We chat with author Lindsey Duga about Royal Heirs Academy, which is filled with competition, secret alliances, enemies-to-lovers romance, and cunning revenge.
Hi, Lindsey! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
I’m an Airbender, Hufflepuff, Daughter of Poseidon, fiercely independent millennial girl from south Louisiana. My dog is Delphi, a morkie (maltese + yorkie) named after the city in Greece, but pronounced incorrectly. I’m a huge fan of cozy games and Stardew Valley is the reigning champion (though Harvest Moon 64 was my first love). I was a musical theater kid and my favorite theme park ride is Tower of Terror. I read shoujo manga like it’s my job and the best anime in existence (fight me) is Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. While I can probably recite the entirety of the movie CLUE, my favorite is the 2005 PRIDE & PREJUDICE. And according to my Spotify Unwrapped, I was in the 0.5% listeners of Taylor Swift but my dominating genre is Cyberpunk Synthwave. Go figure that one out. My first crush was the fox in the old Disney Robin Hood movie.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
I’ve always been a storyteller. You can ask my Barbies. But I didn’t start writing them down until I saw Pirates of the Caribbean in 7th grade with my best friend. We loved that movie so much we decided to create characters and write down our own pirate adventures. In no time, we were writing fully conceptualized novels. In college, she decided to take her writing skills into Sociology, and I…decided to stay a fangirl.
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
- The first book you ever remember reading: Junie B Jones and the Stupid Smelly Bus by Barbara Park
- The one that made you want to become an author: Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan
- The one that you can’t stop thinking about: The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stievfater
Your latest novel, Royal Heirs Academy, is out January 7th! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Four Heirs. One Crown. Addicting.
What can readers expect?
Expect a character-driven plot in a glamorous, but beloved, setting: a castle. This book is the high school drama we know and love, but the stakes are much, much higher. Readers should also be prepared for antiheroes and characters with flaws, but they’re blended with deeply troubled pasts alongside current pressures and expectations. Royal Heirs Academy is not for the light of heart. It gets deep and moves fast. So buckle up and grab the handlebars for an emotional rollercoaster.
Where did the inspiration for Royal Heirs Academy come from?
My brilliant editor actually approached me with the idea of conceptualizing a novel based on the real-life school, UWC Atlantic—a boarding school in a castle off the Welsh Coast that Vanity Fair has dubbed as “Hippie Hogwarts”. With this amazing setting in mind, I came up with the plot of Princess Diaries meets Succession. Having grown up on the Princess Diaries movies (and was overjoyed to discover #3 in the works just a couple months ago) I have always loved the fish-out-of-water story when an unsuspecting teenager suddenly must know how to be royalty. And, as we all know, high school is full of competition. Who’s the most popular? Has the highest grades? The best athlete? So a recent watch of the HBO show, Succession, was the PERFECT inspiration for a school with royals as students. It also helped me craft much of the characters’ driving forces, as well as their flaws. Family, or lack thereof, is a huge theme in this book. Additional fun nerdy fact: I modeled three of my heirs after the main characters in the anime, Fruits Basket. Can you guess which ones?
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
Uh…is “all of it” an acceptable answer? I really had such a great time researching all the things for this novel. I had to study medieval castle architecture and world history events and famous figures like inventors, kings and queens, and human rights advocates. Since this book is not your average high school, I had to come up with classes, projects, and curriculums for courses like Ancient Political Rhetoric, Energy Conservation, Cyber Security, Democratic Republic Studies, and Intro to Foreign Policy. There was even a scene where I had to learn International Trade theory in order for two of my characters to have a fully-fledged debate about it. Thankfully, I sought help from a friend who majored in economics.
I also got to create my own country! Which was super fun and challenging in itself. I did a lot of research on types of constitutional monarchies and even created a whole history and lore for this fictional country.
And of course my four heirs: Alaric, Sadie, Titus, and Emmeline. They are all so very different and writing each one’s POV was surprisingly easy. Their voices jumped off the page from the get-go and switching from one to the next was effortless. I had a very strong sense of who they were from the start and it only progressed as I got deeper into the draft.
Did you face any challenges? How did you overcome them?
Yes! I have quite a few sensitive topics in this novel and I wanted to make sure I represented them properly. Thanks to some contacts in the publishing world, and some really good friends, I was able to get very helpful and important feedback on the following: grief and suicide, illness and disability, queer and POC rep. Other challenges were more technical like rushing my ending. Also, my writing style is quite verbose and I had to cut A LOT to get my word count where it needed to be.
What’s next for you?
Currently I’m on submission for my first adult novel and I’m waiting on edits for Royal Heirs Academy 2: Coup D’etat! I’ll be working on another Middle Grade ghost story for Scholastic next year and I’m outlining a new YA paranormal with southern gothic witchy vibes.
Lastly, what books are you looking forward to picking up in 2025?
In the Company of Killers by Elora Cook – Uh, teenage mafia? Please and thank you! Soulmatch by Rebecca Danzenbaker – Very Minority Report, this future world sounds SO cool. When the Bones Sing by Ginny Myers Sain – Literally the title is the concept. Creepy!
