1--What is the title of your latest release?
THE GENTLEMAN AND HIS VOWSMITH
2--What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?
Nic is heir to a declining dukedom and has to marry money to save his name from ruin. Unfortunately, his arranged bride is the daughter of his father’s hated rivals, and to negotiate the contract they are coming to stay for a few weeks in the grand tumbling down mansion. You’d think it couldn’t get worse, but their head negotiator is Master Vowsmith Dashiell sa Vare, an old flame Nic has neither forgiven nor forgotten. Now they’re going to be locked in the house together, and this really isn’t the time for forbidden love. Especially once the murders start.
3--How did you decide where your book was going to take place?
Initially this book actually took place in a secondary fantasy world with regency flavor, but when it was bought by Saga and TorUK, my editors suggested shifting it into the actual regency. So now it’s set in an alternate version of regency England that has magic, and I’m super pleased it is because I’ve always loved regency novels and getting to play with an alternate world and think about what changes this kind of magic would make to society has been fun.
4--Would you hang out with your protagonist in real life?
Absolutely! Nic is a lot of fun, he reads travelogues because he can’t travel, builds magical little clockwork creations because he’s lonely and likes the challenge, and drinks and sleeps around. Would happily sit and talk about how hot Dashiell looks with his leg up on one knee too.
5--What are three words that describe your protagonist?
Stubborn, romantic, dreamer
6--What’s something you learned while writing this book?
That writing a book that is both a queer romance and a murder mystery (and gothic fantasy!) is a much bigger ask than I originally thought. It’s fine when one of those things is just an added flavor, but when you’re writing something that has both an entire romance structure and an entire murder mystery structure, and having to balance the two—that’s a big ask actually! Thankfully, I do love a challenge, and I loved this book every step of the way.
7--Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done?
That depends on the book, but usually I tend to write all the way to the end and just make notes about editing changes, because if I go back and edit the moment I realize something needs to change and then keep going, chances are there will be more things I have to change and I’ll have to go back again. Finishing the whole draft first allows me to get a full picture of the whole story I’m trying to tell before fixing everything up.
8--What’s your favorite foodie indulgence?
I’m a green tea human, so I love trying new kinds of green tea and different blends, even just throughout my workday.
9--Describe your writing space/office!
I have a dedicated office full of bookshelves and plants and far too many crafting materials. The main desk can lift into a standing desk, but I never stand, and I have three screens but one is almost always just showing the tennis these days. And because I live in the middle of the bush in Australia, sometimes I glance out the window to see kangaroos and wallabies hopping by. It’s very peaceful.
10--Who is an author you admire?
So many! Terry Pratchett and Georgette Heyer were my eternally admired early influences, but of late Cat Sebastian has become my go-to author. I love the heart and depth she carves for her queer romances, and how easy she makes it look and read.
11--Is there a book that changed your life?
While it’s not one I would actually recommend at all, the books that changed the trajectory of my writing career were The Belgariad Series by David Eddings. I read them at 15-16 years old and they threw me obsessively into fantasy as a genre so hard that I’ve only recently started writing things that don’t fall under the fantasy umbrella.
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.
This one is a funny answer for me, because I started out self-publishing as Devin Madson and then one day out of blue I got an email from an editor at Orbit US, Nivia Evans, who was writing to see if I’d gotten her first email, which I hadn’t! I thought it was a weird hoax at first, but no, somehow the email saying she was interested in considering buying my books for Orbit had just gone missing. That they were considering it meant I needed to find myself an agent after that, so I did everything a bit backwards. After eight books together, Nivia Evans moved from Orbit to Saga, and then bought this book under my new pen name, just to keep the wild story going.
13--What’s your favorite genre to read?
I’m very much a romance reader. Doesn’t matter what sub-genre it sits in, whether its fantasy romance, regency romance, contemporary romance, or even fantasy with a romantic sub-plot—romance (or the promise/hope of it) is the motor that keeps me turning pages every time. I do occasionally read fiction books that don’t have any romance in them though, when I look for very deep characters, and I love non-fiction too.
14--What’s your favorite movie?
I don’t watch a lot because I don’t have time for them, but when I rewatch favorites it’s usually either Lord of the Rings, Interstellar, Brokeback Mountain, or Emma.
15--What is your favorite season?
Late Spring into Summer, absolutely. I’m a lizard person who needs warmth and sunshine to survive. Winter is the bane of my existence, although as an Australian, what I think of as winter is probably not that cold to most people.
16--How do you like to celebrate your birthday?
The last couple of years I’ve been too busy working to do anything but have some cake, but the ideal would be reading on the couch, going plant shopping, maybe hanging out and building some Lego with my family and then having cake. Maybe I’ll try to make that happen this year.
17--What’s a recent tv show/movie/book/podcast you highly recommend?
I thoroughly enjoyed both TV shows I watched in the last six months! The Decameron, a darkly humorous character-driven wild ride focused on a group of people camping out in a country villa to avoid the black plague. And Break Point, which is an up-close and personal documentary series about tennis players, which I watched for research purposes but was extremely addictive actually.
18--What’s your favorite type of cuisine?
I’m one of those strange people who has no great interest in food, who eats to live rather than lives to eat, but if we were going out for dinner and I had to choose something, I would say Chinese food!
19--What do you do when you have free time?
Free time is super rare for me because I always have so many writing projects on the go, am in the last year of a Bachelor of Arts degree and am a parent, but when I do, I read, I watch tennis, and tend to my growing forest of indoor plants.
20--What can readers expect from you next?
As Rebecca Ide, definitely more magical regency gothicky queer romances! As Devin Madson, more twisty political fantasy novels with dragons and a side of bad-idea romance. There are other projects in the works, too, mostly romances of other kinds, though I don’t yet know what’s happening with them so I can’t say when you’ll see them.
A young lord, his intended bride, and his former lover become unlikely allies as they race to solve a deadly conspiracy in this queer historical fantasy of magic, murder, and steamy encounters.
Lord Nicholas Monterris is trapped. The only heir to a declining dukedom, Nic is destined for a marriage of convenience. What he doesn’t expect is for his bride to be Lady Leaf Serral, daughter of his father’s hated rival.
Tradition dictates the families are confined together while the marriage contract is crafted, which should be the worst part. Until Nic learns the Serrals’ head negotiator is master vowsmith Dashiell sa Vare—beautiful, perfect Dashiell sa Vare—an old flame he has neither forgiven nor forgotten. Nic’s only defense is false smiles and too much wine.
When a dead body turns up, tension within the castle thickens. The first death is brushed off as an unfortunate accident, but a second reveals something sinister is unfolding at Monterris Court. As accusations fly and long-buried secrets surface, Nic must work with his former lover and his future bride to uncover a devious mastermind before they claim another victim.
LGBTQ | Fantasy Historical [S&S/Saga Press, On Sale: April 15, 2025, Trade Paperback / e-Book , ISBN: 9781668070932 / eISBN: 9781668070949]
Rebecca Ide is the pen name of Devin Madson, the Aurealis Award–winning author of In Shadows We Fall, as well as The Reborn series and The Shattered Kingdom series. Having given up on reality she is now a dual-wielding rogue with a lot of points sunk into stealth and lock picking skills.
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