1--What is the title of your latest release?
A LOVE LIKE THE SUN comes out in June, and my YA novel, I’M NOT SUPPOSED TO BE IN THE DARK, released in 2023.
2--What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?
Childhood best friends fake date and use the hero’s fame to help save the heroines struggling business.
3--How did you decide where your book was going to take place?
I was born and raised in Providence and the city always feels like it has a little bit of magic to me, so most of my books are based there or in surrounding cities.
4--Would you hang out with your protagonist in real life?
Yes. Laniah and I would be out here fighting for our life trying to run a mile around the neighborhood or bringing a low sodium meal to the beach to watch the sunset while listening to music and partaking in light gossip.
5--What are three words that describe your protagonist?
courageous, reticent, determined (sometimes these traits work against each other)
6--What’s something you learned while writing this book?
I learned that no matter how many times I read something I can still cry over it. This book had me sobbing over my keyboard each draft because the characters felt as flesh and blood to me as people I love.
7--Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done?
A mix. I usually re read the chapter I’m working on to set myself back in the world and while I do that, I’ll edit a little, but besides that I try not to edit too much and just get words down on that sometimes-dreaded blank page. Regardless, my first drafts are really zero ones lol.
8--What’s your favorite foodie indulgence?
I’d have to say tacos, probably. I can eat them daily. And cheating to add something sweet & specific: tiramisu cheesecake or even boxed yellow cake without frosting.
9--Describe your writing space/office!
A gallery style wall to look at with mirrors and art prints, framed photos of flowers, the words hello gorgeous for a boost when I’m down, a big sun symbol to stare at. My desk has painting supplies, potted plants, a couple of books, my favorite perfume bottles, a keyboard, and a monitor. Think lots of pink, gold, and orange.
10--Who is an author you admire?
I admire so many, but I think I’ll have to go with Kennedy Ryan. I love how deeply I feel each time I read one of her books. I enjoy sobbing and she gives me that.
11--Is there a book that changed your life?
I have to say The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth. Not only is it a devastatingly beautiful coming of age novel, but Emily was my college professor when I read it. I’d been writing fanfiction, poetry, and stories since I was ten years old, reading books long before that, but I’d never actually thought I could become an author. Meeting an author in real life truly made me realize that I too might be able to write and publish my own work. It’s one of the reasons I love meeting readers who aspire to be authors.
12--Tell us about when you got “the call.” (when you found out your book was going to be published)/Or, for indie authors, when you decided to self-publish.
My heart was beating erratically all day because we were about to go to auction for A Love Like the Sun. I couldn’t think straight. And then I got the call from my agent that said I had two incredible pre-empt offers. When I heard about the one from Berkley and my dream editor Amanda Bergeron, I was shaking and sobbing. My daughters and I danced around the living room. It was a life changing moment for all of us.
13--What’s your favorite genre to read?
Fantasy & romance because I can’t pick one.
14--What’s your favorite movie?
Oh. I’m stressed. Just one? Off the top: A Walk to Remember
15--What is your favorite season?
Summer. Always summer.
16--How do you like to celebrate your birthday?
Food should be involved. My children and family. Ice cream cake for sure. Simple.
17--What’s a recent tv show/movie/book/podcast you highly recommend?
I’m a rewatch girl, but I really loved My Life with the Walter boys. For my book club last month, we read The Art of Scandal by Regina Black, and it was so good.
18--What’s your favorite type of cuisine?
Mexican cuisine
19--What do you do when you have free time?
play video games, crochet, read, hang with my teens.
20--What can readers expect from you next?
After A Love Like the Sun comes out, I’ll be working on edits for my book releasing in 2025 and writing something new in the hopes that I can sell it too.
Lifelong best friends spend a fateful summer discovering what might happen if they were to be something more in this radiant, heart-clenching adult debut.
Laniah Thompson is a homebody who craves privacy. Issac Jordan is internet famous and spends his days followed by paparazzi. She runs a small business with her mom in her hometown. He runs an international brand.
And they’ve been best friends since childhood.
When Issac comes home to Providence for the first time in months and discovers Laniah’s dream is slipping out of reach as she and her mom struggle to pay the bills at Wildly Green, their natural hair store, she refuses to take a dime from him. And so, he does what any self-respecting best friend would do: tells the world they’re dating.
Suddenly business is booming, and Laniah agrees to his ridiculous plan to pretend to be lovers for the course of the summer. Just long enough to catch the eye of an investor and get her dream back on track, like she helped him do so many years ago, he reminds her.
Too soon, though, Laniah knows she’s playing with fire, because for as long as they’ve been friends there’s an undeniable pull they’ve never given in to. And as the lines between art and life—real and pretend—blur, it becomes harder and harder to see where friendship ends and something else begins....
Told over the course of three sizzling summer months, A Love Like the Sun is about shared history, those who make us our bravest selves, and love in its many forms.
Women's Fiction Friendship | Romance [Berkley, On Sale: June 11, 2024, Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9780593640494 / eISBN: 9780593640500]
Riss M. Neilson is a magna cum laude graduate of Rhode Island College, where she won the English department's Jean Garrigue Award, which was judged by novelist Nick White. Her debut young adult novel, Deep in Providence, was a 2022 finalist for the New England Book Awards, and her forthcoming novel I’m Not Supposed to be in the Dark is set to publish in 2023. She is from Providence and lives for the city’s art and culture scene. When she’s not writing, she’s watching anime or playing video games with her two children. A Love Like the Sun is her adult debut.
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