Author Interview with Elizabeth O’Roark

Today author Elizabeth O’Roark joins me for an exclusive interview where we chat all about A Deal with the Devil. It’s a spicy romance story that I’ve been seeing all over bookstagram, and I cannot wait to chat with Elizabeth!

Elizabeth, welcome! Tell us more about A Deal with the Devil.

A Deal with the Devil is the story of Hayes, a world-weary Hollywood plastic surgeon, and Tali, his temporary assistant filling in for her closest friend. Tali wants nothing to do with the heavy-drinking, commitment-phobic Hayes, but she slowly comes to see an entirely different side of him and starts falling for him against her better judgment.

What was your favorite part of writing the character Hayes Flynn?

Writing Hayes was so much fun, especially in the early chapters, because he’s awful and doing his best to act like the douche Tali thinks he is. I loved having a character who’d just say the worst possible things all the time.

What inspired you to tell the story of A Deal with the Devil?

Honestly, it was the show Lucifer. I loved that the main character was so obnoxious and yet so broken and sweet underneath it. It was the easiest book I ever wrote because I already felt like I knew Hayes so well.

Is there one chapter you can’t wait for readers to read?

I love so many scenes in that book, but if I had to pick one, it would probably be when Tali is posing as Hayes’ girlfriend while meeting his awful father and stepmother…and begins to realize that Hayes may have liked her all along.

How long did it take you to craft A Deal with the Devil?

It was the fastest first draft I ever wrote. I finished the bulk of it in about a week but spent the next YEAR tinkering with it, changing the characters’ goals and motivations, and cleaning it up. I even stopped in the middle and wrote a vampire trilogy and then came back to it.

Walk us through a day in your life when writing. Do you wake up early? Outline? Write in the afternoon?

I generally get up around six, procrastinate, then just pick up wherever I left off the night before, either writing or editing. I might leave it for an hour or so to exercise or go to the store, but then I keep working until my kids are home and again from about ten until midnight after they’re in bed. I don’t really outline—I just kick out a very rough version of the story and then read it again and again and note the places where it needs something extra. By the time a book is done, I’ve read it so often I never want to see it again.

Did you always want to be an author?

Yes! Always. That’s why self-publishing is so amazing. When I was in college, the odds of getting published were like the odds of winning the lottery. It was just a wildly impractical aspiration. Self-publishing allows anyone to give it a shot, and also to improve as they go. Getting feedback from romance fans as opposed to a very picky publishing house gave me the confidence to keep trying.

What’s your favorite part of writing?

I love that it lets me read the book I would like to be reading. Like, during the pandemic, I was missing Hawaii and wanted to read a romance set in my favorite places there, so I wrote one (The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea). I was craving a bickering workplace romance, but I wanted the heroine to be a total badass, so I wrote that (The Devil You Know).

When can readers expect more books from you?

I have at least two (and probably more) books coming out in the same world as The Summer We Fell. The Summer I Saved You (Caleb’s story) will come out in September, and Beck’s book (which I don’t have a title for yet) will come out in January.

Anything else you want to add before I let you go?

If anyone is an aspiring writer, don’t put it off for twenty years like I did, LOL. I can’t tell you how much I wish I’d started writing in college.

Be sure to comment below any questions you have for Elizabeth! Let us know what you thought of today’s author interview! See more author interviews on my website here as well.