Leia Stone is the USA Today bestselling author of multiple bestselling series including Matefinder, Wolf Girl, Fallen Academy and Kings of Avalier. She’s sold over three million books and her Fallen Academy series has been optioned for film. Her novels have been translated into five languages and she even dabbles in script writing. Leia writes urban fantasy and paranormal romance with sassy kick-butt heroines and irresistible love interests. She lives in Spokane, WA with her husband and two children.

 

 

Julie Hall is a USA Today bestselling, multiple award-winning author. She writes YA paranormal / fantasy novels, loves doodles, and drinks Red Bull, but not necessarily in that order. Julie’s daughter says that her super power is sleeping all day and writing all night… and well, she wouldn’t be wrong. Julie currently lives in Colorado with her four favourite people – her husband, daughter, and two fur babies.

Cold Hearted is out today from Harper HQ, you can order your copy from:

HarperCollins | Bookshop.org | Waterstones

Welcome to the Hive, Leia and Julie. Congratulations on your release of Cold Hearted. Let’s start with finding out more about it. What can our readers expect?

Thanks for having us! Readers can expect a romantasy standalone that follows the Princess of Summer in her quest to save her dying world. Each book in this series follows a different couple and ends in a happily ever after. It has ALL the best tropes. Enemies to lovers, one horse/one bed, forbidden romance, and royalty. The stakes are high with this one, and eventually Dawn needs to choose between saving her people, or following her heart. 

Let’s go into more depth about your characters. What more can you tell us about your main protagonist, Dawn? How did you both find creating her first person narration?

Dawn is the strongest princess in all of Faerie. She’s an only child, trained her entire life to be a ruthless assassin and complete her mission. Writing her character was so much fun. At times we had to war with her strong loyalty to her people, and then with what her heart was telling her. Those were really pivotal character moments. 

And what can you tell us of the dark and mysterious, Zander? 

Oh Zander (swoon.) Zander is not at all what people have made him to be or what Dawn thinks of him initially. Okay, their relationship starts out in handcuffs, but that’s just a little technicality. He’s a hard shell with a sweet center and a complicated past. He knows he needs to drip feed information to Dawn, or she’ll bolt, so he’s patient with her. 

Tell us a little something about your writing process together? How did you both find collaborating together to shape your story and characters? Were there any parts you found particularly tricky?

We are best friends in real life, so creating characters and worlds together is really fun! Who doesn’t want to work with their bestie? This story idea was born at a writers’ retreat we attended together, and once we started writing we just passed the story back and forth and it came together quickly. The best part is when one writer gets to read what the other sent. You become a reader for a bit and it’s new and exciting. Tricky parts can happen with two brains that think differently. 

From Leia: I don’t think we will be writing any more battle scenes with walls that face north and south, as I am directionally challenged.

From Julie: Leia definitely keeps me on track, and the story moving along! She has such an amazing gift for story pacing that the books I write with her come together so quick and smooth. Sure, there are times in the process that we hit a plot point that needs to be hashed out and agreed upon, but neither one of us is so stubborn that it halts the writing process. We’re both committed to writing fantastic books our readers will love, so our egos don’t get in the way. 

Your book is set in the kingdom of Faerie and the mirror realm, what inspired your worldbuilding here? Did you create a mood board to help visualise the kingdoms?

We started out with the idea of connected worlds through a mirror portal, and since there are two main fae realms in our series, Faerie and Ethereum, we really got to have fun envisioning the differences between each and playing with a lot of different fae and fairy lore that’s out there. 

And yes! We do have a secret Pinterest board where we did visualize how it would be! Besides being used during story writing, the mood board is handy when we need to work with illustrators and cover designers as well.

If you both could be transported to your own fictional world, would you choose to live in Faerie or the mirror realm? How do you think you would fare? 

From Leia: I think living in Fall Court in Faerie (when it’s not under the curse) would be amazing. You’ll have to read Faint Hearted (book two) to see why. 

From Julie: This is a tough one, but I’m going to pick the Eastern Kingdom in Ethereum (the mirror realm). The kingdom has that perfect temperature of not too cold and not too hot. It also has a beautiful mountain range that reminds me of the Rocky Mountains near where I live. And it doesn’t hurt that it’s the richest kingdom in all of Ethereum. *wink*

We see such varying opinions from authors when it comes to the time of editing their books. How have you found the editing process? Enjoyable, stressful or satisfying?

From Leia: Julie loves editing, which I think is very weird and not human. Kidding. But I genuinely loathe re-reading something I JUST read. On the other hand, there is no one more capable to polish that baby than I, so I grin and bear it and hope for the best.

From Julie: This question makes me laugh because Leia and I are definitely divided on this one. She’s right, the editing process is actually my favorite part! I always feel this immense relief when the rough draft of a book is finished. I look at the whole process a little like making a wedding cake. After the draft is done, it’s like the cake has been baked and stacked. The hard part is over, and now I get to go back and decorate it and make it pretty! 

We always appreciate a beautiful book cover! How involved in the process were you? Was there a particular aesthetic you hoped the artist would portray?

We love artwork in general and covers. We seriously have a problem. Sometimes we will get three covers made for one book just because we can’t decide on one. We are so lucky to work with such talented artists who are fully involved in all our cover design. For this cover, we told our designer the concept of a black heart with flowers and sent her a vibe board with certain types of flowers and ideas that she turned into an amazing work of art. 

One of our favourite questions here on the Fantasy Hive: which fantastical creature would you both ride into battle and why?

From Leia: A giant alpha wolf with gold battle armour. And maybe wings, because flying is cool and this is fantasy, so a wolf with wings would be normal, right? Wolves are incredible creatures and one of my favorites to write. Is it too late to add that my wolf can breathe fire? Okay, maybe it’s a dragon-wolf. 

From Julie: Okay, I’m not sure I can top Leia’s winged, fire-breathing alpha wolf. LOL. That sounds pretty incredible! I’m going to go with a Pegasus because I love horses, and if I was in a battle, I’d want a bird’s eye view of the action. But I’d want a Pegasus with a pretty horn like a unicorn, and I’d also want to have an iridescent coat because that sounds really pretty. Even if an iridescent coat isn’t the best camouflage, I’d look amazing riding it! And, okay. It can breathe fire too. 

Can you recommend some of your favourite books with an enemies to lovers story arc? Any hidden gems?

It’s safe to say that enemies to lovers is one of our favorite tropes of all time! No spoilers, but you are probably going to see it sneak into more than just the first book in this series. Some of our favorite enemies to lovers books are *takes deep breath*:

The Shadows Between Us, The Serpent and the Wings of Night, The Cruel Prince, Serpent and Dove, Divine Rivals, The Bridge Kingdom, Angelfall, These Violent Delights, Once Upon a Broken Heart, From Lukov With Love, Daughter of the Pirate King, The Winner’s Curse, Pride and Prejudice (of course), Fourth Wing (again, of course), and we’ve both written several ourselves. 

Oh, wait, what? That was a few more than you asked for? Oopsies!

Can you tell us a little something more about what readers can expect from this series? 

This series in particular is so unique in that you will get to follow four couples. Each one has a happily ever after, so no cliff hangers! You’ll get to experience vibrant worlds and a new take on fae lore that you haven’t read before. This series is going to suck you in and not let you out!

Are you both planning anything fun to celebrate your new release? Do you have any upcoming virtual or in person events our readers may be interested in?

We will be coming to the UK in September of this year (2024) and hope to do a local signing then! We will probably go live on our Facebook pages and groups and answer questions on release week, and also do some giveaways! We don’t live near each other, unfortunately, but maybe we’ll be able to squeeze in a writing/besties retreat as well. 

Finally, what is the one thing you hope readers take away from your writing?

We write fast paced fantasy romance that will have you begging for more. 

Thank you so much for joining us today!

Cold Hearted is out today from Harper HQ, you can order your copy from:

HarperCollins | Bookshop.org | Waterstones