Q
Readers can find an official author bio, but give us the version they can’t Google. Who is Rory when she isn’t creating fictional people and ruining perfectly good readers emotionally?
A: I have a hard time with that question. I have learned to be many people over the years, and sometimes I don’t think I know who I really am. What I do know is that I love good stories and happy endings. Books, television, and movies saved me when I was in a terrible place. They were my safe space, and I loved getting lost in them.
I’m also something of a caretaker. I love helping people and being a source of support when I can. That has gotten me into trouble before, but apparently I haven’t learned my lesson, because I keep doing it.
Q
Outside of books and writing, what are you genuinely passionate about?
A: Research. I love looking things up, spending days in archives, digging through indexes, papers, studies, everything and anything. Someone says ‘Do your research’ and I get visibly excited and disappear for a week.
English. Okay, hear me out, I am soooo terrible at other languages. I’ve had classes in Spanish, French, and Japanese and can only barely understand the basics if I strain. My reading comprehension is better, but only if the Japanese is using romaji, because if the kanji comes out, I am totally lost.
But I had linguistics classes for my Strategic Communications degree and one of them was the history of the English language. I didn’t do well, but I loved it. And now people buy me linguistics books and books about the history of punctuation.
Q
What’s something about you that longtime readers would probably be genuinely surprised—or delighted—to learn?
A: Most of my male leads have at least one trait of my husband. This includes the men in the parallel stories that run alongside the primary story.
Dilly, however, has more of my personality traits than his. When I wrote Dilly, my husband was a Cisco Certified Network Administrator and was in charge of our network and network security, so Dilly’s technical knowledge and abilities were heavily influenced by him.
Q
What is something your family or closest friends would immediately describe as “such a Rory thing”?
A: Catastrophizing. It is a form of expectation management for me. I heard a saying once that made me feel better about it: If you expect a kick in the balls and get a slap in the face, then you’re doing just fine.
Q
Do you have a hobby, collection, obsession, tradition, or completely random interest your readers probably know nothing about?
A: Yeah, but I’m not telling. 😉. Kidding. I really enjoy anime, manga, and short dramas, but only the ones that are subtitled. Nothing against dub lovers, but dubbed foreign language media makes me cringe. I also like a lot of the normal length dramas from Korea, China, and Taiwan.
Q
Give us one completely useless Rory fact whose only purpose is making readers stop and say, Wait… what?
A: I don’t have the ability to picture things in my head at all. I legitimately thought that people were just pretending when they said they could close their eyes and picture things. My internal monologue describes things I have already seen and have a point of reference for.
I have never seen what my characters look like, but if I see a picture of them, I can definitely tell if it is them or not.
Q
When life becomes entirely too “people-y” and you need to disappear for a while, what does your perfect escape look like?
A: Parallel play time with my husband. He will play on his computer or watch videos on his phone while I am playing a game or reading a book. Sometimes we stop to show the other something or have a brief conversation about whatever we’re interacting with.
Writing. I used to go lay down in my room and stare at the wall or ceiling as words appeared in my head, and then I would mold them into my personal stories and headcanons. But when I lost the ability to do that, I found that writing gave me that ability back. I go into my office, play my music, and stare at a screen until words start to form in my head. Then I just go with it.
Q
Someone magically clears your entire schedule for 24 hours. No deadlines, emails, responsibilities, chores, or humans requiring your attention. What are you doing?
A: Probably nothing particularly productive. I’d spend time with my husband, play games, read, write if I felt like it, and otherwise do whatever sounded good in the moment. The best part would be knowing that nobody needed anything from me and I didn’t have anywhere I was supposed to be.
Q
What is your most irrational pet peeve?
A: Honestly, the phrase “same difference” it just ruffles my feathers.
Q
What harmless opinion will you defend as though your entire reputation depends on it?
A: That people should restart their computers, phones, and routers regularly. Even a 30-second shutdown can do a lot for cellular and Wi-Fi devices. I swear, if I see another router with triple-digit uptime and someone asking me why their internet is so slow, I might scream. Honestly, it would probably resolve at least half of the calls I get about things like phone calls dropping or not ringing while people are using Wi-Fi Calling. Seriously, restart your stuff occasionally. It can solve more problems than you would think.
Q
What did your life look like before becoming an author? Was writing always something you imagined yourself doing, or did that dream sneak up on you later?
A: I was a high school dropout because I needed to work to help with the bills, and at the time, school wasn’t helping me make money, which was what my family needed. I eventually got my GED at 28 and went to college, where I earned an Associate’s degree in English Literature four years later. I also have most of a Bachelor’s degree in Strategic Communications, which I still want to finish when I have the time.
I was a stay-at-home mom for most of my young adult life. My family had some significant care needs, and there was a lot of work to be done at home, so I couldn’t realistically do that while working outside the home.
For most of my twenties, I wrote poetry and exactly two short stories, but I couldn’t write anything longer. I’d lose interest, or I’d outline the entire story so thoroughly that I knew exactly how it would flow and how it would end. Once I knew the ending, I didn’t want to write the rest of it. Apparently, I needed to discover that being a writer and being someone who likes knowing how things end are not always compatible.
The funny thing is that I never actually wanted to be a writer. I was good at research papers and essays, so I eventually got my English degree, but my goal was to become a librarian, specifically a research librarian. I was working toward qualifying for a Master’s program at an ALA-accredited school.
And then 2019 happened, and my plans changed.
Writing wasn’t something I’d dreamed about my entire life. It was something I eventually stumbled into after my life took a direction I hadn’t expected. I’m not sure I would’ve believed you if you’d told me I’d become an author.
Q
Do you remember the moment you first thought, I could actually write a book? What finally convinced you to stop thinking about it and start writing?
A: It was about mid-October of 2019. In September of that year, my grandmother passed. I hadn’t gotten a chance to see her before then. Because of some absolutely insane family issues, I hadn’t seen her since I was a small child, and I had only spoken to her on the phone a few times before she passed. She would send me goodnight texts. I still have them saved. I couldn’t afford to go to Oklahoma for her funeral, so I wasn’t able to go. I got depressed, and the stories in my head started going quiet.
This was actually very bad for me. I used my stories to relieve stress and get to sleep. They were my soothing thing, the thing that helped calm my mind. I’d never had anything like that happen before, so I decided I would try to save the last story that was still in my head. It was a “The Flash” fan fiction with my daydream original character, who I had honed over three decades of daydreams. She is perfection. So I started writing.
For the first time in days, the story started flowing in my head. It was working. I could daydream, but only when I was on my computer, so I basically stopped sleeping while I wrote the story.
Three days later, I realized I needed some story in front of where I had started. Then I thought, wouldn’t this be kind of cool if I shifted the characters around? Suddenly, it wasn’t a DCAU fan fiction starring the most kickass heroine of my life. It was “Noncorporeal”, which is what I named it later.
Noelle is the closest I will probably ever get to writing my daydream persona. A few weeks later, I realized, This could be a book. Or even a series. I was still only writing for me at that point. Then somehow it turned into all of this. I’m kind of addicted to writing, and all of you are my enablers.
Q
What publishing path have you taken, and what made it the right choice for you?
A: I went the path of serialized publishing because I didn’t need to finish a whole book, then edit, rewrite, edit again, rewrite more, etc., just to be rejected and have to go around begging for someone to actually read it. I knew that traditional querying and repeated rejection would be really difficult for me and could seriously affect my ability to keep writing.
Serialized publishing let me put my work in front of readers while I was still writing it, and their response gave me the encouragement to keep going.
Q
If you could sit down with the Rory who was preparing to release her first book, what would you tell her now?
A: I would probably tell her to buckle up, because she has absolutely no idea what she’s getting herself into. I had no idea how much work was going to come after actually writing the book. Writing was the easy part. Everything else was going to be a learning experience, sometimes an expensive one.
Q
Readers see the finished book, but they rarely see everything that happens behind it. What is something about writing, editing, publishing, marketing, and getting a book into readers’ hands that you wish more readers understood?
A: Even professional editors have a margin of error that is considered acceptable. No editing process is perfect, and there is no tool that can get it perfect either. You may see a mistake from time to time, but perfection doesn’t exist. And I think there is some humanity in the imperfect.
Keeping things straight is hard to do even if you are organized. Some of my favorite authors have messed up details about characters from several books back, and as a reader, I didn’t understand how they could have gotten something so basic wrong. Once I became a writer and started writing characters who popped in from other books, magic systems that were very detailed, and world histories that I had to make mesh with the real world, I realized what a pain it can be.
There are a lot more moving pieces behind a book than readers ever see, and sometimes something is going to slip through.
Q
Looking at everything you’ve created since then, what are you most proud of?
A: Honestly, I’m proud of how much I’ve done in the span of seven years. I never thought I’d be able to write a whole book, let alone over ten of them, some of which are “epic” sized, so up to four times the size of a standard novel.
I am just proud that I have done this and that I’ve found friends who also like the worlds I write. That part means a lot to me. I started out writing stories that existed entirely in my own head, so having other people enjoy those worlds with me is something I never expected.
Q
Is there something you’ve accomplished that you don’t think you have ever really stopped and given yourself enough credit for?
A: Probably becoming an author. I don’t think I’ve ever really stopped to appreciate that I went from being a high school dropout who didn’t think I could write a whole book to having written more than ten of them in seven years. I’m usually more focused on what I haven’t finished or what I could’ve done better than on what I’ve actually accomplished.
Q
Where do your characters normally come from? Do you deliberately build them piece by piece, or do fictional strangers essentially move into your brain, refuse to pay rent, and start making demands?
A: The way my characters come about is that I find bits and pieces of their personality as I’m thinking about them. Then they help me find their name. It isn’t me naming them most of the time. Sometimes, it is. But a lot of the time, they name themselves. Once they have a name and a vague spirit, I set them loose and they start to fill out based on how others interact with them and pieces of lore they tell me.
I do not control them and we fight a lot
Q
Which character arrived practically fully formed, and which one fought you every damn step of the way?
A: Noelle arrived fully formed. She’s an energy being from an outer arm of the galaxy and she is extremely irritating and demanding. Not as much in the books as she is in my head. She doesn’t think or feel like normal people do. The way she was formed made her very hard to have in my head, but we coexist well now.
Felix from the Twisted Design series fought hard when I wanted to write a story about him. He is a very private person and didn’t want me telling people about him. He was barely okay with the small appearances he had in the main series. The short story was a pain.
Q
Have you ever written a character who was supposed to have a tiny role only to watch them look at your carefully constructed plans and essentially say, That’s adorable. This is my story now?
A: Cal… Rick ‘Cal’ Calhoun. He was supposed to be the male lead’s best friend who was a frightening, deadly sidekick. Then Noelle went and fell for him instead of Ari and suddenly, I have to write a very different male lead than the beautiful, elegant Arik Sun.
Instead, I have a man who was literally described as looking like a mafia goon from old cartoons. And don’t you even start to think it was only Noelle’s fault. Cal had no shame about his interest in Noelle. He thought it was funny!
Q
Has a character ever completely changed the direction of a story you thought you were writing?
A: All of them. I have had to wrangle a lot of stories back in line, but I usually just let them play out. My characters tend to prove that their changes make the stories even more enjoyable. And you already saw my gripe about Noelle and Cal.
Q
Which character became FAR more popular with readers than you anticipated? Were you completely unsurprised, or did you have a HIM?! THAT’S WHO WE’RE ALL OBSESSED WITH?! moment?
A: Derrick Travers from his first appearance in The Vampire’s Servant. My womanizing rogue warrior Derrick was meant to be just a character to get us into the hunters’ camp, but people fell in love with him, especially after he showed an interest in Emmalyn. Fate plays a big part in this series, but this wasn’t fate in the sense of how the lore normally plays out.
Rhett the warlock was another surprise. Because my characters dictate which story I will write, my original publishing order had The Feral Heart coming out before The Healing Souls. Originally, Rhett had a much smaller part when I played through The Healing Souls, but then I had to expand it because his bit part in The Feral Heart had people asking about the mysterious, flirty warlock.
That was on me, no surprise there. I actually used a video game character I had a minor crush on when I was younger as his base. Who doesn’t love a chaotic-good pirate who loves to flirt but doesn’t do relationships? One of my changes was to make Rhett more chaotic-neutral.
Q
Which of your characters do you think readers misunderstand the most?
A: I feel like Clover Harrison from The Witch’s Temptation is one who is misunderstood. There were quite a few people who didn’t like her. Clover doesn’t act like a typical female lead. She is a soft domme, but not all dom/mes are the same, and none of them are perfect. Clover makes mistakes as she learns new people.
I would classify her as a service top, which is why she lets Josh work through his dominant urges with her and why she will submit to Stanton when they are in public. But when Stanton needs her to possess him, she works to make sure she does it in a way that will support him most.
Q
Which character has the most Rory hidden inside them?
A: Echo from The Vampire’s Servant. She holds most of my childhood trauma.
Q
Are pieces of your personality, experiences, relationships, conversations, or real life secretly tucked into any of your stories?
A: Yes. Sometimes things are just too interesting not to share. It may not always be on purpose, but it is there.
Q
Is there an Easter egg, recurring joke, personal reference, name, location, or seemingly insignificant detail in one of your books that means considerably more to you than readers probably realize?
A: At least three characters that people hate are based on people I also hate, and there is enough of their personalities in those characters that I feel like I’m portraying them accurately.
Squirrels are assholes. Something the readers did pick up on. I was mugged by two squirrels one day, and this is my revenge.
Green is my husband’s favorite color, so I add it into the lists of favorite colors for my male leads who remind me most of him. Dilly’s eyes are green because, aside from his personality, he is most like my husband in his interests and intensity.
Q
Without spoilers, is there a particular scene or reveal you could barely wait for readers to reach?
A: Yes. In pretty much every book. There is always one thing I imagine at the start of the book, and my main goal is to write toward that scene. But sometimes I end up with a ton of really cool reveals and scenes on the way, and I don’t always get to it because so many other things were so much better.
Q
What is one of the most emotionally difficult scenes or character arcs you’ve ever written? Without spoiling it, why did that particular one affect you?
A: The last half of The Demon Queen’s Duty. From the time the rain starts until the end of the book. I still can’t read it without crying. It’s because of how much it hurt everyone in the book.
Q
Have you ever made yourself cry while writing and then had the audacity to leave the scene exactly that devastating for the rest of us?
A: Every time. Every scene I have ever written that has made readers cry has made me cry. At least two of them made me cry so much that I couldn’t write for the rest of the day. And many of them still make me cry. If I suffer, you suffer. Mwahahaha.
Q
Have you ever written something so dark, emotional, spicy, twisted, or completely unhinged that even you stopped and thought, Rory… what the hell?
A: Not really. The things I write are intended to be that way. You all are reading my daydreams, and I will not apologize for the way my mind works. You can blame my parents for that. ;)
Q
Which book was the most fun to write, and which one came closest to causing your computer to become airborne?
A: The most fun to write was actually The Twisted Design Collection, the book of short stories from the Twisted Design series. I loved thinking of little stories for the characters, and I always had fun thinking of little side characters who might not ever be more than a side mention or an occasional brief appearance.
I never really had one that made me want to throw my computer, though The Healing Souls came close. I was trying to bring in a couple of the short stories and put them into a larger story together with the aftermath of The Vampire’s Servant and the beginning of The Witch’s Temptation. It was also a good place to show more of the world beyond shapeshifters, witches, and vampires.
Q
What does your writing space actually look like during a deadline: cozy author sanctuary or literary crime scene?
A: Spotless, because I “Procrasti-clean.”
Q
What is your most ridiculous procrastination technique?
A: Baking, which doesn’t sound like it is ridiculous. But I CANNOT bake. I am so terrible at it. Not even box cakes can survive me. I have two things I can bake, and they are not the things I bake when I want to procrastinate. I have destroyed my kitchen and so, so many “easy” recipes.
Q
If someone had never read one of your books and you could put only ONE book or series into their hands, which would you choose, and why?
A: I think I would pick the Twisted Design series. They have so many varied characters that someone can almost always find one they identify with. There is a lot of feeling and humor in them, which I think makes a book or series infinitely more readable.
Q
Is there one particular book, series, couple, or fictional world that holds an especially personal place in your heart?
A: Noelle and Cal from the Stars and Galaxies series. Their first book is Noncorporeal, which was the first book I wrote after I lost the ability to daydream without a computer. Noelle is the closest I get to my old daydream persona, aside from Maddie from The Demon Queen’s Desire.
Actually, The Demon Queen’s Desire exists because I wanted Noelle and Cal’s first meeting to go a different way. I started writing it because of that, and then it grew on its own and became a supernatural story with a similar base but very different characters.
Q
Is there a book from your backlist that you wish more readers would discover? This is your opportunity to tell us why we’ve apparently been sleeping on it.
A: Noncorporeal and Corporeal from the Stars and Galaxies series. The series isn’t finished yet. I’m writing the final book, but there were some serious issues that I needed to resolve.
Noelle is a hero and a villain, and I adore her. Cal is very different from most of my male leads, and I really enjoyed watching the alien lore evolve as the books progressed and the characters grew. That combination made this one of my favorite series to reread.
Q
Is there a character, couple, or world readers refuse to let you leave behind? Is there hope for them, or should everyone begin the grieving process?
A: Derrick and Emmalyn. When everyone saw them together, they wanted more. They wanted them to end up together, and they really wanted to see how it happened. There is a lot of hope for them, but there will be pain, too. That’s life.
Rhett the warlock. He was meant to come in just so I could write him, because he was in my head and wanted attention. And the readers wanted to give it to him. He lost a lot in his life, but he gains a lot as the series goes on from his first appearance.
Rock and Carmen. We met them in the short “Love Is Blind,” and I got SOOO many people asking for more that I had to make them a whole book, The Healing Souls. People also wanted more of Dennis and Billie from the short “The Vampire’s Second Chance,” so they ended up in The Healing Souls as well.
Q
Which character would you trust with your life?
A: Madison from The Vasilia series. She is trustworthy and good at thinking on her feet. She is actually tied with Bellamy from The Rogue Queen. Both are also deadly efficient. They are the best Queens.
Q
Which character would you absolutely NOT trust with your drink?
A: Rhett, but not necessarily for the reason others might think. He would put something in it just to mess with me and entertain Mehret, his dark spirit.
Q
Lock any three of your characters in a room for 24 hours purely for your own amusement. Who are you choosing?
A: Bellamy, Madison, and Livy. Three leaders with strong personalities and very different perspectives. I would love to hear their conversations.
Q
If your characters could anonymously review you as their author, what would your average rating be—and what would the one-star reviews complain about?
A: Most of my characters would definitely give me something like four stars because even though things are rough sometimes, they work out in the end most of the time, and they get partners who are everything they want.
The one-star reviews would likely be from people who didn’t get what they wanted. Wendy from The Feral Heart would definitely say, “I would have given her zero stars, but I had to give at least one to leave this review.”
Q
When you get to turn your author brain off and simply read, what genres and tropes do you naturally gravitate toward?
A: Romance is probably my biggest one. I gravitate toward paranormal romance, historical romance, fantasy romance, and contemporary romance. I also read a lot of fantasy, especially urban fantasy, historical fantasy, and alternate Earth settings.
Outside of fiction, I enjoy some biographies, linguistics, and history. I also read a lot of manga, especially shōjo, isekai, slice of life, and romance.
As for tropes, I honestly don’t pay much attention to them. I could probably name one or two if someone challenged me, but I don’t choose books based on tropes. I usually just find a story that sounds interesting and go from there.
Q
What trope will you probably never get tired of?
A: Love at first sight/Insta-love. I like when characters feel something strongly for each other and don’t do the bickering slow-burn thing.
Q
Is there a popular trope that simply does not work for you?
A: Miscommunication as the primary conflict. Dude, just talk. It’s not that deep. I understand miscommunication happens, but not as the whole plot.
Q
Was there a particular book or author who significantly influenced you as a writer?
A: Not especially. I have several authors I enjoy, and having read them, they all have a little influence on what I write. But Jude Deveraux is my favorite, hence Lucien’s last name.
Q
Which fictional character written by another author owns an unreasonable amount of real estate in your head?
A: Kane Taggert from Twin of Ice by Jude Deveraux. I adore him. When I saw him again in Wishes, I squealed. It didn’t matter that it was a small part. I even read Twin of Fire because I wanted to see Kane’s relationship with Houston from the outside.
I wasn’t particularly fond of Blair and Leander, but being able to see both relationships from each twin’s perspective was fun. Still, I only read it for more Kane.
Q
Which author would reduce you from professional writer to completely incoherent fangirl if you unexpectedly met them?
A: I have a few:
Jude Deveraux. This one is kind of obvious at this point.
Charlaine Harris. I’m a fan of several of her series, although I wasn’t particularly fond of the television shows based on them.
Patricia Briggs. She lives less than a one-day drive from me, but I restrain myself.
Q
Steal one character from another author and drop them into your universe. Who are you kidnapping, and what havoc are they causing?
A: I think Mao Mao from The Apothecary Diaries would have a great deal of fun with the witches from The Witch’s Temptation, especially Clover
Q
Someone gives you $500, but you are legally prohibited from spending a single dollar responsibly. What are you buying?
A: Merchandise from my favorite books, podcasts, anime, and video games.
Or the whole light-novel series of The Apothecary Diaries and all the foods I love from my favorite restaurants.
Q
Do you remember the first time it really hit you that complete strangers were reading—and becoming emotionally invested in—people and worlds that had previously existed only inside your imagination?
A: Yes, I remember the first time I got a comment on a chapter and realized people were reading my stories. It was embarrassing to me, mostly because I didn’t think other people would like what I wrote.
But when comments started coming in that showed people were really enjoying the stories and getting attached to the characters, I was shaking from the overwhelming emotion of having created something that others loved. I write for myself, and my little stories have always been for me. I didn’t realize that other people could really love them as much as I did.
Q
What is the funniest, sweetest, strangest, or most memorable message, review, gift, or comment you have received from a reader?
A: I have gotten a lot of messages from readers over the years, and they have all been wonderful in their own ways. I love hearing that my stories have helped someone through a difficult time, made them happy, or simply given them somewhere to escape for a while.
But the one comment that has always stuck in my head was from a reader who wrote to me and said she wanted to crack open my head so she could live inside my mind. I took a screenshot of it because it was probably the strangest comment I’ve ever received, but it was also incredibly relatable.
Q
What does it mean to you when someone tells you one of your books gave them an escape, made them laugh when they needed it, helped them through something difficult, or simply made their life a little better for a few hours?
A: It means more than most people would think. I come from an insecure, neglectful, and abusive foundation. Books were my escape when I was banished from the rest of my family. In the times I was alone, hungry, or recovering from things, books helped. I didn’t have to work for the privilege of reading. Wrapping myself up in words was like the best blanket.
Additionally, the stories in my head would keep me sane when everything was removed from my space, including books. Those stories were everything to me. When someone tells me that my books helped them in the ways my mental stories helped me, it honestly makes me teary. This is what they were meant for, and knowing they helped someone else really makes my heart feel full.
Q
What do you wish readers understood about the actual human being behind a book when they are reading, rating, reviewing, or discussing someone’s work?
A: Writers are very sensitive. Please be nice, or at least write reviews in the compliment sandwich style. It isn’t that we want to be, but most writers put their heart out there with their stories.
Q
When you first imagined the world that eventually became The Rogue Queen and The Vampire’s Servant, what came first: the world, the romance, a particular character, or one completely unhinged scene that demanded an entire story be built around it?
A: Bellamy came first. She and Lucien didn’t meet like they did in The Rogue Queen. Originally, it was at a mating conference at Daylight Moon. I played with them in my head for a good long time before it worked out right. But they were always a little combative, flirty, and provocative in all the ways I love about them.
Q
The Rogue Queen is one of those titles that immediately promises a woman who probably isn’t going to sit quietly while somebody else makes decisions for her. How early in the writing process did you know exactly who your queen was going to be?
A: Bellamy was always a Queen. From the first moment she popped into my head, she was the commanding, hardworking, dedicated woman. Her trauma evolved as I got to know her and her past, but from the very beginning, Bellamy took the world by the balls and made sure it played by her rules.
Q
Was there anything about your Rogue Queen that changed dramatically between the character you originally imagined and the woman readers ultimately met?
A: Not really. Bellamy shifted a little into a more queenly and serious character, but she never changed the core of who she was.
Q
When creating a powerful heroine, how do you balance letting her be genuinely formidable without removing the vulnerability, mistakes, fears, or emotional messiness that make readers care about her?
A: My characters are very real in my head. We all know there are times when you have to be stronger for the people around you and to ensure that things work out the right way. But even in those times, the real person behind that strength still exists. I just didn’t decide to polish out the imperfections. None of my characters are simply powerful, even the gods.
They are people first, and being powerful is only one part of who they are.
Q
Did you know from the beginning how large and interconnected this world was going to become, or did the characters gradually hijack what you thought was a much simpler plan?
A: Absolutely not. Originally, The Vampire’s Servant was a different story in a different world. But then Marius showed up while I was writing the tail end of The Rogue Queen, so I had to pivot and hurry to find all the connections between them.
Q
If the characters from The Rogue Queen could read the reviews of their own book, who would obsessively read every single one, who would pretend not to care while secretly checking, and who would immediately start arguing with reviewers?
A: Bellamy would immediately start arguing with every reviewer who said the book was ruined because of her choice in Lucien and in her family planning. That really ticked her off.
Dilly would read obsessively, out loud, to anyone who listened, especially Jean-Claude.
Talia and Lucien would pretend not to care but then read secretly.
Q
If you were dropped into The Rogue Queen yourself with absolutely no plot armor, which character are you finding first because they give you the best chance of surviving your own damn universe?
A: Bellamy, definitely. She would be more likely to protect me if I told her the truth about who I was.
Q
And which character are you actively avoiding because knowing what you know as their creator makes you think, Absolutely not. I wrote you. I know what you’re capable of.
A: Marius is the least likely. He isn’t necessarily a bad guy, but he loves doing the things he does. And if it’s during the time of The Rogue Queen, he would not yet be properly tempered toward sympathy.
Q
Then we have The Vampire’s Servant. What was the original spark behind that story?
A: The original spark for that story was a poem I wrote in my late teens. It was called “Echo.” I found it in a notebook while I was cleaning to take my mind off writing because I realized I was getting too into it. It was a very short poem, and I started thinking about the feeling of the speaker. I thought about the smallness and loneliness of wanting to be seen and heard, of loving someone in a way that was intangible, of being invisible and trying to be part of the world.
ECHO
Look for me when you are alone,
I will always be here.
Listen for me when all is quiet,
I will whisper in your ear.
Feed for me when you hunger,
I hunger too.
Sleep for me when you tire,
I shall keep watch for you.
Q
Vampires have been written approximately seventeen million different ways at this point. What did you want your vampires—and your version of vampire relationships, power, or society—to feel like that was specifically yours?
A: I wanted my vampires to feel like people first. They aren’t all good or all bad, and being a vampire doesn’t automatically determine who someone is. They have different personalities, relationships, loyalties, and ideas about what is right.
I also wanted them to feel like they were part of a larger supernatural world rather than existing separately from everyone else. Their relationships and power structures developed alongside the other supernatural groups, and I wanted the vampires to have their own place within that world.
Q
How conscious were you of the power dynamics while writing The Vampire’s Servant, and what did you want readers to understand about the characters underneath those roles?
A: I was very careful with the power dynamics because I wanted them represented properly. Victor had to be strong, but not cruel. Experienced, but open to the new. Commanding, but not controlling. This couldn’t be the typical vampire/human girl dynamic in either direction.
Echo’s pushing against boundaries without actually being harmful is very important to that. She doesn’t accept things helplessly. She tries to make her perceived future less painful, but never tries to bully it into compliance.
Q
Which relationship from these books was the most difficult for you to write convincingly because of everything those characters had working against them?
A: Honestly, the strain of writing a relationship like Echo, Gray, and Victor’s gave me the most trouble. It needed a balance that Echo wasn’t quite equipped for, and I couldn’t just magically make her perfectly able to navigate the relationship she has with Victor and Gray.
It took a lot of thinking about how someone who was totally unprepared, very willing, and still dealing with the emotional and physical repercussions of long-term trauma would deal with just… everything.
Q
Which character in The Vampire’s Servant surprised you the most once you actually started writing them?
A: Sean Flowers surprised me. I originally wrote him because Echo needed a friend who didn’t connect with her because of what she was or who she influenced. She needed someone who could be an outside person in her sphere. He acts a lot like the voice of the reader when he is learning about her world after he enters it officially.
But I never expected him to dive in so wholeheartedly. Though, I should have. If I asked any of my geek friends, male or female, what they would do if presented with the chance to be involved with supernaturals and potentially become someone important to major magical world players, they would jump into it. I know I would.
Q
Was there anyone readers were not necessarily supposed to love quite as much as they apparently did? Because readers have an impressive history of seeing a walking red flag and saying, That one. I want that one.
A: Derrick “Crazy Derrick” Travers. Readers saw this weird, kind of terrible rogue werewolf and wanted more of him.
Q
If the heroines could meet without any of the men around, would they become friends, reluctant allies, competitive enemies, or accidentally overthrow something before dessert?
A: They would definitely become friends. Echo stated in the book that she wanted to be like Bellamy, but Bellamy sees in Echo someone she couldn’t be if she wanted to. Someone who was also scarred by the past, but embraces her vulnerability more easily. Talia would invite herself, of course, because she would want to see what they got up to after they bonded for a while. Bellamy would definitely teach Echo to shoot.
Q
If one of your morally questionable men had to survive one completely ordinary week in our world—job, grocery shopping, traffic, customer service, bills, absolutely no supernatural shortcuts—which one would adapt best?
A: Derrick would adapt best. He is morally quite questionable, but he has the benefit of having silver in his tattoos, which means he had to learn to actually be strong instead of only relying on supernatural enhancement.
Q
More importantly, which one is getting arrested before Tuesday?
A: With no supernatural power to support them, definitely Marius. He can play human for short amounts of time, but his pride and arrogance would lead him to do something, especially when paired with the lack of his normal abilities.
Q
Was there a relationship or character dynamic that became much more emotional while you were writing it than you originally intended?
A: The scene in The Rogue Queen where Bellamy sees the picture of Robert and the chaos that follows, along with the reveal in those chapters. It ended up being much bigger than I originally planned.
Q
Without spoiling anything, is there a tiny moment somewhere in The Rogue Queen or The Vampire’s Servant that readers might overlook but that means something particularly important to you?
A: The nicknames the characters have actually mean more than just something cute to call each other. Some of the time, I go into the descriptions, like Dillon calling Jean-Claude “mon nounours,” meaning “my teddy bear,” because of the bear incident.
Lucien calls Bellamy “chouchou” because he sees the sweetness inside her even when she is being a badass. Bellamy calls Lucien “saucisson” not just because it means sausage and is a little dirty and flirty, but because he is something warm, comforting, and nourishing.
Even Echo being called Princess by Victor and Angel by Gray was by design. Even though they are pretty common endearments, both think of her as being above them and precious. To Gray, she is ethereal, almost holy, in that she exists as this goddess-given blessing that is pure and fragile. Victor sees her value in the hierarchy of vampires, a jewel that is desired by many but only he is granted her love.
Q
Was there ever a completely different version of one of these stories—a different ending, relationship, character fate, villain, or direction—that readers would probably be shocked to learn almost happened?
A: Originally, in the scene where Gray and Val are playing video games and hanging out with Echo while Trent, Rosy, and Victor are working on the alliance, Gray wasn’t sleeping on the couch when Victor came into the TV room. He actually marked Echo, and it resulted in Marius taking her away. This was before I knew about the curse. It led to so much animosity between Victor and Gray that I couldn’t move forward, so I had to scrap the whole concept.
Q
If you could spend one evening sitting at a table with the characters from these books—not as their creator, but simply as yourself—which one would you most want to talk to?
A: Talia the Traveler. She likes books and has a lot of interesting stories. Plus, I know not to ask about her life before she was a vampire.
Q
And because I have adored these books long enough that I feel entitled to at least one confession: tell me something about The Rogue Queen, The Vampire’s Servant, or the larger Twisted world that readers probably don’t know. An abandoned storyline, unexpected inspiration, character who almost didn’t exist, deleted scene, last-minute change, secret Easter egg, or some other little piece of behind-the-scenes chaos.
A: In The Rogue Queen, I gave subtle nods to several of my favorite authors and others. Jude Deveraux is where I got Lucien’s last name, and his description is in line with several of my favorite male leads from her books.
Bellamy’s adoptive parents are the Carringtons, after painter Dora Carrington.
Richard and Jean-Claude are a nod to Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake series, though mine have little in common with hers past the names.
Charlie is named for Charlaine Harris.
Jason’s mate, Gail, is named for Gail Carriger.
Molly is named for Molly Harper.
Then there is my group of “Robins” in the Elite Ten: Jason, Todd, and Drake.
Talia and Bellamy’s nickname rule comes from my own rule. If I give someone a nickname, no one else is allowed to call them that without my express permission.
The “three unreasonable rules” deal is one that my husband and I have, so that is one thing that is a part of him and me that I put into the story.
Q
What are you currently working on, and what are you allowed to tell us about it?
A: At the moment, (as of August 29, 2026) I have three primary projects:
I am working on getting all of my books into print and/or digital format. So I am editing nearly 2 million words.
I am proofreading for another author, Sem Nocastle, for her new book that is coming out in 2027.
I am writing two small projects, one in the Twisted Design universe and one in a different universe, as well as the second full-length book of the Twisted Future series, a spin-off of Twisted Design. The book is called The Hybrid’s Hope and takes place at the same time as The Doctor’s Dilemma. It features Rhett and Dolly from The Healing Souls.
Q
Is there another story in this world—or another character lurking somewhere in your brain—that you desperately want to write someday?
A: I have actually started a spin-off series that begins with a soft transition from Twisted Design. The Doctor’s Dilemma, Insecurity, and The Hybrid’s Hope all take place at roughly the same time, gradually introducing the new series.
A few years later, in universe, the story transitions into The Witch’s Darkness, The Returned Heart, and The Omega’s Release. All three of those books involve the children of characters from the original series.
Q
Is there an upcoming release, special edition, event, signing, preorder, Kickstarter, cover reveal, or other project you want readers to know about?
A: At the moment, I really have to focus on editing and releasing the Twisted Design series. But all of my future books will be released as serial novels first, then edited into print and digital formats, so people can have their trophies and still read their favorite books without worrying about ruining them.
I have merchandise, signed books, and discounted books for sale on Fourthwall.
I also plan to have some contests, and when I finish the full set of the Twisted Design series, I will be giving away a full set of hardcover, signed editions.
https://rorymccauleyhayman.store
Q
Is there a question you have always wished someone would ask you in an interview but nobody ever has? Consider yourself officially asked. What is the question, and what is your answer?
A: Do you actually enjoy being interviewed?
… I find being interviewed incredibly awkward. I can talk about my characters and stories all day, but the moment someone turns the questions toward me, my brain decides it has never had a thought in its life. I think I’d be much better at this if we were just sitting somewhere having a conversation and nobody called it an interview.
Q
Finally, what is one thing you hope readers know about Rory after finishing this Spotlight that they could never learn simply by reading your author bio?
A: I’m not sure that’s something I can explain particularly well. There are parts of who I am that make perfect sense to me but sound completely ridiculous when I try to explain them out loud. Some things are too personal, some are embarrassing, and some just don’t translate well without an enormous amount of context.
I think that’s probably true of most people, really. An author bio is the tidy version of a person. The actual person is considerably messier, more complicated, and usually much funnier.
So if there’s anything I hope readers take away from this Spotlight, it’s that there’s a very real, very imperfect, occasionally ridiculous human being behind the books. And that’s probably more interesting than my bio anyway.
