We chat with author DeAndra Davis about The Lovers, the Liars, and Me, which follows a teen who travels to Jamaica hoping to answer questions about her absent mother, only to discover more about her identity than she could have ever expected—and find herself caught up in an unexpected love triangle.
Hi, DeAndra! Welcome back! How has the past year been since we last spoke for the release of All the Noise at Once?
Wow! More amazing than I could ever imagine! To see the critical acclaim and awards that All the Noise at Once has earned is heartening and humbling. I’m so very proud of the book and everything it has achieved so far.
Your latest novel, The Lovers, the Liars, and Me, is out June 23rd! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Hmm… heartwarming, heartbreaking, messy, brave, and fun.
What can readers expect?
Readers can expect to hopefully fall in love with characters the way they did in my first book. They can also expect a little more romance and drama along with found family and tense topics handled with genuine care. I really do feel like this is summer in a book mixed with a little family reckoning.
Where did the inspiration for The Lovers, the Liars, and Me come from?
A little bit from my own life experiences and also from wanting to write a love letter to the country I love—a place that is very much a home to me. I truly wanted people to read the book and love Jamaica as much as I do. I wanted them to want to go. I wanted them to see beauty in a place that may have its flaws but that, when it’s yours, you love it anyway.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
I really love two moments. One was when they broke into a renowned ice cream shop which was just fun to write in general. I love some innocent nonsense when it comes to writing teens. It was also a scene where I got to flex a bit of romantic tension writing as well and I love how it turned out. Next, I love the Dunn’s River Falls scene mostly because though I didn’t have to go to the hospital, I once hit my head pretty hard climbing it myself, haha. A rite of passage of sorts.
Did you face any challenges whilst writing? How did you overcome them?
I feel like I had awful sophomore book syndrome. Something in my head kept saying the book wasn’t good enough and I doubted it constantly so it took me a while to really fall in love with my own book even though I was initially in love with the idea. I think I put a lot of external pressure on the book early on and that stunted my ability to fall into the story. I had to silence myself and remind myself that I’m writing books to resonate with at least one person emotionally and that’s all that matters.
With your novel exploring family dynamics, queer love, identity, and more, how did you approach finding balance in your novel to give each topic its own space to delve into?
It’s interesting because I never plan ahead to tackle all of those things. I think so many things sneak their way in naturally because as a multi-marginalized person that’s how I move through the world. There are never factors acting in isolation. I live by experiencing a lot at once and I think it naturally shows up that way in my work. I always aspire to have my characters feel as real as possible and I don’t know that I always give everything the same amount of space to breathe but I know in life sometimes I don’t get that luxury either, even when they’re all cascading down on me at once. I guess I try to follow a natural flow of how the topics would converge in life as much as I can.
As your second published novel, what were the key lessons you learned when it comes to writing and publishing between working on the two?
I definitely learned to write in the spaces when you’re waiting. I learned to always work on the next thing and the biggest lesson of all is to not define myself by the success or failures of my work. And yes, I do mean the success too because when you do that you pressure yourself so much to live up to something instead of writing for the passion of it all and the truth. I never want to lose why I wanted to write in the first place in favor of chasing some high.
What’s next for you?
I never know how much I can say but I’ll say I’m definitely writing more books and people should expect an announcement from me sometime this year on what that’s going to look like. The next thing is going to combine the fun of this second book with some of the topics from my first. I’m very excited!
Lastly, what books are you looking forward to picking up? Any you’ve read so far this year that you’ve enjoyed?
So many good books are coming out! I’m excited for Wicked Endeavors by Kamilah Cole, Bound By Fury by Noelle Monet, 72 Hours of You by Darianne Schramm, Natural Selection by Clare Edge and Tell the Ghosts I’m Gone by Kalynn Bayron.
I finally just finished The Wicked King by Holly Black (don’t judge) and I loved it! Eternal Ruin by Tigest Girma was also so good!
