Elena Armas & Sophie Irwin With Ayman: A Conversation

Elena Armas is the author of The Spanish Love Deception: A Novel, a self-confessed hopeless romantic, and a book hoarder. After years devouring HEAs and talking – OK fine, yelling – nonstop about them, she’s taken the leap and decided to create her own. Rosie Graham, the main character in The American Roommate Experiment: A Novel (Atria Books), has a problem. A few, actually. She just quit her well-paid job to focus on her secret career as a romance writer, hasn’t told her family, and now has terrible writer’s block. Then, the ceiling of her New York apartment crumbles on her. She has her best friend Lina’s spare key while she’s out of town but then finds that Lina has already lent her apartment to her cousin, Lucas. Rosie has been stalking Lucas on Instagram for the last few months. He seems intent on coming to her rescue, has a distracting grin, an irresistible accent, and he cooks. Lucas lets Rosie stay with him – and then he proposes an experiment to bring back her literary muse and meet her deadline: He’ll take her on a series of experimental dates meant to jump-start her romantic inspiration. Rosie has nothing to lose. So, why not?

Sophie Irwin grew up in Dorset, England, and later worked in publishing in London. In A Lady’s Guide to Fortune-Hunting: A Novel (Pamela Dorman Books), Irwin’s debut, Kitty Talbot needs a fortune. Or rather, she needs a husband who has a fortune. Left with her father’s massive debts, she has only 12 weeks to save her family from ruin. Never one to back down from a challenge, Kitty leaves home and heads toward the most dangerous battleground in all of England: the London season. Kitty may be neither accomplished nor especially genteel, but she is utterly single-minded; imbued with cunning and ingenuity, she knows that risk is just part of the game. The only thing she doesn’t anticipate is Lord Radcliffe. The worldly Radcliffe sees Kitty for the mercenary fortune-hunter that she is and is determined to scotch her plans at all costs – until their parrying takes an entirely different turn.