We had the pleasure of chatting with Martha Waters about To Love and to Loathe, which is another clever and delightful historical rom-com that is perfect for fans of Christina Lauren and Evie Dunmore!
Hi, Martha! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Hi! I’m a librarian by day, rom-com writer by early morning, evening, and weekend, and I’m very excited about launching my second book, To Love and to Loathe, into the world! In non-pandemic times, I can usually be found spending most of my disposable income on travel, and I currently live and work in the town where I went to college in North Carolina.
How’s your 2021 going in comparison to that other year?
The best thing about having your debut novel come out a few weeks into a global pandemic is that pretty much anything seems great by comparison, so 2021 is not bad so far! I’m busy with writing and launching my book, but am very, very glad that lots of people are getting vaccinated and my brain feels better able to focus on things other than apocalyptic news stories, which was definitely not the case for much of last year.
Quick lightning round! Tell us the first book you ever remember reading, the one that made you want to become an author, and one that you can’t stop thinking about!
I can’t remember which book I first read independently, but the first book I remember someone reading to me is a picture book called The Maggie B. by Irene Haas, a book I still adore and give to lots of kids in my life today (it’s about a girl who dreams she has her own boat!). I don’t think a single book spurred my desire to be a writer, but one that I remember really making me want to write something half as amazing as it was A Wrinkle in Time. As for one I can’t stop thinking about, lately it’s been The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels by India Holton, a debut that comes out this summer that’s a fantasy rom-com set in Victorian England that is so sly and funny and charming that I want someone to write 50 more books just like it.
When did you first discover your love for writing?
I recently rediscovered my composition book from when I was in second grade, which contains the first story I ever wrote – entitled “The Sleepover”; it was, I must confess, quite boring – so I really think that as soon as I started school and fell in love with books, the thought of, “Hey…I could do this” sort of took over. My mom ran a publishing center for the kids at my elementary school and I wrote so many little books during those years that I still have today.
Your new novel, To Love and to Loathe, is out April 6th 2021! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Funny, banter-y, steamy, swoony, and (I hope!) emotional.
What can readers expect?
It’s a frenemies-to-lovers romance set at a country house party featuring a no-strings-attached affair, a marriage wager, and friends with lots of opinions – readers should expect lots of banter, lots of bickering, and some honest conversations about whether the hero is actually, in fact, any good in bed.
Where did the inspiration for To Love and to Loathe come from?
The hero and heroine are side characters from my debut novel, To Have and to Hoax, so I knew I wanted to write a story for them, but I got the idea of the hero and heroine having a sort of friends-with-benefits arrangement in order for the heroine to give the hero some honest feedback in the bedroom from my experience of reading hundreds of romance novels in which the hero is an immediate genius in bed, and wanting to have some fun with that idea.
Can you tell us about any challenges you faced while writing and how you were able to overcome them?
I finished drafting and did all my revisions in the early stages of the pandemic, when I found it incredibly difficult to concentrate on anything. I was also revising in the immediate aftermath of my debut novel coming out, so I worried a lot about whether this one would be as good, as funny, etc. and felt pressure not to disappoint people. Eventually, however, I started to view getting to work on this book as an escape from how sad and scary the real world was, which I think is part of why I feel so particularly attached to this hero and heroine.
If it’s not too spoilery, were there any favourite moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
I adore my heroine, Diana, a lot. A lot. She is very flawed and makes mistakes and doesn’t fully understand herself and puts on an act before the whole world and watching her figure herself out and open up to the possibility of falling in love was such a joy to write, and I really hope that some readers are able to see themselves in her.
This is your second published novel! Can you tell us about what you have learned about writing and the publishing process since the release of To Have and to Hoax last year?
A big lesson I’ve learned in the past year is that I need to accept the kind of writer I am, and not try to force myself to change my process to fit what I think others are doing. I tend to take a lot more breaks in writing than a lot of writers I know, and while this is something that I’d like to change to some degree, last year I tried to dive into work on my next book without any break after finishing revisions on To Love and to Loathe, before I was fully ready to begin writing, and it ended up being a waste of time and I had to start over anyway. It’s easy, once you’re published, to compare your books, your success, your writing process, to what other published authors are doing, and I’m learning to not do this.
Why do you love writing romance?
I love the structure of romance – there’s a format that most romance novels loosely follow, and the fun of writing in this genre is playing around with that format and making it your own. I also love how heavily the genre relies on tropes, and subverting tropes is one of the biggest joys that I get from writing romance.
What’s the best and the worst writing advice you have received?
The thing about writing advice is that different things work for different people, so prescriptive writing advice is really terrible if you say, “All writers should do X”. I think about this with the “All writers should write every day” advice – I do try to write every day when I’m working on a project, when I’m really in the groove, but then I’ll take a month off and return to it. Different things work for different writers. The best piece of advice I’ve ever received, though, and one that maybe doesn’t work for everyone but which I find wildly helpful, is to always park on a downhill slope – in other words, end your writing session knowing exactly what’s going to happen next. Don’t stop when you get stuck – it will be that much harder to start writing again the next day.
What’s next for you?
My next book, To Marry and to Meddle, is another Regency rom-com set in the same world as my first two books (but, like both of those, can be read as a standalone). It’s a marriage of convenience romance featuring two side characters from the first two books, and I’m still in the middle of writing it, and having a lot of fun with it at the moment!
Lastly, do you have any book recommendations for our readers?
A couple of weeks ago, I read Talia Hibbert’s newest book, Act Your Age, Eve Brown, which I loved – Hibbert is an absolute genius at writing banter. Along similar lines, I’m constantly trying to force people to read Lucy Parker’s London Celebrities series, my favorite contemporary romance series ever that has my all-time favorite banter and is just an absolute delight. The first one is called Act Like It.
The more I hear about this book, the more I want to read it!! Great interview!