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Author Crush Friday: Lia Riley

Glitter girls, you have pressing questions for your favorite authors and we have their answers. Welcome to our  weekly segment, Author Crush Fridays.

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We love asking questions and we love the answers from some of our favorite authors. Today we’re talking to Lia Riley, the author of Upside Down (August 5, 2014; Forever).  Thank you for talking to us today, Lia! We’re honored!

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GLITTER: How did you come up with the plot for Upside Down?

LIA: As strange and mystical as it sounds, one day I sat down at my computer and there was my heroine, Talia, chattering away. Don’t let me get locked up or anything, but I actually heard her voice in my head. Her story poured out of me over a span of six weeks, faster than I’d ever written anything before. Often I was just as surprised as readers as to the direction the plot went and the choices the characters made.

GLITTER: Was there one question that sparked the whole plot?

LIA: The plot wasn’t sparked by any question exactly, but the quote, “Everything you want is on the other side of fear” was a definite influence. I wanted the books to realistically explore the highs and lows of falling in love with someone from another country. What is given up to make the relationship work? And what is gained? I love exploring how characters can overcome their own hang-up’s and baggage to earn the happily-ever-after that deep down they are afraid they don’t deserve.

Even though they do.

We all do.

GLITTER: If you could have any of your books turned into a movie, what one book do you hope makes it to the big screen and why?

LIA: I’d cry happy rainbow tears to watch Talia and Bran’s story from the Off the Map trilogy on the big screen (especially if Colton Haynes could play Bran, yes, please, thank you) Also my upcoming book With Every Breath that stars a Scottish mountaineer and young American journalist trapped together in a remote valley during a freak storm would be amazing movie fodder. It’s a little twisted, a lot dark, and hopefully fun.

GLITTER: What character do you relate to the most?

LIA: Talia and I have a great deal in common. We struggle with generalized anxiety disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder, live in coastal California, travelled to Australia as college students, and share a similar sense of humor. We also love baked goods, are afraid of heights/snakes and have a thing for Australian boys.

GLITTER: Have you ever been to Australia?

LIA: When I was twenty-one, I studied abroad for six months in regional Australia and met a cute older guy on campus, fell in love, and here we are celebrating our ninth wedding anniversary. I lived with him in Tasmania for five years and adore the island, one of the reasons I chose to set part of my books in a place that very few people outside the country have ever heard of (except in relation to a slobbering Looney Toons cartoon character).

GLITTER: What has been the hardest character you’ve ever penned?

LIA: Bran Lockhart, Talia’s love interest from the Off the Map books is a surly, Australian surfer. During Upside Down drafting he would barely talk to me. One of the biggest questions I get about that book is “Why didn’t you include more Bran chapters?” Trust me, I would have loved to. I begged the guy. “Pleaaaaaaase. Just a few teeny-tiny words?” And nope. He wouldn’t offer up the goods. Flash forward to Book Two, Sideswiped, and boom! Suddenly, he wouldn’t shut up. The rest of the series I’d have to issue sternly worded lectures. “No, Bran, you had your turn, we need to hear from Talia for a few pages.”

Man, he’s a difficult guy but I love him so.

GLITTER: What one YA novel do you wish you had when you were a teen?

LIA: Eleanor & Park. I’d love to curl up for an afternoon inside Rainbow Rowell’s brain. Her characters are so fresh and real it’s as if I can reach through the page give them much-needed hugs.

GLITTER: Tell us one random fact that your fans still might not know about you.

LIA: I once traveled to Antarctica and had a penguin sit on my lap.

GLITTER: What are you currently working on?

LIA: I have six titles coming out this year so it’s hard to narrow it down to any one project as lots of books are in different stages of development. As crazy as my life is, I wouldn’t trade it for a second. Remember that quote I shared above, how “Everything you want is on the other side of fear?” This is the truth I live daily. Writing can be a super scary and vulnerable profession and it always sort of seemed like something “other people do”. Finally, I decided the worst thing that could happen is that I’d fail, and if I never tried, that was already failing. So I started stringing one word after another and four years later, here I am!

Lia Riley_Photo Credit Kitti Homme2

 

 

Lia Riley writes offbeat New Adult and Contemporary Adult Romance. After studying at the University of Montana-Missoula, she scoured the world armed only with a backpack, overconfidence and a terrible sense of direction. She counts shooting vodka with a Ukranian mechanic in Antarctica, sipping yerba mate with gauchos in Chile and swilling fourex with stationhands in Outback Australia among her accomplishments.

A British literature fanatic at heart, Lia considers Mr. Darcy and Edward Rochester as her fictional boyfriends. Her very patient husband doesn’t mind. Much. When not torturing heroes (because c’mon, who doesn’t love a good tortured hero?), Lia herds unruly chickens, camps, beach combs, daydreams about as-of-yet unwritten books, wades through a mile-high TBR pile and schemes yet another trip. Right now, Icelandic hot springs and Scottish castles sound mighty fine.

She and her family live mostly in Northern California.

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