The King of Nothing follows a struggling college dropout woman who crashes a wedding and ends up married and, for the first time, finds herself opening up and being vulnerable with someone. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

The inspiration came directly from, believe it or not, real-life experience. Like Ruth, I went to school in Malibu and worked as a personal assistant with access to the private lives of the rich and famous. These experiences drew me to the theme of ‘success’, and the paradoxical ways it can manifest in our lives, both internally and externally. I even lived in a ramshackle cabin in the woods, on a literal wedding venue property! Ruth’s home is a real place, and really functions like it does in The King of Nothing—with a fictionalized name and several embellishments to cater more directly to the story, as well as future stories in my series of interconnected standalones.

I wanted to explore, through Ruth and Seba’s story, the two sides of the success coin: how do you define success after you fail to achieve your lifelong dream? What if you achieve all your dreams but still fail to feel successful? What, then, does success look like? Can we identify universal traits of success, or is it completely individual?  And most of all, what is the difference between the perception of success and the felt experience of success, and how does that catalyze the potential of a new romantic relationship?

Ruth and Sebastian’s story isn’t the typical Rom-Com romance. Their relationship is filled with raw emotions and soul-searching. Were you able to achieve everything you wanted with the characters in the novel?

Yes, to the point that I surprised myself by the end of it! I drafted this novel during my first year of therapy, and The King of Nothing reflects many of the emotions I worked through at the time. Ruth and Seba’s story also allowed me to process and contextualize my time at college and the immediate aftermath—both toward my own experience and those of my friends, colleagues, and coworkers.

I went in with questions around how the characters would approach the theme (and each other!), and I discovered some profound answers. Particularly through the supporting characters of Carol Ann Noble and Griselda Mane—they are love/hate ladies for everyone who’s read the book, and they were genuinely shocking additions to The King of Nothing. They are both headstrong women who demanded more presence in the story, and by the end, I understood why—and how they drove Ruth and Seba’s story to even greater heights.

Are you a fan of the Romance genre? What books do you think most influenced your work?

I’ve been a big fan of romance since my early days of dealing JR Ward novels like illicit drugs out of my middle school locker. Though in recent years, my relationship to romance has felt more love/hate. All genre fiction is subject to commercialization and the whims of social media, but romance has felt especially prone to sacrificing story for the sake of a quick churn or trendy trope. I’m passionate about writing romance because I feel there’s so much the genre still has left to explore while staying true to its roots, and I’m convinced that there’s a vast audience of romance lovers like me who are ready for more nuance and innovation in our love stories. All while honoring genre conventions, of course!     

As far as direct influences, I would say Mariana Zapata for heady, deep-POV emotion (The Wall of Winnipeg & Me), Amy Harmon for spiritually infused love stories (Where the Lost Wander) and, ironically, Katherine Paterson’s ‘Bridge to Terabithia’—because the story was so enticing and the ending so gut-wrenching that my nine-year-old self couldn’t not write her own version, and thus a writer was born.

What is the next book that you are working on, and when can your fans expect it to be out?

My sophomore novel is The Prince of Whatever, a reimagining of royalty romance and the next book in my series of interconnected standalones. Fans of my work will recognize the two leads, especially our heroine, the fiery Psych student Georgie Macklin (yes, her last name is a subtle nod to Parks & Rec!) and can expect a release in 2025.

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