Christina Lauren is the combined pen name of longtime writing partners and best friends Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings, the New York Times, USA TODAY, and #1 internationally bestselling authors of the Beautiful and Wild Seasons series, Dating You/Hating You, Autoboyography, Love and Other Words, Roomies, Josh and Hazel’s Guide to Not Dating, My Favorite Half-Night Stand, and The Unhoneymooners. Their latest book Soulmate Equation is available now. You can find them online at ChristinaLaurenBooks.com, @ChristinaLauren on Instagram, or @ChristinaLauren on Twitter.
What’s the strangest thing you searched for on the internet for your novel?
For our 2022 book we had to research how far a body could fall off a cliff and still survive, haha! Trust us, we’re nice. But before that, lots of deep-sea fishing terms, what the interiors of sex clubs might look like, food poisoning and toxins in fish, and lots and lots of time spent on Google maps city-street level.
What book (or author) made you fall in love with the romance genre?
Both of us have been romance fans our entire lives – we were reading Danielle Steel and Harlequin romances probably long before we should have been. But the book that best captured the feeling we want our readers to have, and which made us want to write together, was Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins.
What is your favourite trope? Why?
We both love writing enemies to lovers—we always say our goal is to make each other laugh, and as terrible as it sounds, it’s easy to be funny when you can also be a little mean. But as far as favorite tropes to read goes, Christina loves reading surprise pregnancy, and Lo loves reading unrequited-crush/brother’s best friend stories.
It’s the morning after, and a lover is making your main character the perfect breakfast in bed. What is it?
French toast with real maple syrup and some really amazing fruit salad with mango and berries!
What book are you reading currently?
Christina: The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune. It’s so unique and lovely.
Lauren: I just finished True Story by Kate Reed Petty and it was fantastic. Now I’m reading an early copy of Bombshell by Sarah Maclean and it is spectacular. She always nails it.
The rapid-fire question: A blind date set up by your mom or asking out the cute person in the produce aisle.
Asking out the cutie in the produce aisle!
Want to dish about their new book The Soulmate Equation with us? Join our book club discussion on June 16 here.
Or join us for our live event Romance According to Christina Lauren on June 17th.
