Goodreads asked R.M. Stock:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

R.M. Stock LEO & LILY comes out March 31, but I've been working on it for quite a few years. The story started with Leo. I just had this vision of a golden-haired, gorgeous guy with a shiner and a missing tooth walking down the streets of mid-summer Manhattan. I wanted to get to know that guy, so I built him a backstory, from which I wrote the story.

Also - it feels important to share that when I started this story, there weren't a lot of LGBT characters in the YA/NA supernatural/fantasy space. The gay characters were almost never protagonists, and I just felt like, "Why can't this kid save the world while he's figuring out his sexual orientation?" Leo coming to terms with who he is - as a human, as a brother, as a son, as a friend, and as a lover - is really important to the storyline. I thank people like Cassandra Clare and V.E. Schwab, who have written some awesome, complicated LGBT characters.

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