Leila Thorne

God where do I even begin? The basics. I’m 30, married with two kids, one of whom is only six weeks old. I have an English Blue Staffy called Luna who is the laziest little thing.

The deeper stuff. I went to uni and became a qualified lawyer only to never practice law. My professional career has seen me jump around so much I basically have no career. I get bored far too easily to stick to one thing.

I have both a chronic illness and an auto immune disorder that makes shit hard sometimes whether that’s showing up as my best self, parenting or just simply existing. But I do anyway because sometimes you just have to.

What country do you live in?

I’m based in Melbourne, Australia.

What does your ideal writing set up look like?

I could sit here and picture some moody set up next to shelves filled with books, a fireplace and heaps of natural light but my reality is far less aesthetically pleasing. It’s either sitting in bed in the middle of the night like I am right now while the house sleeps, sitting on my couch or sitting under the pergola. In each location my laptop rests on my lap while I sit with the worst possible posture.

Do you plot or wing-it when it comes to planning out your books?

I have done both. My first book I completely made it up as I went along. I had a vague idea in my mind and let the words flow depending on where my mind took said idea. I ended up rewriting the first 80,000 words of that book 3 times until it was nothing like that original idea.

Now my process has changed significantly. Now I get an idea for either a story or more often than not it’s for the character. I write it down in my little notes app then sit on it and let it percolate in the back of my mind adding to that note in my phone anytime a good idea pops up for either the character or plot.

Then I sit down and write a rough outline using a couple dot points of what each chapter is going to contain. Once that’s done I just write. Sometimes I have to go back and adjust that outline because I have changed things about the story as I’ve written it but that’s part of the fun.

What is the hardest part of writing for you & how do you combat that?

Motivation. Consistency has been the key to solving that issue for me. I’ve stopped waiting for inspiration to strike and that’s where that outline has helped tremendously. Not I force myself to whip out my laptop to write something. It could be a sentence, a paragraph or maybe it ends up being a few pages. I don’t have some unattainable goal of a particular wordcount. I tried that and it left me feeling like a failure always falling short of it. But if your expectation is the bare minimum then you’ll always exceed it. The outline gives me a place to start and end even when I’m not feeling particularly inspired.

Other than “Don’t give up/keep going”, what piece of advice would you tell yourself when you were first starting out?

I don’t have advice for myself but I do have advice for anyone else out there. Write what you want to read. Don’t get swept up in what you think readers would want to read. You started this journey as a reader yourself and if you would want to read something enough to write it, then someone else will resonate with it too. You can tell when a story is forced. Don’t do that to yourself because you also just won’t enjoy it.

Who is publishing your upcoming book(s) and how did you know they were the right fit for your story?

I’m self-publishing. I had to sit back and really assess what kind of person I am and whether I could handle the trad publishing process and the answer was no.

I am however toying with the idea of trying to traditionally publish a contemporary romance I have started working on after self-publishing my dark romance series. I may get to the end of writing it and decide to go it alone again but I feel like this one would probably be the most marketable to the masses. But we shall see.

Why did you choose the self-publishing route & what has that looked like for you?

A couple reasons for this. I have friends who have both self-published and trad published and the horror stories of my trad published girlies were enough to put me off. I’m talking books being pulled at the last minute after waiting years, being forced to change certain things in their stories and so much more.

Not only that, but I am both a control freak and incredibly impatient. I’m not waiting years to see my book out in the world when I can get it out by the end of the year. I don’t want to relinquish control of my story, the cover, the timeline. Any of it.

Recent / Upcoming release(s) & where we can get a copy:

When Darkness Reigns is available as an ebook on Kindle Unlimited.

People can get a signed paperback online via my website www.leilathorneauthor.com

Or unsigned via Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Booktopia, Dymocks, etc.

In person people can go to The Forbidden Chapter (VIC) or Tales & Tomes (QLD).

Upcoming releases will be Unyielding mid 2026 which is a Sapphic mafia romance novella which is the beginning of a new series for me.

What is your next big author goal moving forward?

I have so many! I think I would like to see my book in the top 100 of its category in Amazon. That would be cool.

What other authors would you recommend?

Saxon James, she’s an incredible mm romance author who is currently battling Leukemia while being the sole breadwinner for her family.

What cause/charity would you like to shout-out?

I also have someone in my personal life battling that same cancer so I would like to shout-out the Leukemia foundation.

www.leukaemia.org.au