We chat with debut author Lily Crozier about Vow of Eternal Night, which is a slow-burn, enemies-to-lovers, gothic romantasy about the lengths people will go to for love, and the many faces monsters can wear.
Hi, Lily! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Hello! I’m Lily and I’m the author of Vow of Eternal Night. I currently work as a marketer in publishing, but I used to be a publicist and before that a bookseller, so I’ve worked a few book related jobs now that author is in the mix! I also love talking about books on Booktok and Bookstagram, so I’m kind of surrounded by books at all times!
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
My parents always read to me and my twin sister back when we were really young. The earliest chapter book I remember loving was The Magic Faraway Tree. I started reading to myself when I was around five or six years old. I was obsessed with Pokemon (still am) so Mum bought us a stack of Pokemon chapter books, which was probably where the passion started!
I was 7 when I first decided I wanted to be an author. Unlike fireman and farmer (which were my other career goals at ages 5 and 6) this one actually stuck! I started writing stories that year, although I didn’t start seriously writing a book until the ripe old age of 12.
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
- The first book you ever remember reading: If picture books count: there’s a picture book called Doctor Elsie, which featured a girl called Lily who fell down the stairs (I could relate). But if it’s a book I read to myself, the earliest I can remember was Fairy Bread by Ursula Dubosarsky when I was 5.
- The one that made you want to become an author: there wasn’t a particular book that made me want to be an author at first, but the one that actually made me start writing was Inkheart by Cornelia Funke.
- The one that you can’t stop thinking about: I think about Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell way more than I can reasonably justify. The lore goes so deep and I wish I could study it properly!
Your debut novel, Vow of Eternal Night, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
A gothic slow-burn vampire romantasy
What can readers expect?
Vow of Eternal Night is inspired by Beauty and the Beast. Clara, the mayor’s daughter, is forced into an engagement with Raleigh – the prince of Rostenburg, and the vampire who has plagued her town for the last 14 years. He has reasons he can’t share for why he needs a bride, but when he realises abduction and forced betrothal isn’t the way to Clara’s heart, he offers her an ultimatum: make him human again before the end of the year, or become a vampire herself, and be his bride for eternity.
It’s a slow-burn, enemies-to-lovers romantasy with the vibes of Howl’s Moving Castle x Dracula.
Where did the inspiration for Vow of Eternal Night come from?
I’d always wanted to read a vampire romance with a gothic historical setting and traditional vampire lore, but I’d never been able to find something that gave me exactly the vibe I wanted. Gothic vampires tended to skew towards horror, and romantic vampires often had modern paranormal or high fantasy settings, so I couldn’t find anything that hit the mark.
One day, either right before or at the start of Sydney’s lockdown in 2021, I lamented to my sister that I couldn’t find my dream book. I said to her at the time “Why isn’t there a Beauty and the Beast retelling out there with a vampire as the beast.” And then I realised I could be the one to write it, so I started that day!
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
I loved writing Moira, and I think it shows because she ended up becoming a fan favourite! Clara is a very serious and melodramatic character, but because the book is written entirely from her perspective it’s very hard to convey just how stubborn she is at times. I ended up introducing Moira as Clara’s foil, to call her out when she’s being too stubborn or unreasonable. She evolved into a much more interesting character than I expected though, and I loved writing every scene with her in it.
Did you face any challenges whilst writing? How did you overcome them?
One of the biggest early challenges was that I initially set out to make Raleigh much more evil than he ended up being, but within about a week of writing I realised that if he was truly evil he had to either remain the antagonist, or Clara had to become evil herself, and neither were the story I wanted to tell. So I had to spend a lot of time developing his character in order to preserve the scary, dangerous aspects that appealed to me in a vampire love interest, while also making him someone Clara could realistically fall in love with.
This is your debut novel! What was the road to becoming a published author like for you?
It was pretty unusual! I still work in publishing, but kept the fact I was writing a book a secret from nearly everyone right up until I had finished the first draft of Vow of Eternal Night. My plan was to self-edit, then query agents etc. as normal, but I decided to post about it on TikTok with the dream it might go viral and an agent or publisher might approach me.
It definitely didn’t go viral – it actually performed worse than most of my videos! But the publishing director from Penguin Random House Australia was one of the few who saw it, and she sent me a message inviting me to submit the manuscript.
I didn’t do it. At least not right away.
I spent the next four months editing my manuscript over and over again until it was at least good enough for me to feel I’d put my best foot forward in what I knew was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to submit directly to Penguin. My goal was to use whatever feedback they could give me in their rejection to edit the manuscript again before querying, but they sent me an offer instead.
What’s next for you?
I can’t share much just yet, but I’m currently working on what I hope will be a trilogy. It’s high fantasy this time – though still romantasy – with much higher stakes. And without giving too much away, this time around the focus is demons.
Lastly, what books are you looking forward to picking up? Any you’ve read so far this year that you’ve enjoyed?
I can’t wait to read T Kingfisher’s Astarion novel. Astarion was my favourite character in Baulder’s Gate 3 (not least because he reminded me a lot of Raleigh) and I can’t wait to see what T Kingfisher does with his character!
I’ve read a lot of really great books so far this year. I’m currently reading the fifth book in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series, which is SO much fun, and I loved The Bishop of Durham Attempts to Surrender the City by Susanna Clarke, which is set in the world of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell and comes out in October (and probably why I’m thinking about that book so much at the moment!).
