Author Spotlight: Kieran Lamour

Kieran Lamour is a debut MM romance author whose sweet and spicy gay romance, His Truest Role, landed on Amazon just last month. He is also a dear friend I'm lucky to write with most weeks.

In this author spotlight, get to know Kieran, and stick around for a freebie novella and the news of a huge discount happening on Amazon right now.

You have just made a splash in the MM romance community with your debut, His Truest Role, a sweet-and-spicy story about a Catalan actor (who is such a ray of sunshine) and a grumpy Australian theater director. What inspired this particular choice of tropes and cast?

I had just finished writing a spoof detective novel that between false starts, stops, and temporary abandonment took me 14 years to publish. After that, I wanted to try something fast needing little or no research. Having worked in film and theater in New Zealand, Australia, and Catalonia for many years, I knew the world I was writing about like the back of my hand. I’d also lived in Melbourne (where MC Kim is from) for four years driving trams, and attended many shows at Barcelona’s Teatre Romea (where Kim stages The Swan). I’ve even written about the bronze sculpture of actress Margarida Xirgu that stands outside the theater (though I have no idea whether her ghost truly haunts the Romea). Having all that info at my fingertips at the time of writing meant I was able to write fast and freely, completing the first draft in just six months.

As somebody who has written literary fiction in the past and who has quite a few novels under his belt, how did writing a romance novel differ? Was there any particular rule you had to unlearn for the purpose of writing His Truest Role?

Writing literary fiction can be stressful and nerve-wracking because you are constantly measuring yourself against the greatest writers that have ever existed and coming up wanting. Furthermore, I’m a seat-of-the-pants writer as opposed to a plotter, so I tend to write and then un-write about two thirds of what I produce before I come to the final version. However, Romance, like opera, is highly structured. I was worried I might find that restrictive, but in fact I found it hugely liberating. Knowing what beat needed to come next, but having the full range of your imagination to decide how to tell it, felt refreshing. It was an exhilarating experience and has completely addicted me to romance as a genre.

Romance books often come with a particular promise to the reader, and the readers arrive with very clear expectations. This can greatly help the writing process, but it can also be a little daunting. Was there a moment partway through the process when you realized that romance is trickier than people give it credit for? How did you navigate this change to writing in a genre that comes with such passionate expectations?

As well as the full-length novel His Truest Role, I’ve now also published the short-form novella, His Cruelest Moves, and nearly completed my second full-lengther, His Worst Crime. Each time, I go charging in and complete the first half fairly quickly and confidently. But that tends to be the point where my box of fears and doubts suddenly springs open up like an abyss beneath my feet, and the writing process becomes terrifying. Can I do justice to the premise I’ve set up? Negotiating the plot from that first kiss or roughly midpoint beat to get to the grand finale feels like wandering through a swamp of quicksands without a reliable guide. Each time I’ve got to the other side, it feels like a minor miracle, like crossing a stormy sea and reaching the beach. And yes, I’m intensely aware of readers’ expectations, not wanting to disappoint them. Reading a romance novel should be a cathartic and satisfying experience, and I take that responsibility very seriously.

What's a piece of your own life (a place, a habit, a heartbreak) that slipped into this book whether you meant it to or not?

Obviously many of the Barcelona locations and the situations involved in rehearsing a play come from my own lived experience. But also touching upon Dídac’s and Kim’s emotional truth meant mining my own experiences of falling in love and getting my heart broken at seventeen years old. That real physical heartbreak you carry inside you for days is a golden resource for a writer.

When a reader closes the book, what feeling do you hope is still sitting in their chest an hour later?

I hope my reader will be feeling uplifted about life, that love, even when expressed as fiction, can truly make the world a better place.

Did the writing process have a particular soundtrack? What were you listening to (or avoiding!) while writing His Truest Role?

I wish I could say I had a playlist. I know lots of writers publish theirs to accompany the book, but I tend to get distracted by the words in lyrics. The exception to this is when our neighbors get too raucous, I’ll play Adele’s ballads on full blast over and over to drown them out while I’m writing. Or maybe Roland Gift in Fine Young Cannibals, Bronski Beat, or Fat Freddy’s Drop. I also find the white noise of a busy city café really inspiring. And I like to be in a place where I can watch people going by on the street.

What romance tropes are you eager to explore in your future books?

I really really love the enemies-to-lovers, grumpy-sunshine, forced-proximity, and opposites-attract tropes, so I’ll be exploring more of them in future books. And I also love exploring cultural differences. Expect more Catalan characters paired with Yorkshire, Maori and other nationalities and cultures.

What can we expect to see from you next?

I am hoping to publish His Worst Crime before the end of July. It’s the second full-length novel in the Barcelona Nights series. And I’m offering readers an exclusive pre-order price of just $3.99! After launch the price will increase.

Huge thanks to Kieran for finding the time to do this author spotlight. You heard it here first, folks. His Worst Crime is coming to Amazon very soon, and you can lock in your price before it goes up, which will directly help boost the book's chances of success on release day and it will go a long, long way to making one author's day a little brighter.

You can check out His Worst Crime on Amazon.

And because you stayed to the end, you can also get Kieran's gorgeous novella, His Cruelest Moves, for FREE by signing up for It's Lamour, a free newsletter to help you stay up to date with Kieran's upcoming releases and discounts.

Speaking of discounts, His Truest Role is currently on massive discount for a short time, so you should check out the Amazon page and grab it before the time runs out. I've had the luck to read both Kieran's debut and his companion novella before they were released, and I have fallen deeply in love with every single character he has written so far. Let me tell you, I am first in line for a story of a sexy Mediterranean cop and a British criminal in hiding falling in love.