Kilby Q&A: 10 Things You Always Wanted to Know About “Adam Bomb” (But Were Afraid to Ask)

It's time for another installment of Kilby Q&A! This week, I answer ten questions about my award-winning gay romance novel, Adam Bomb! There’s always a story behind the story…

Q1: First things first: Adam Bomb is about a guy who can’t fall out of love with his best friend. Has that ever actually happened to you?

A: Ummm…kind of? I was best friends with a woman I later ended up in a relationship with. At the time we met, I was with someone else. Once he was out of the picture, there was room for me and her to get together, which felt pretty inevitable. In Adam Bomb, Levi is pining for Adam in a way I’m thankful I’ve never had to pine for anyone.

Q2: What’s so great about the best friends to lovers trope anyway? Is it your favorite trope to write?  

A: It’s very rare for me to write stories about a pair of strangers who meet and start dating like “normal” people (yes, those quotation marks were ironic). I definitely love mutual pining. I think that real people have all kinds of reasons for not acting on their attraction. Best friends to lovers stories are great for exploring what those reasons are.

Q3: So your heroes are named Levi and Adam. Can you describe them for us, physically? You know…not that we care whether they’re hot.

A: (Laughs). Well they are hot and I’d date both of them, ideally at the same time. Levi’s the one on the cover of the book. He’s got hazel eyes and a cropped beard and this really silky hair that kind of falls in front of his eyes and that he’s always pushing back so he can look through the view finder of his camera (he’s a photographer). Adam is an inch or two taller, so about six-foot-two. He’s also got dark hair and he vacillates between being clean shaven and letting it go until he has a little sexy stubble, but he also has a dimple that Levi really loves. Adam’s other distinctive feature are his golden eyes.

Q4: Can you say more about heritage? The two heroes in Adam Bomb have backgrounds that are seldom represented in romance. How did you come up with their characters? 

A: Levi’s parents are from Argentina, but Levi himself has never been to Argentina; that circumstance—as well as his South American identity—aligns to my own family ties. Adam’s parents are from Iran and his ethnicity is Persian Jewish. His family is loosely based on the family of a friend of mine. Being raised by driven, ambitious immigrant parents explains the parallels in some of their world views. But a lot of the tension between them comes from the inevitable encroachment of their class differences. Their dynamic is one I’ve personally lived. They’re dealing with some layered issues related to that.

Q5: Along those lines…you’re known for writing Contemporary Romance that includes some deeper themes. How do you manage realistic aspects of your characters that may bring angst to the table? How do you balance that with all the great feels and the romance?

A: There’s no high angst on the page. Actually, there are a lot of funny parts because Adam and Levi are best friends of twenty years, so they’re half-old married couple, half-bro banter and they really enjoy one another. The chemistry is really fun. Still, Levi is desperately trying to fall out of love with Adam and when he makes the unilateral decision to move to San Francisco, it forces both of them to talk about what it means for their friendship.  

Q6: Have you ever skipped town to get away from a lover? Or a best friend?

A: (Laughs). Can I plead the fifth? Alright, no, not exactly. But I’ve definitely had to create distance from certain people as an act of self-preservation. I’ve been in love with people who were not in love with me but who were hang-out-every-day kind of friends with me. At some point, it’s just not sustainable or healthy, emotionally. In Adam Bomb, Not only is Levi in love with Adam—Levi has been in love with Adam for ten years. When the story starts and Adam announces he’ll be there for an extended stay, it upsets the cocoon of psychological safety Levi has built. That’s where the title comes from: Adam Bomb.

Q7: So Adam Bomb means that Adam’s return is running, or, “bombing” Levi’s plan?

A: Yes, that’s the significance of the title. And I definitely like a good pun. Adam has a big personality and he has a tendency to disrupt. Levi has a tendency to get steamrolled by Adam. But it’s more nuanced than that—Adam isn’t a heartless, oblivious dick and Levi isn’t a shrinking violet. Like a lot of relationships, it’s complicated.

Q8: What was the trickiest part about writing Adam Bomb?

A: Sometimes, my writing is criticized for having characters who are “too rich” and for depicting worlds with too much privilege. That’s always a fine line for me to tread. The story is set in San Francisco, which is where I live. This is an area with a lot of money. New York is as well, and that’s another place I lived. I have lived the firsthand experience of Levi: I grew up in the middle class, but surrounded with people who have extreme wealth and I do a lot of jet-setting now that I’m older and have made my own money and built my own career. It makes some readers uncomfortable, but I really am writing worlds I know. A friend of mine from college is the heiress to a hotel empire. Another friend’s family owns the domestic airline in the country where she’s from Real people inherit lots of money and big things. They and the people around them have stories.