Today marks the debut of our new author interview series with an interview between our Editor-in-Chief, Rachel Kramer Bussel, and romance novelist Thien-Kim Lam, author of the contemporary romance novels Happy Endings and Full Exposure.
Thien-Kim Lam also offers book coaching services for BIPOC fiction writers and is the founder of sex toy and romance subscription box company Bawdy Bookworms. During this wide-ranging interivew, they discussed how Thien-Kim got started reading and writing romance, writing diverse characters and interracial relationships, how she founded a sex toy and romance pairing company, her work consulting with BIPOC fiction writers, and her advice for aspiring romance novelists.
Selected interview excerpts; answers have been edited and condensed.
On becoming a romance novelist after being a romance reader:
As I was reading more romances, yes, they were more inclusive, but I wasn’t seeing myself. I didn’t see any Vietnamese American characters, or even a lot of Asian characters in contemporary romance. I didn’t know about Jeanne Lin, who writes historical romance; I didn’t know about her until much later. I just wanted to see people like me falling in love.
I would say 90% of the literature out there that is about or written by Vietnamese Americans has something to do with trauma from the Vietnam War. And we’re 40 something years past that time. I think it’s important that we also share other stories. This is a very important part of my culture’s history in the U.S., but there’s my generation, right? Depending on how you count, I’m second generation, and I have children. So they’re not going to be affected by the same things. Their stories are so much different, like my story is different from my parents.
I was born and raised in Louisiana and I’m American, and I wanted to represent that in my books. I thought, I read romance, romance is fun. So I decided to stop complaining about the fact that there are no Vietnamese American characters in romances and try my hand at one. That’s really the impetus.
I had to teach myself how to write a romance. I had to figure out what kind of romance is I wanted to write; it’s such a big genre. Because I’ve been in business for so long, I started thinking, how do I want to market myself as an author? At first I thought I wanted to write erotic romances, and while my stories do have spice in them, that’s not the type of story that I feel called to tell.
In my stories, I’m really exploring culture, how that affects, the characters’ decisions, what they train for in life. Not every Asian person is going to be a doctor; not every Asian person has family who disapproves of what they do. I really wanted to showcase the diaspora that hasn’t been represented in literature in general.
On including sex toys in her romance novels:
I think our society has kind of made people feel like there’s something wrong with them if they’re using a sex toy, or any kind of accessory, in the bedroom.
That’s what I wanted to dispel in the books. As an author, writing Happy Endings, I had a really fun time. I didn’t want to use any brand names. So I had a lot of fun making up names for the different toys. With Happy Endings and the familiar rabbit vibrator we all know from Sex and the City, I called a jack of all trades. I modeling some of the toys they use, and the toys that she sells ,after real toys. That part was really fun.
On reader responses to the sex in her romance novels:
I haven’t had anyone say, Oh, it’s too far. I think there’s one review on one of the book sites that said there was too much sex and sex toys in the book, which obviously there was a miscommunication somewhere [between] when they read the book blurb and read the book. But I actually had someone say that they were so excited that I included a masturbation scene for Trixie in Happy Ending. It’s actually the first love scene after she runs into her ex. She’s still attracted to him, but she knows that she doesn’t need to get back together with him. So what would any average horny woman do? Pull out a vibrator and take care of business. But in a much more fun way.
Happy Endings is available from Amazon and Bookshop.
Full Exposure is available from Amazon and Bookshop.