Honey Badger Book Club Author Q&A with Rachel Lacey
Rachel Lacey https://www.rachellacey.com/
“Rachel Lacey is a contemporary romance author and semi-reformed travel junkie. She’s been climbed by a monkey on a mountain in Japan, gone scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef, and camped out overnight in New York City for a chance to be an extra in a movie. These days, the majority of her adventures take place on the pages of the books she writes. She lives in warm and sunny North Carolina with her family and a variety of rescue pets.
Rachel is represented by Sarah Younger at Nancy Yost Literary Agency.”
Don’t Cry for Me
Midnight in Manhattan Book 1
Was Honey Badger Book Club’s first book club pick and we couldn’t have started with a better novel.
A frosty television host, a bubbly bar owner, and a litter of abandoned kittens. The recipe for ratings gold…or heartbreak?
Eve Marlow has her eyes on the prize: a third season of her popular business makeover show, Do Over. But when her ratings take an unexpected dive, Eve needs a blockbuster new client, or she can kiss season three goodbye. She has her work cut out for her, and that’s before she discovers a litter of newborn kittens in a trash can. Now she’s desperate to find someone to take them so she can concentrate on reviving her career.
Josie Swanson had to put her kitten rescue on the back burner when she inherited her father’s bar two years ago. Since then, she’s invested all her time and energy into keeping it afloat, but despite her best efforts, Swanson’s is going under. When she gets a phone call from Eve Marlow, host of the television show Josie applied to earlier that year, the woman she’s convinced can save her bar, Josie hopes her luck has finally turned.
Eve knows what she needs to succeed, and it isn’t Josie—or her bar. There’s no denying the chemistry sizzling between them, though. Josie’s personality is as vibrant as her turquoise-tipped hair. She stirs things in Eve that haven’t been stirred in a long time, but there’s a reason she keeps her heart under lock and key. Eve stands to lose a lot more than her TV show if she lets her guard down, no matter how tempted she is to see if Josie’s love would be worth the risk.
You can find more here like https://www.rachellacey.com/dont-cry-for-me.html
~~BONUS MATERIAL!~~
OTHER BOOKS IN THIS SERIES:
Don't Cry for Me
It's in Her Kiss
Come Away with Me
Author Q&A with Rachel Lacey on September 1st, 2021
On SACrowAuthor’s Discord server,
Disclaimer in this Q&A, there are questions and comments from members of the Book Club who were present for the recording. A letter and not their name will identify them.
SHIRLEY - Thank you so much, Rachel, for being here.
SHIRLEY - We’ve been so excited about this.
RACHEL - Thank you so much for inviting me.
SHIRLEY - I saw your post, Rachel, on Twitter today. Someone sent you fan art?
RACHEL - No, that’s not for my book.
That’s fanart for the Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo.
SHIRLEY - Ohhh…
RACHEL - Yeah, I just thought it was really gorgeous. So, I shared it.
SHIRLEY - I was just like, “Oh, my goodness! Someone sent you fan art!”
RACHEL - I know. That would be, like, a huge honor.
SHIRLEY - You never know.
RACHEL - Some day. Author Goals.
SHIRLEY - Yeah, the first author I ever saw that received fan art, and people getting tattoos, based off of her work was Jacqueline Carey. Her Kushiel Series? She has this whole section where people have sent her pictures of their tattoos or people who send her art. And, there’s a whole group of people that do Live Action Role-Play based off of her books.
RACHEL - That is kinda cool.
SHIRLEY - THAT is Author Goals.
RACHEL - That is such Author Goals! I would love fan art on my fics too. That would be super cool! Any fan art is super awesome!
SHIRLEY - So, I first wanted to say, again, thank you for being here. We loved your book. Everybody just enjoyed it. RACHEL - Thank you!
SHIRLEY - It was a great book to do our first Book Club meeting on.
RACHEL - I didn’t know that was your first!
SHIRLEY - Oh! Yup! You were our first book.
RACHEL - Thank you!
SHIRLEY - And, you sent us some questions. That made it SO fun!
RACHEL - That was fun. It was the first time I sent some questions too.
SHIRLEY - My first question this evening is how long have you been an author / a writer?
RACHEL - There’s two ways I can answer that. I have been writing since I was a teenager. It was always something I did for fun as a hobby. I never really thought of being a published author at that time as a career that I could realistically aspire to. But, I always wrote for fun. Just for myself on my computer.
After my son was born, when I was home with him, I started thinking, “Well, if I ever was gonna try. You know. This is the time.” I got serious about becoming a published author in about 2010 / 2011. Published my first book in 2014.
SHIRLEY - Oh, wow!
RACHEL - That sounds like a long time ago, now.
SHIRLEY - Does anyone have any questions from a, published author’s point-of-view? What that journey was like? We’ll start with B.
B - I just wonder about the length of time. Because I know I’ve been crazy about the fact that I’ve been trying to write a book for a couple of years now. So, why was there such the length between when you started and when you first published? What was going on in there?
RACHEL - I started out… I wanted to go the traditional route the first time. That was me joining a professional organization. Taking classes. Setting up a critique partner. Querying agents. Getting an agent. And then, having my agent submit my manuscript to publishers. That whole process took a couple of years. I got my agent in 2013 and my first book came out in 2014.
SHIRLEY - H?
H - Did you start off writing M/F and then transfer over to Sapphic Romance?
RACHEL - Yeah, I did.
H - Was that scary?
RACHEL - That was very scary. If I think I had known, when I made the switch, of how scary it would be - not that it would have changed my mind, but maybe I’m glad. There was a very lonely year in the middle there when I don’t think how completely separate the two readerships are. So, there was a big year / year and a half where I had pretty much lost all of my former readers. And, I had not picked up a new readership yet. I just felt like I was kind of lost, in between the two worlds. Now, I have found my footing in Sapphic romance and the Lesbian Community. It took a little time to find my way all the way in.
SHIRLEY - Do you have any tips or pointers for authors changing genres like that?
RACHEL - I think, in retrospect - and I’m actually going to go back and do this for myself… Retrospectively, I think I would have chosen a different name to publish my Female / Female books. Just because the readerships don’t have much crossover. Especially, for Indie, I think it is maybe less important if you’re published with a mainstream, traditional publisher. But, for Indie, where I am running ads on my own, the Amazon algorithms are very confused. Any time I try to target an ad for one of my Male / Female books, if I go in and check what their algorithm is targeting, they are pulling in all these Sapphic Romances. And, I’m, like, those are so for the wrong books. You know, those are not the readers that are going to buy my Male / Female books. I think I confused the algorithm, and the readers really didn’t follow me over. So, I think, I would recommend perhaps using separate names. I’m going to suggest back to one of my traditional theories from the publisher, I think I’m going to re-publish it and just brand it a little differently to separate them. I feel it would make it clearer for readers in what they’re getting. Also, for the Amazon algorithm to correctly show my book to the right readers.
SHIRLEY - So, you’ll have two different author brands.
RACHEL - Yes, and I’m going to call those books “R.S. Lacey.” So, you can still tell it's me. But, for the Amazon Author Page, they’ll be just separated enough for people to tell which are which.
SHIRLEY - Okay. So, what made you write Don’t Cry For Me and this Series?
RACHEL - Some of it was just… Actually, my son watches a YouTuber who rescues all the tiny, bottle-fed kittens. And, I was watching him watching these videos, and she’s so passionate about it that it is the only thing she does is rescue tiniest, little, orphan, bottle-fed kittens. I started thinking about writing a romance where one of the heroines was a YouTuber who saved little kittens. And, I’m kind of a sucker for Celebrity Romance. I know that Don’t Cry For Me is not a true Celebrity Romance, but it is a little bit of the element with Eve’s television show. So, I just wanted to do a good old-fashioned, opposites attract with a kind of frosty character and a bubbly character and rescue kittens. And, I wanted to set around the bar to kind of give me a setting for the rest of the Series. That was, kind of, what inspired that one.
SHIRLEY - One of the things that I really enjoyed about your book was how you slowly revealed Eve’s backstory. You didn’t do it very quickly. It was just little tidbits here and there that kept you so interested that you were just like, “I have to know what all happened.”
How did you come up with doing that?
RACHEL - I think that’s what I enjoy, as a reader, is kind of a more slow reveal. This is going to sound terrible. I’m really just a sucker for sometimes the more tragic characters. I just love helping them overcome, you know, whatever their emotional backstory is to find love. I just really, really love Eve, and I love kind of leading up to her backstory.
SHIRLEY - So, I was going to let everyone else tell you what they loved most about this book.
RACHEL - Okay!
SHIRLEY - So, B?
B - I am so changing my name after this. I loved everything.
RACHEL - Oh, thank you!
B - It wasn’t my first read like that, but it definitely was one that I felt more connected with than with others that I’ve read. It really drew me in from the beginning. I can’t wait to see more of what you have.
RACHEL - Thank you so much!
SHIRLEY - H?
H - It is definitely… I kind of always like that grumpy / sunshine kind of dynamic.
RACHEL - Yes, me too!
H - But, definitely with that Sapphic Romance flavor of the ice queen and the bubbly that is just perfect.
RACHEL - Thank you! I really appreciate that!
SHIRLEY - D?
D - I loved the whole thing. For me, it was a nice, comfortable Contemporary Romance that I could just sink myself into. I liked that it was… Attraction was there, but it wasn’t the dreaded “insta-love” that people are talking about so often these days. I loved that you incorporated… For me, it brought to mind “Bar Rescue,” because I watched that show. I don’t know if you know.
RACHEL - Yes. I actually hadn’t heard of that one until after I sold the book and someone else compared it to “Bar Rescue.” I was like, “Oh.” I was actually thinking more along the lines of…
D - “Nightmare Kitchen?”
RACHEL - Yes! Yes. That’s the one. Exactly that.
D - But, I love how you brought all of these different elements together that are completely separate. You know. We’ve got kittens. We’ve got “Bar Rescue.” We’ve got LGBT.
RACHEL - Yup.
D - That’s just kind of there. It’s not, “Here’s the big… Let’s make a big taboo that they’re LGBT.” It’s just part of who they are. And, I just love how you brought the whole thing together.
RACHEL - Well, thank you. Thank you. So glad.
SHIRLEY - One thing we did talk about, interestingly enough, during the Book Club meeting was how everyone… A lot of the readers felt that if Eve would’ve been a man, they would’ve felt completely differently about her - that character.
RACHEL - Interesting. How thorough.
SHIRLEY - And, that, the fact that Eve was female, they were okay with it - that character. But if it was a male, they’d be like, “Yeah, no.”
RACHEL - That’s so interesting. What? Just like, kind of, her frostiness? Or what?
SHIRLEY - It seems to be the standoffishness and the…
RACHEL - Yes. And how closed off she was to romance and anything really.
SHIRLEY - Yeah. I will go ahead and let them tell you how they felt about that.
RACHEL - Oh, okay.
SHIRLEY - So, we will start the ball rolling at the bottom. D?
D - For me, it did very much feel that way. A frosty ice king bossy, “I’m going to come in here and do a - and now I’m blanking on his name. ‘Kitchen Nightmares.’ It’s the chef. I’m just going to do all that.” That’s not attractive to me. So, it would not have been an attractive romance story for her to fall in love with this dude who just came in and wrecked her family’s legacy and turned it into something else. That would not have worked.
RACHEL - Yup.
SHIRLEY - H?
H - Yeah, if Eve had been, basically, the exact same character but a guy. I would… No. Eww. Nope. That would not have worked. I loved her so much, but I would not have been able to do it if it was a guy. The power dynamic would have been too different.
RACHEL - Right. Right. Yeah, I loved an ice queen in a Lesbian Romance, but I am not so much for the Alpha dude. Yeah.
SHIRLEY - B?
B - I can’t see a guy, first of all, picking the kittens up out of the trash. I mean, I’m not saying there’s not guys out there who wouldn’t. But, for her to have that closed off “I don’t want to care about anything, but I’m going to take these kittens and help them.” I can’t see that working for a man in any form. So, yeah, if she had been a guy, I don’t think I would have enjoyed it at all.
SHIRLEY - So, how do you feel about how understanding where they came from? On why the sex was important on Eve?
RACHEL - About how her character wouldn’t have worked as a man? Yeah, I think that is so interesting. Yeah, I think I love an Alpha woman in a book, but maybe not an Alpha man. Maybe, just because, it’s something we don’t see as much of in the Heterosexual Romance. In a Male / Female. Physically, you know, the big, strong man, kind of, being a jerk. Bossing everyone around. I love seeing the different thing, and… Yes.
SHIRLEY - How did you come up with the drink ideas?
RACHEL - Well, that, I actually asked my readers to help name some drinks for me. I do that a lot with pets in my book. I’ll ask my readers to inspire, and, in fact, one of my friends did inspire the theater kittens as well. Yeah, I put a post on my FaceBook asking people to suggest drink names and, I said, bonus, if I can use it as the bar name or the Series name. And they came up with all those names for me. But, I thought Midnight in Manhattan worked so well. I think I was, kind of, leaning towards that as the Series’ name anyway. And then, when someone suggested that as a drink name, I’m like, “Yes.” And, it can be a drink and it can be the Series’ name and I then I, kind of… I can’t remember exactly right now the idea, but the idea for the little rumor that if you drink one at midnight, you’ll fall in love. I just felt that was a fun, little extra thing to throw in there.
SHIRLEY - I will let everyone tell you what their favorite drink you described was.
RACHEL - Okay, cool!
SHIRLEY - B?... Do you need me to say the drink?
B - Yeah, I was drawing a blank all of a sudden.
SHIRLEY - The Midnight in Manhattan was the combination lemon, mint, and rum. The Whiskey Kiss was the whiskey one. And, the Dragonfly was the sweet drink with pomegranate juice.
B - Yeah, mine was the Whiskey Kiss.
H - And, I know mine was the Dragonfly.
D - And, I complete the set with the Midnight in Manhattan.
RACHEL - Cool. I think that would’ve been mine too. I do love a mojito, and I think the lemon sounds yummy.
SHIRLEY - If I could drink, I would’ve picked the Dragonfly because I love pomegranate. I did remember discussing with someone about this book that they felt there was a small - I don’t want to say “plot hole,” but just one tiny, little thing that they were hung up on?
RACHEL - Yeah?
SHIRLEY - They felt that, the way that Eve was like, “We can’t get together because of how the…” I’m sorry. Let me get that right. That the studio kept saying, “We want drama. We want drama.” Or, that she was afraid of getting caught with Josie. And, none of those really, sort of… They kind of petered away? They didn’t have a consequence, is what the person was like. That was the only thing that hung up on them. That there was no consequence for no drama on the show. Or, even, Josie dating.
RACHEL - Right. Well, they did wait until after the contract was up to date. And, I don’t think they ever really let the studio know about it until after the episode aired. That was what their plan was, to, kind of, keep it under wraps. The drama was to ramp up ratings. So, maybe it’s unrealistic that we’ve got her a new Season even without that extra drama. I wanted to have that new moment of growth for her at the end, even after they had broken up, that she didn’t take the robbery and rub it in Josie’s face to make her look unprofessional. There at the end.
SHIRLEY - It looks like D has a comment. Do you want to say something? Or have a question?
D - That was a very good move on the character’s part - not taking advantage of the robbery that happened, and using that to drum up a rating for their show. So, I like that.
RACHEL - Yeah, I wanted that to have a moment of growth for Eve. Even though they were broken up, she still picked Josie over ratings for that.
SHIRLEY - What do you have coming out soon? What is the next thing for you?
RACHEL - The next thing for me is Read Between the Lines which is a Sapphic “You’ve Got Mail.” Between a Manhattan bookstore owner who is very romance obsessed and her favorite author. They have a, kind of, flirty, online friendship between her, the bookstore owner, and the author. And, she doesn’t know that her favorite author, in her day job, works for the property development company who has just terminated the bookstore’s lease. So, when they find out who they are in real life, they are real life enemies and online friends. I’m really excited about that when it comes out on December 1st.
SHIRLEY - H just asked if it was December yet?
RACHEL - I know. This is my first traditional book in a while. Everything just comes out so much more in advance. I feel like I’ve been talking about this book forever. When I’m Indie, almost as soon as I have them done, I just release them. Now, I’m just so ready to put this one out there already. But, I’ve got three more months!
SHIRLEY - So, I’m going to go ahead and go through and see if anybody has any questions they would like to ask you. I’m going to start with Hannah this time.
H - Now, I forgot what I was going to say. I hope it wasn’t very important… Is this your first one with Montlake?
RACHEL - My first book with Montlake, yes.
H - But, your agent did rate it? I’m always confused with how Montlake works. Because, it’s a little bit different. Isn’t it? Then the usual one?
RACHEL - The submission process is the same. I’m not sure if they only explicitly take agent submissions. But, I think they might.
H - I think so.
RACHEL - Yeah.
H - I just think that it’s like they’re pulling authors out and that sort of thing. Instead of they’re just, sort of, sitting back like Avon does or something.
RACHEL - I think the submission process is mostly the same. They might, occasionally, go after authors if you’re really, really important. But, not me. Yeah, what I like about Montlake over a traditional publisher is, especially now that I’m Indie, I just, personally, didn’t sell well in print. I like that they’re more digital focused and my books will be on Kindle Unlimited through them. Which, I have as my Indie, and I have found a lot of readership there. It just pairs really nicely with what I was doing with my Indie.
H - Wow! That’s awesome. Oh! And, congratulations for all these things that Don’t Cry For Me has been winning.
RACHEL - Oh, thank you! That was really, really exciting this year.
H - It’s just exciting to see that they’re having a Sapphic Romance out on these awards where usually you just don’t see them.
RACHEL - Yeah. Yeah. There’s like this whole other world of… There’s Indie and then there are some exclusively LGBT and then Sapphic Romance publishers. And then, I feel like the Mainstream Romance community doesn’t know about those as much. Just because the traditional publishers have not been publishing as many books that are Female / Female. There’s always been a bigger readership for Male / Male, at least in the traditional.
H - Oh, yeah. Definitely.
RACHEL - Yeah. But, it’s nice that we’re starting to see some, even small, New York houses. So, they’ll all put out at least one now.
H - Yeah, I feel like I’ve gotten quite an embarrassment of riches lately, and I’m like, “Keep it coming!”
RACHEL - They’re getting there! They’re getting there! But, in the meantime, there’s still all these other great books that the smaller LGBT presses are putting out in the Indie world.
SHIRLEY - Rachel? I mean “D.”
RACHEL - Yes.
SHIRLEY - Sorry.
RACHEL - It’s okay.
D - We have a name in common. It’s okay... As somebody who has been in both the traditional and the Indie, what are your thoughts?
RACHEL - I think it depends on what you’re looking for. If you want to see your book on shelves - like if you want to walk into Target or Barnes and Nobles or whatever, and see your book there. That’s part of your dream? You’d really have to go traditional to get that. Traditional can be wonderful, but they don’t have enough marketing resources to push all the authors. So, they, kind of - for the new authors, usually they throw you out there and see if you sink or swim. Whoever happens to float, then they may end up getting the big push. So, it can be wonderful. It can also be really disappointing if you’re not one of those authors who sells well in print.
Indie? It can be really hard to get your name out there. Because, there are just so many authors out there publishing now, which is wonderful, there's so many options. But, it’s harder to get your foot in the door. In either place, I guess, because there’s just so many, so many wonderful books out there. However, the wonder about Indie is having all the control to make all the decisions yourself. I have really gotten pretty spoiled with that in the last few years. I love to be able to log in to my dashboard and see all my sales right to the minute, know how I’m doing, and I can write the books I want to write. I can publish them the way I want to publish them. I have control over what the covers look like. So, I do love that. But, there are certain spaces that you just can’t reach with Indie. You need a publisher to get you there.
SHIRLEY - I’m curious. Because, I always love asking this question to most people that are writers. Are you a plotter, a pantser, or a plantser?
RACHEL - Mostly, a plotter. Although, I’m not one of these people that outline down to each chapter and each scene. I definitely know all the big plot points going in. I know the goals and motivations and what hurdles I’m going to throw in their way along the way. I do an outline, which is a bunch of bullet points, of ideas that I have and things that I know that I want to happen. But, I don’t always know the order or, exactly, how it’s going to happen. Sometimes, I go in not knowing how the black moment’s going to happen. And, sometimes I change my mind.
And, Brandy says, “Do you ever feel like your characters cut off in a direction that you didn’t expect?” Yes, sometimes they do. In fact, the book that I am writing right now, I had started writing. About two chapters in, I was like, “This is just not working.” The idea I had plotted, I’m boring myself writing it. I know it’s not quite right. So, I just rather stop and go back to the drawing board. I didn’t rewrite the whole book. I just changed the set-up a little bit to be more interesting.
SHIRLEY - That’s fun. I’ve never experienced characters taking off on their own direction.
RACHEL - I’m also not one of these authors. I know that some people where it was a really in-depth character checklist. Where they know their character’s favorite song and their favorite color and what kind of student they were in elementary school. All those kinds of details. I don’t really know those kind of things before I start writing. I may have a few ideas about that stuff, but a lot of it comes to me as I start writing. I feel like the first few chapters are me getting to know them. As they come alive on the page, I start to figure out all those little quirks about them. And then, I go back and work that stuff back into the first chapters during edit. Once, I know who they are. Obviously, that’s easier if it’s a later book in a Series and I’ve written that character before. Then, I know a little bit more about them than where I’m just kinda going is blank.
SHIRLEY - Alright, I’m going to leave it open for anybody else who has a question about plotting, writing, publishing, about the book… Dak’s good. I knew Dak would be. She’s not a big question person.
Oh, okay. Thank you again so much for coming and I hope you enjoyed this.
RACHEL - Thank you for having me. This was super fun! I’m glad to be here.
Comments