We chat with author Riley Redgate about Come Home To My Heart, which is a raw, honest depiction of what it feels like to be a gay teen in a world that says that you don’t deserve a home.
Hi, Riley! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Hello, and thank you so much for having me! A few facts about me: I live in Chicago, my favorite movies are The Emperor’s New Groove and Portrait of a Lady on Fire, and I have six YA books out in the world.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
I remember writing stories as early as second grade—my elementary- and middle-school binders were packed full of fantasy projects scribbled on looseleaf paper.
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
- The first book you ever remember reading:
Oh God! I can’t pinpoint a single one, but I do have vivid early memories of the Roald Dahl books with the Quentin Blake illustrations - The one that made you want to become an author: All of them together, working in finely tuned concert to create this lifelong hyperfixation
- The one that you can’t stop thinking about: Tana French’s Broken Harbor
Your latest novel, Come Home to My Heart, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Love doesn’t stop and wait.
What can readers expect?
My hope is that readers will feel like they’re right there with my characters, feeling what they feel, hurting and loving alongside them. I hope this with all my work to some degree, but with this book in particular I really want any sense of distance to vanish. I just want the book to be an open vein.
Where did the inspiration for Come Home to My Heart come from?
The US housing crisis has been underway for a while. Education and early childhood agencies estimate that 1.4 million kids in the US experienced homelessness in one of its many forms in 2024, and of course there are millions of queer people in the South, every one of whom has a unique relationship to their rapidly changing environment and to their own visibility. This was one inspiration. Another was that I wanted to write a book about the sacredness of secrecy in a world that demands disclosure, and how much it means to find the one person who knows you, even if no one else does.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
I love these two leads so much and feel so protective of them, and so the most gratifying moments to write in this book were the moments they allowed themselves to reach for what they wanted, or when they began to think of themselves differently. For Xia (my sarcastic burnout)—she has a lot of unaddressed self-loathing that drives most of her behavior, and excavating that and sifting through it was hugely cathartic. For Gloria (my overachieving perfectionist)—slowly circling how she thinks about her future, and how that outlook shifts, was probably the most moving part of the writing experience.
Did you face any challenges whilst writing? How did you overcome them?
Yes, absolutely. I really wanted to bring as much realism and life to Gloria’s experience with housing insecurity as I could. Homelessness takes so many different forms—a family couch-surfing in a city might not have much in common with Gloria, who’s on her own in a rural area, for instance. So no one narrative can encapsulate these various experiences. But I tried my best to do justice to this thread with a combination of research and, later on, editorial conversations with a wonderful writer who has lived experience with homelessness, and who pushed me in really invaluable ways.
What do you hope readers take away from Come Home to My Heart?
My main hope is that queer readers, Southern readers, and readers who’ve dealt with homelessness feel seen by the book. For a general readership, I just hope that people come to love these characters, and connect with them not just for the problems they’re facing but for their personhood, which is of course how everybody wants to feel connected.
What’s next for you?
My first book for the adult market, BAD WORDS, comes out next autumn from St. Martin’s—it’s a publishing world romance about an author and the critic who devastates his work with a scathing review! After that, I’ll have a new YA in 2027 with my fantastic team at Union Square, a satire-slash-love-story about the corporatization of social media and two boys trying to be real despite the unreality.
Lastly, what books are you looking forward to picking up this year?
So many! In the same genre, I share a release date with Matthew Hubbard’s The Rebel’s Guide to Pride, about a group of queer teens banding together to form underground Pride events after their mayor bans LGBTQ+ celebrations. Later on in May, I’m psyched to read Cecilia Vinesse’s All-Nighter, which is an opposites-attract F/F romance about a valedictorian and a class slacker who join forces over a single night. And this is cheating, because I’ve already read it, but in September, Mackenzi Lee’s first book for adults Lady Like is coming out, and I can’t wait to get it on my shelf. It’s a F/F Regency romance about two women with their sights set on the same duke, who wind up falling for each other instead, and it’s packed full of wit and heart.
