What’s better than being high school sweethearts who grew up and got married? Why, being high school sweethearts who grew up, got married, and went on to write more than 10 romance novels for teens and adults. That’s the story behind power writing duo Emily Wibberley & Austin Siegemun-Broka, whose latest novel, Heiress Takes All, is a heist adventure story that takes place during the main character’s father’s wedding. She Reads is honored to present a Q&A with the authors to celebrate the release of Heiress Takes All.

Heiress Takes It All by Emily Wibberley & Austin Siegemund-Broka

Olivia is acclimated to living a life of the finer things, growing up on a beautiful estate with no shortage of things to do and guests to entertain. Years later, her father is remarrying and Olivia is welcomed back to the estate and life of wealth during the wedding, but she wants more. Burned from her father’s past treatment of her and her mother, Oliva launches the perfect plan to steal back her inheritance during the wedding. With the help of her friends, the plan is nearly perfect, until she discovers she isn’t the only one after the money.

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She Reads: Why do you write – what drives you to create & share stories through writing?

Emily Wibberley & Austin Siegemund-Broka: It’s a shared love. For as long as we’ve known each other—from our friendship into dating and now marriage—we’ve enjoyed sharing everything we love about our favorite books, movies, TV, video games, and narrative in every form. Independently, we’ve enjoyed studying story, whether in English classes or dinner-table discussions of why our favorite works “work.”

The opportunity to use those skills and craft stories of our own is something we’ve each always wanted to pursue. The opportunity to do it together is a dream come true. Together, we use writing to capture the joys of our life and our favorite stories—drawing inspiration from our own romance in our YA and adult books, and trying to entertain each other with high-stakes, high-drama, high-fun.

What does your writing process look like as you co-write your books?

EW & ASB: It’s changed over the years! We used to write everything in one room, working from a meticulous outline, offering and discussing sentences out loud to craft each scene. Of course, the process was very slow and often very exhausting, and led to plenty of creative fights.

We’ve changed now to a process where we rely on our respective skills and favorite parts of the process to craft each manuscript in layers. Emily, who excels at plotting and dialogue, formulates a rough or fast draft. Austin fleshes out the outline into the prose. Each of us edits from there until the work shares our vision.

Can you share one of your favorite moments from Heiress Takes All?

EW & ASB: We have to talk about Kevin Webber. Olivia’s unlikeliest ally is a cheerful trust-fund bro who doesn’t start out as one of Olivia’s heist crew members—and in fact, annoys her deeply. Until, in one of our favorite scenes, in which Olivia must ransom Kevin for information from his loathsome lawyer father, Kevin does a little negotiating of his own and earns himself a place in Olivia’s crew. Why? He just really wants a group of friends, and Olivia’s looks cool. Kevin comes to prove his loyalty and his heart of gold, and he’s one of our favorite ways Heiress combines heist stakes with the hijinks and humor we love writing.

How did this book come about – what inspired it?

EW & ASB: While we love YA and adult contemporary romance, another long standing love of ours as readers and viewers are high-concept, fast-paced adventures. We wanted to find a way to put everything we loved about writing rom-coms—the relatable, lovably imperfect characters, the humor, the swoons and romantic tension—into one of those heart-pounding adventures.

For Heiress, we first had the idea of a heist at a wedding, and then our desire to infuse the story with everything we loved about contemporary romance led us to develop it into an underestimated girl who pulls a heist at her nasty father’s wedding while contending with the interruptions of her charming ex. From there, we developed Olivia’s voice and mindset further to capture the psychology of a young generation determined to strike their mark in response to challenges that past generations have left them.

What is something about the book that you’re really excited for readers to reach?

EW & ASB: We’re really proud of the ending twist(s). Twists don’t figure into writing contemporary romances like our previous novels, and we had Heiress’s ending paradigm shift in mind from the very start of our conception and outlining of the plot. We’re very proud of it, and delighted whenever readers say they didn’t see it coming!

Do you have any advice for aspiring authors who may want to co-write a novel?

EW & ASB: Find someone who shares your favorite inspirations, favorite things to read or watch, and someone whose work you genuinely admire—and to whom you’re not afraid to say no, or who you’re not afraid will say no to you. Every step of writing fiction, from the initial idea to the plotting, drafting, editing, and next-step questions like sequels or new genres, involves lots of rough drafts, unfinished ideas, wrong directions and recalibrations. It’s imperative to work with someone you trust and who trusts you, so that when one of you feels the other’s idea isn’t finished yet, you can collaborate on continuing forward instead of withdrawing into hurt feelings or defensiveness.

Can you share 1-3 recent favorite reads, and what you loved about them?

None Shall Sleep by Ellie Marney is the YA The Silence of the Lambs we never knew we needed. The characters are instantly compelling and the twists are oh-so-good. Another recent favorite is The Last Love Song by Kalie Holford, which has gorgeous prose and a sweepingly romantic dual-timeline romances inspired by Mamma Mia. Finally, Thieves’ Gambit by Kayvion Lewis is a non-stop adrenaline ride from start to finish. We can’t wait for the sequel

Is there anything else you’d like to add?

EW & ASB: Years into our writing career, Heiress Takes All is truly one of the most fun books we’ve ever had the pleasure to collaborate on. We hope readers find it as fun as we did!