My Way to You by Lyndell Williams @laylawriteslove #RLFblog #NewRelease #contemporaryromance

Lyndell Williams, welcome to Romance Lives Forever. I’m Kayelle Allen, author and owner of this blog. Happy to have you here! Please tell us about your book.

My Way to You by Lyndell Williams

Genre contemporary romance

Book heat level (based on movie ratings):

Lawyer Simon Young is smart, confident, and adept at keeping things with women casual—until he meets his best friend Marcus’s sister, Regina. Immediately intrigued by Regina’s beauty, Simon becomes increasingly enthralled and ultimately risks his friendship to have her for himself.
Social justice writer and activist Regina Kent is usually cautious and savvy. Yet, unable to resist her attraction to the handsome Simon, she plunges into a torrid affair, knowing that she chances angering big brother and her less tolerant followers, many of whom will not accept that one of their most popular pro-Black bloggers is dating an Asian man.
As their clandestine romance evolves, Simon and Regina fall deeper in love. Making sure that things stay between them becomes progressively impossible, and neither knows how much longer they can keep Marcus in the dark and the world at bay.
Why did you write this book?

I had a few reasons for writing My Way to You, the primary one being that I wanted to write a romance centering what I gleaned as the increasing lines of solidarity between Blacks and Asians in the country. I also wanted to highlight the growing Black Woman-Asian Man (BWAM) subculture, where members of two social groups deemed less desirable are learning to appreciate each other as love matches.
Black women and Asian men have to tackle with a contrived lack of appeal stemming from stereotypes masculinizing one and feminizing the other. My Way to You and other romances centering BWAM love interests pushes back against that and offers representation for couples in similar relationships as well as interracial couples in general.
What is your favorite genre to read?
Oh, romance, romance, and then—romance. I became hooked on it as a teenager and never looked back. When I was presented with a choice of genre to study for my master’s thesis, I selected romance. I think the genre is integral to revealing and influencing how people navigate a quintessential human emotion eros love.
Who is your favorite character from fiction (not including your own)?
My favorite fictional character is Sofia in The Color Purple by Alice Walker. She’s an amazingly-strong character that shows the layers of racism and sexism that Black American women encounter from Black men as well as White men and women.
Sofia constantly fights against people’s attempts to degrade and dehumanize her. She paid for her quest for dignity and humanity with her physical well-being and liberty, which is also in jeopardy for real Black women daring to do the same. Even though she was crushed by society, her spirit wasn’t. Her raising like a phoenix from the ashes after years of torment is the profoundest moment in literary history.
What are you working on at the moment?
I have a couple of projects that require different styles of writing. I am working on Sweet Love, Bitter Fruit, book two of the Brothers in Law romance series. The story features Marcus and Toni from My Way to You (book one) and their struggles to keep their perfect marriage from falling apart.
I am also writing an essay about African American Muslim romance to be added to an anthology on American Muslim popular culture as well as a short story for an American Muslim story collection. Although it can be demanding, I love the different directions my writing takes me.
What books will we see from you in coming months?
I plan to have books two and three of the Brothers in Law series ready for readers to dive into.
Hopefully, readers will get to enjoy Sweet Love, Bitter Fruit in early 2019. After that, there will be Building on Broken Dreams (book three), my first Muslim romance in the series. It features a steamy interracial couple—Adam Kane and Maryam Avery—as they build a beautiful life together that is threatened to be torn down by Maryam’s past.

Where to buy My Way to You

Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Lyndell–Williams/e/B07FQTMRCG
Layla Writes Love (signed copies) https://laylawriteslove.com/merch/

Lyndell Williams Social Media

Lyndell Williams (Layla Abdullah-Poulos) has a B.A. in Historical Studies and Literature, M.A. in Liberal Studies, and an AC in Women and Gender Studies. She presently teaches history as an adjunct instructor.
Williams a cultural critic with a background in literary criticism specializing in romance. She is the managing editor of the NbA Muslims blog on Patheos and a cultural contributor for Radio Islam USA.
Blog https://laylawriteslove.com/
Twitter https://twitter.com/laylawriteslove
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/laylawriteslove
Pinterest https://www.pinterest.com/abdullahpoulos/lyndell–williams–author/
Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/laylawriteslove
Amazon Author Page http://amazon.com/author/laylawriteslove
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/laylawriteslove