henry and Meredith, or Mary-Elizabeth and… who knows!
After this, I have a 2-book series planned about an eccentric, childish lord and how he tries to grow up in time to help his family after bankrupting and humiliating them, and his much more intelligent though un-lordly best friend.
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
1. A Courtesan's Scandal by Julia London
2. Mary Queen of Scots by Antonia Fraser
3. The Little Zen Companion by David Schiller
4. Portuguese Irregular Verbs by Alexander McCall Smith