Category Archive: Romance

Hey ladies,

I am appearing with a couple of other YA authors at the Brooklyn Book Festival and also speaking on the topic of Love and Longing, so I was going through the first Luxe book, trying to find a passage well-suited to that theme. I think I am going to read from the part where Diana and Henry first meet, but anyway, the point is that it was so strange to look over that bit again. I wrote it so long ago, and these characters were so much less acquainted with each other than they are now, as I too know tons more about them today than I did when I wrote that scene. It’s a funny thing about writing a series… you learn more about your characters even after they are already out in the world, sleeping on bookshelves all over the place. Henry, in particular, seems foreign to me—his motives are so oblique, to Diana, probably also to himself, definitely to me. But then, isn’t that the way it is with people, too? When you first meet them, you have so little to go on, you make up a kind of fantasy version of a person’s intentions and inner life. Later, knowing them better, you wonder how you ever could have thought they were that person. Know what I mean?

Also: wish me luck! I am really, truly, humiliatingly shy about these things. Still, if any of you live in the area, you should come! The event is at 2 on Sunday, and there is more information at www.brooklynbookfestival.org/

Yours,
Anna