Author Q&A: Tosca Lee

Today we’re interviewing thriller and suspense author Tosca Lee.

Lee is the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of eleven novels including A Single Light, The Line Between, The Progeny, The Legend of Sheba, Iscariot, and the Books of Mortals series with New York Times bestseller Ted Dekker. Her work has been translated into seventeen languages and been optioned for TV and film.

A notorious night owl, she loves movies, playing football with her kids, and sending cheesy texts to her husband. You can find her on social media or hanging around the snack table.

SADYE: Which of your characters would you most and least like to trade places with?

TOSCA: Least is Wynter Roth, the main character of my most recent The Line Between/A Single Light duology, which released last year.

Why? Because she’s living through a pandemic. I’ve had enough of that this year, thank you! :D  

Most is maybe Emily Porter, the main character of The Progeny/Firstborn duology. Because she’s got powers of suggestion. I think that would be cool.  

SADYE: Which of your characters would you most like to become romantically involved with?

TOSCA: Hmm! Maybe Luka, because he reminds me an awful lot of my husband in so many ways.

I might have stolen a few things my husband says to me on occasion and given them to Luka in the story. ;)  

SADYE: What have been the most surprising, rewarding, and challenging parts of your writing career?  

TOSCA: Just realizing how much a story that you write can come to mean to someone.

How it can help them through a tough time, influence their thinking on certain things and become pivotal to their lives.

This is really humbling and amazing and it’s why I’m so honored to get to do this.

But also, I just love helping entertain and transport people for a while. We all need that—today more than ever.  

SADYE: What message or theme would you like readers to take away from your work?

TOSCA: That they’re not alone.

In my most recent books, especially, I include characters dealing with things like obsessive compulsive disorder (which I have), and other items that make them feel set apart and isolated.

I’m a big believer that we all have gifts, and that even those things we struggle with inform our particular form of genius and the unique lens with which we view the world.

But more than anything, I want people to know that they are not the only ones feeling anxious, weird, unlovable, or like they’re struggling.

SADYE: What advice, as relates to your writing career, would you give your younger self?  

TOSCA: Don’t wait to get published before you write the next thing. Keep writing while you’re trying to find that agent/editor/publisher. It’s never bad to have a bunch of work piled up and ready to get out there.

* * *

Learn more about Tosca Lee on her website, where her books can also be purchased; like her on Facebook; and follow her on Twitter and Instagram. 

Know an author you'd like to see featured? Email us with a recommendation!