The first rule of book club: You don’t talk about book club.
We had the pleasure of chatting to author Lyssa Kay Adams about her upcoming novel, The Bromance Book Club! She chats about its inspiration and challenges, along with her writing process, book recommendations, and what’s next for her!
You can find Lyssa on Twitter and Instagram and also at her Facebook Reader Group!
Hi Lyssa! Tell us a little about yourself!
Hi! Thank you so much for the opportunity to talk about The Bromance Book Club! I’ve been a writer all my life, and I don’t just mean my adult life. I’ve been carrying around a pen and a notebook since before I could even read or write. I was that kid who spent summer vacations reading and hung out at the library when other girls my age were getting a tan at the pool. (I don’t tan. I’m so pale, I’m basically translucent.) After graduating from Michigan State University with a journalism degree, I became a newspaper reporter—a career I loved for nearly 20 years. But in 2015, I moved full-time into pursuing my real dream, to be an author. The Bromance Book Club is my first release with a major publisher.
Your new novel, The Bromance Book Club, publishes on November 5th. If you could only describe your book in five words, what would they be?
Laugh-out-loud with a side dish of sexy, tender, optimistic, and heartwarming.
Let’s hear a little more! What can readers expect?
They can expect an emotional rollercoaster in the best way. You’ll laugh openly on one page and then hold your breath a few pages later.
My book tells the story of a Major League baseball player (Gavin) who wants to repair his marriage after his wife of three years (Thea) asks for a divorce. Any time you tell a marriage-in-trouble story, you’re throwing readers right into the deep end of the emotional pool on page one, which is part of the fun.
Gavin and Thea had a whirlwind courtship that resulted in an unexpected pregnancy with twins, shortly after which he was called up from the minors to the big time. They’ve grown apart and barely know each other anymore. When Gavin agrees to get help from his friends, he thinks they’re joking when they tell him they are part of a super-secret book club of men who read romance novels to become better men and better partners. His journey to win back his wife is at times hilarious but also poignant as both characters are forced to examine their roles in ruining the marriage. I hope you laugh. I hope you cry. And I hope you close the book with a smile and a sigh.
What inspired you to write The Bromance Book Club?
I first came up with the idea of a man turning to romance novels to fix his marriage a few years ago, but I set it aside for the future. I was inspired to get back into it and expand it into a full book club of men who read romances after, frankly, I became fed up during the height of the #MeToo movement’s endless revelations about men in power abusing their authority to prey on women.
I realized I needed an outlet for my anger, and that’s how the Bromance Book Club was formed. I wanted to create a world in which stereotypically “alpha” men could actively help each other shed the toxic lessons about life, love, and themselves they’d learned from society by instead modeling the healthy relationship advice they found in the pages of a genre that celebrates equality, consent, open communication, and sex positivity for everyone.
Was there a certain chapter, character, or scene that you really enjoyed creating and writing?
All of the scenes featuring the book club, my “bros” as I call them, were my favorite to write. I loved bringing them to life through their distinct voices and approaches to helping Gavin. I also loved their conversations about feminism, romance novels, toxic masculinity, and even pumpkin spice lattes.
I also enjoyed writing scenes with the twins. I’m a mom, and I loved showing the real side of parenthood within marriage in all its messiness, tenderness, and moments of impossible juggling. One of the greatest compliments I’ve gotten in response to the book was from a fellow author, Alexa Martin, who said she felt very “seen as a wife and mother.”
Did you face any challenges while writing?
One of the greatest challenges for any romance writer is in crafting believable motivations for their characters’ actions. Gavin is sweet, swoony, and totally in love with his wife, so giving him a plausible reason for behaving in a way that leads Thea to ask for a divorce was difficult. On the other hand, I also needed to give Thea a plausible motivation for wanting a divorce yet also being willing to give him a second chance. It required a delicate balance. One of the problems in their marriage is a lack of communication, both inside and outside the bedroom, which leads to the final straw for their marriage. When Gavin discovers Thea has been faking it in bed, he doesn’t handle it well, which leads Thea to ask for the divorce. It’s hard to make conflict believable if the problem could simply be solved by a conversation, so I had to dig really deeply into both Thea and Gavin’s backstories to explain why things got so bad between them and why they struggled to be open and honest with each other.
What’s your writing process like?
I’m a bit of a chaotic writer by most people’s standards, but it works for me. I write exactly like I did as a journalist—out of order and in layers. My first draft is, well… I call it my “puke on the page” stage. Sorry for the gross imagery. I write feverishly to get a shell of a book in that first stage. Some chapters are nothing but dialogue when I finish my first draft. Then I go back and layer things in—exposition and scene-setting, transitions and cliffhangers, descriptions and sensual details. That process usually adds another 25,000 to 30,000 words. And then I go through again to add in thematic elements that tie the entire book together. The only time I ever work in order, chapter by chapter, is in that last stage. I once told a fellow writer that, and she nearly fainted on the spot. But I cannot write in order until the end of my process, because I can’t see and feel the full story until then. Some of my best scenes are written in that last stage.
Your next novel is Undercover Bromance, which releases on March 10th 2020. Can you give us a few teasers?
Undercover Bromance is a classic romp featuring two characters from book one (Mack and Liv), who join forces (with back-up from the book club) to expose and bring down a celebrity chef with a long history of coercing women who work for him into sexual relationships. Just like book one, it takes readers on a rollercoaster of emotions. The story is equal parts giddy silliness, fist-bumping girl power, and heart-aching romance.
You’ll also meet a very horny rooster who hates men. You’re going to learn more than you ever wanted to know about how chickens have sex. My family has raised backyard chickens for years, and there are things I never knew until I did research for this book.
What’s next for you?
I’m wrapping up the manuscript for the third book in the Bromance series, and that will be out in fall 2020. It features two characters introduced in the previous books and explores the thorny issue of the so-called “friend zone” in male-female friendships. The bros are also helping another character plan his wedding, and I’ve had such a fun time putting them in situations that we as a society normally expect the bride and her bridesmaids to do—pick out flowers, make crafts for the decorations, and enjoy a spa day instead of a bachelor party. There’s also a very fat cat named Beefcake who has been put on a diet and is super mad about it.
Lastly, do you have any book recommendations for us?
How much space do we have? (Cracks knuckles.)
I’m currently obsessed with The Playbook series by Alexa Martin, the Dreamers series by Adriana Herrera, and pretty much everything that Avery Flynn writes.
I also have recommendations for some upcoming books to pre-order or add to your Goodreads TBR. The first is “You Deserve Each Other” by Sarah Hogle (April 7). It’s a funny, sweet story about an engaged couple trying to reignite the spark between them. Another book I can’t wait for is “Whiteout” by Adriana Anders. It’s a fast-paced adventure romance set in Antarctica featuring a pair of glacier researchers who are trapped in a wicked storm with a madman on the loose (January 2020). Finally, be on the lookout for Meryl Wilsner’s May 2020 book, “Something to Talk About.” It’s a swoony story about a Hollywood powerhouse and her assistant who realize that rumors about an affair between them might be just what they need.
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