Lauren Kristen Roberts
Author Interview - Lauren Kristen Roberts
Author of Gemini Divided
Everyone has secrets, but the skeletons in Jen’s closet are bigger than most: by day, she
writes fanfiction for her favorite TV show, Gemini Divided, but by night, she works as an
assassin to pay her mother’s chemotherapy bills. Her world tilts on its axis the day she is
assigned to kill Will Bryant—the handsome and charming star of Gemini Divided, and her
celebrity crush. What could Will have done to land on someone’s hit list?
The assignment gets Jen up close and personal with Will, who is just as kind in person as he is in the media coverage she obsesses over. When she stumbles onto the reason Will ended up as her target, she must make a life-altering choice: kill Will and keep her mother alive, or
save Will and put herself in danger, leaving no way to fund her mother’s treatments in the
future. She has to decide quickly, because in two days, the choice will be made for her.
Author Interview - Lauren Kristen Roberts
Author I draw inspiration from: Katherine Center
Author Interview - Lauren Kristen Roberts | Author I Draw Inspiration From
Favorite place to read a book: In my "office" (aka a desk in what was designed to be our dining room) in the early morning, before my family wakes up.
Book character I’d like to be stuck in an elevator with: Oh gosh, there's so many! I'll say Annie Cassidy from Waiting For Tom Hanks by Kerry Winfrey, because that's the book I just finished reading.
Author Interview - Lauren Kristen Roberts | Book Character I’d Like to be Stuck in an Elevator With
The moment I knew I wanted to become an author: I'm not one of those authors who always knew I wanted to write. It's actually a pretty winding path that led me there. Looking back now, the stars must have been aligned, because if any of 100 things had been different, it never would've happened.
I loved to write as a kid, but as I got older, I stopped - I don't remember why. After moving around every couple years growing up, including two years in Canada and a study abroad year in Denmark, for the longest time, I thought I would go into the US Foreign Service. That is, until I finished my MA in International Communication and discovered that even in the DC area, there were no jobs that would allow me to pay back my student loans that didn't require ten years of experience! So instead, I taught elementary school for almost ten years.
I'd moved a couple times for my husband's job and ended up in a new city where I knew no one (again), with three kids then under six years old. At the time, I was very into a particular TV show called Covert Affairs on USA Network. I happened to discover their fandom on Twitter, and I was lonely, so I jumped in with both feet. This resulted in my reading a LOT of Covert Affairs fanfic. That show ended, and my next fandom was Blindspot on NBC. Again, I read a ton of fanfic, and then I started writing it myself.
It sounds cheesy, but writing fanfic was what saved me back then. I was working part time from home, so I didn't have coworkers, I wasn't friends with any of my neighbors yet, and my schedule revolved around my three young kids. I was losing my mind. Writing was the only thing I had that was for me, and I suddenly remembered how much I loved it.
Seeing how much I loved writing fanfic, my husband encouraged me to write a book. It took him a while to convince me - I knew those fanfic characters really well, and I'd never come up with characters and a plot of my own before, so I didn't really know how to start. He suggested a general set of characters and a very rough idea of what could happen to them, and we brainstormed it together.
Still, it was hard to tear myself away from my comfort zone. Every day he'd ask me, "Did you work on your book today?" A lot of days I hadn't, but he kept asking me until my answer was always yes. After that, it was a relatively fast shift away from fanfic to my own characters, and he didn't have to push me anymore, because I was working on my book every chance I got.
So back to the question - I think I knew I wanted to be an author sometime around when I finished my first draft of Gemini Divided. It might have been sooner. All I know is, I was 41 at the time, and it was such a relief. For my whole adult life, I'd worked at jobs that weren't quite right for me, and finally I'd found what fit.
Hardback, paperback, ebook or audiobook: Paperback
The last book I read: I spoiled this above, but Waiting for Tom Hanks by Kerry Winfrey
Author Interview - Lauren Kristen Roberts | The Last Book I Read
Pen & paper or computer: Computer, though I find it very useful to print out my drafts and do some of my editing with a pen and paper
Book character I think I’d be best friends with: Samantha Casey from What You Wish For by Katherine Center
Author Interview - Lauren Kristen Roberts | Book Character I’d be Best Friends With
If I weren’t an author, I’d be a: I'd just be lost. I don't know what I'd be. I hope it never comes to that again. Nothing else has come close for me.
Favorite decade in fashion history: I'm not at all into fashion - there isn't one that stands out to me.
Place I’d most like to travel: So many places! At this moment, I'd love to be on a quiet beach in the South Pacific. My honeymoon was in Bora Bora, and while we were there, I took a picture of a small island surrounded by crystal blue water. I framed it and it's been somewhere I could look at it on a daily basis ever since - so seventeen years now. When I get stressed, I wish myself there. It hasn't worked, but I guess that's my ideal destination.
My signature drink: Fruity frozen daquiris
Favorite artist: I don't have a favorite artist, just favorite individual pieces of art.
Number one on my bucket list: Be able to support myself comfortably as a writer!
Anything else you'd like to add: Amusingly enough, because my mom went through chemo for breast cancer about fifteen years ago, the fact that my main character paid her mom's chemo bills by working as an assassin apparently made my mom's friends raise their eyebrows. I just want to let my mom's friends know that none of that is based on real life. I was not paying her chemo bills, have never worked as an assassin, and would never contemplate harming the stars of my favorite TV shows!
Find more from the author:
Twitter: @LaurenKRoberts
IG: @laurenkrobertsauthor
FB: @LaurenKristenRoberts
website: www.laurenkristenroberts.com
https://linktr.ee/laurenkristenroberts
Author Bio: Lauren Roberts is a recovering elementary school teacher. She writes books about stubbornly independent women whose lives have spun out of their control, helping them
land safely on their feet. After moving from city to city all her life, she settled in Northern Virginia with her husband, three kids, and their rescue dog, Thor—who is, ironically, afraid of thunder. Gemini Divided is her debut novel.
