AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT: Lilly Mirren, USA Today Best-Selling Author

Hello, Readers, and welcome to the November 2021 edition of AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT. As always, I strive to bring a wide variety of authors and genres to my blog. I enjoy getting to know these interesting people, and I hope you enjoy it, too.

Anyone who knows me well knows that my favorite pastime is sitting on a beach with good friends or family, music playing on my iPod, and a good book in hand. Sometimes when I dip my toes into the warm sand with a book, I prefer the comfort of a beloved familiar author, while other times I love the excitement of cracking open a brand-new author I’ve never read.

This wasn’t always the case for me. If it wasn’t a book by Mary Higgins Clark, John Grisham, Katherine Spencer, or Robin Cook–just to name a few of my all-time favorite authors–I wasn’t always interested in reading it. Thank goodness, though, I’ve opened my mind to the wild adventures that new authors can take me on. If there’s one thing I hope readers will take away from today’s blog, it’s that you’ll never regret embarking on a new sense of adventure by searching out and trying authors you’ve never heard of. Trust me, there are many quality authors out there just waiting for you to discover them and their work.

Recently, a new author has taken me into the murky depths of Lake Michigan in search of sunken buried treasures. Another new author whisked me away into the whirlwind of a new love set to the backdrop of a wild hurricane adventure. Yet another author took me into an 80-story high-rise building that showed up unexpectedly in a small town overnight, and brought with it a spooky, sinister presence. Another took me on a harrowing journey where we only had thirteen days to live unless the protagonist could find a way to miraculously save the day. Last, I’m currently in a bizarre world where the rosy cheeked and jolly Santa we all know doesn’t exist. Instead, he has brown, pointed teeth, razor-sharp claws, and sneaks down the chimney bringing not presents but nightmares galore.

What a strange assortment of reads in a two-week period, you might be thinking. Yes…yes it is! That’s the glorious thing about submerging yourself in a novel. You can be wrapped in a love story one day and a nerve-tingling thriller the next. Floating through the heavens with majestic angels one day and fighting space aliens the next. In a wintry Christmas cabin in front of a crackling fire with a glass of wine one day and on a warm beach with a frozen concoction cuddled with the person who makes your heart go pitter patter the next. Through the pages of our books, we have the ability to transcend the doldrums of our ordinary days and go any place, any time, with anyone our hearts desire.

Today, I’m happy to bring you a spectacular author that I’m grateful to have recently discovered.

Lilly Mirren is a USA Today Best-Selling Author who pens cozy beach reads such as: the WARATAH INN series, the EMERALD COVE series, and the HOME SWEET HOME series. She lives in a coastal area in Brisbane, Australia with her husband and three children. In short, if you like sun-drenched beach reads, you will definitely want to run to Amazon today and pick up one of her amazing novels.

It was a pleasure spending time visiting such a talented and friendly person, so it’s with great excitement that I bring you USA TODAY BEST-SELLING AUTHOR Lilly Mirren.

Brett: According to my count, and correct me if I’m wrong, you have twelve published novels with one soon-to-be published later this year. I started writing and publishing my own novels later in life, though I’ve always enjoyed writing. When did the writing bug sink its teeth into Lilly Mirren’s life?

Lilly: I wanted to write when I was a kid, but I couldn’t find my voice or what I wanted to say. When I went to university, I enrolled in journalism thinking that was the direction my writing would take. But I hated studying journalism and realized I wouldn’t enjoy chasing down stories either. So, I changed course and ended up in Information Technology, working as a Knowledge Manager. I spent a decade in this industry, and the only writing I did was strategy documents and the occasional poem. One day, I went into my boss’s office, where I worked at a communications consulting company, and she told me she’d read my latest strategy, and I was the best writer in the entire company. That gave me a bit of a shock. It wasn’t long after that, I tried my hand at writing and even though I didn’t know how to craft a story, I worked on improving that skill and have been a full-time professional author now for five years.

Brett: As a wife and mother to three children as well as being a busy author, I can’t imagine how you balance real life with your writing life. When do you do most of your writing? Do you write daily, and if so, what are your daily writing goals (a chapter a day, or so many words per day?)

Lilly: Writing is my full-time job, so I write when the kids are at school. When I started out, I was working part-time and still had young children at home, so that was much harder. During that time, I wrote at night, after everyone was in bed. I try to write about 3k words when I’m writing. But I take breaks between books to do admin work, marketing, plotting, and editing.

Brett: I’m landlocked in southern United States and must drive hours to get to the nearest ocean, so other than mysteries and psychological thrillers, sun-drenched beach reads are my favorite ways to “get away” from real life. Why did you choose beach themes as the setting for your books? Do you live in a coastal area?

Lilly: Most Australians live in a coastal area, it’s really just a part of Aussie life. I live about a hour away from the beach, but we visit all the time. My parents are only ten minutes from the ocean, so we love staying with them. It’s like having a free vacation home that comes with babysitters!

THE WARATAH INN is set in a tiny beachside hamlet called, Cabarita. It’s close to where my parents live, and only about half an hour from where I grew up. It’s a gorgeous little town, with an amazing beach and a headland you can hike up to look out over the ocean. We love to take fish and chips up there and watch the sun set.

Brett: Are there any other genres you’d ever like to branch into at some point in the future in your writing career, or is the beach time the niche you’ll stay in forever?

Lilly: My new release, Beyond the Crushing Waves, is historical fiction. So, I’ll be releasing books in contemporary fiction and historical fiction under this pen name – not all will be beachy. I also have a sweet romance pen name that I’m not currently actively publishing under. And someday I hope to write thrillers under a separate pen name as well, although I don’t have immediate plans for that.

Brett: My first foray into your writing was a couple months ago when I picked up your novel SEASIDE MANOR BED AND BREAKFAST from one of the many ebook services to which I subscribe, not only as a reader but also to promote my own novels. I love these ebook services because they introduce the voracious reader in me to authors I may not have otherwise discovered. I enjoyed the book so much, I’m now halfway through COTTAGE ON OCEANVIEW LANE, both in your Emerald Cove series. I had a chuckle moment in COTTAGE ON OCEANVIEW LANE when your character Taylor muses about having lost her favorite pair of sunglasses. I chuckled because this happens to me all the time. When I was younger and not as smart, I thought I needed a pair of three-hundred-dollar sunglasses, so I bought them and DIDN’T EVEN MAKE IT OUT OF THE MALL BEFORE I LOST THEM! I literally never got to wear them other than when I tried them on before buying them. It wasn’t funny as an eighteen-year-old kid, but I can see the humor(ish) in it now. Since you included this scene in the book, I have to ask if losing sunglasses is a thing for you, too, or is it just me?

Lilly: That’s definitely a piece of me in my character. I lose or break sunglasses constantly, my husband and I joke about it all the time. It’s why I can’t ever have a nice pair.

Brett: When you’re not busy pounding away at another chapter on your keyboard, what do you enjoy doing in your spare time (and by spare time, I mean when you’re not finding your husband’s car keys and chasing after three kids.)

Lilly: It’s a funny thing when your hobby becomes your job. I used to have a lot of hobbies, pre-children, like rock-climbing, backpacking, horse riding, travelling and so on. But now, I mostly like to take walks in the bush or along the beach, spend time with friends, or kayak. We’ve recently taken up four-wheel driving, and we love to bash around on one of the many idyllic sand islands along the Queensland coast.

Brett: If I were to fuel up the private jet that I don’t own and fly across the Pacific Ocean to Brisbane, Australia to join the Mirren family for dinner, what would be on the menu? For dessert, I’ll bring my individual-sized lemon tarts with homemade lemon curd and topped with fresh whipped cream.

Lilly: We love variety at our house, so we eat things like tacos, lasagna, bolognaise, chicken soup, steak and veggies, curry, stir-fry, sushi, meat or chicken pie. We’re open to almost anything, and the kids love the variety as well.

Brett: What is your favorite thing about writing novels? What is your least favorite thing?

Lilly: I love starting a new story… I hate editing it.

Brett: Give us a short description of your working space. Is there anything you must have to flow in the creative process? When you take a minute to look out the nearest window, what do you see?

Lilly: I’m one of those lucky people who can work anywhere with any amount of noise or distraction. But because of my health and posture, I try to work at my desk in my office these days. And I use an ergonomic keyboard.

Brett: You are a USA TODAY Best-Selling Author. As an author, I can only imagine how amazing it would feel to have your work recognized on such an international level. What was your first book to be recognized as “best-selling?” How did you find out you were on this list? How did you celebrate such an accomplishment?

Lilly: It was an amazing feeling. It was definitely a dream of mine to hit a bestseller list. When I released THE WARATAH INN, it seemed to really resonate with people. By the time I released the third book in that series a few months later, THE SUMMER SISTERS made the USA Today bestseller list simply because of read-through from the first two books in the form of pre-orders. I sincerely didn’t think it would make the list, but got up in the morning, ran down to my office in my pjs to check anyway. And there it was – I cried and raced around the house trying to tell everyone. Of course, they didn’t understand what I was going on about, but it was a very special moment for me. I had a bottle of champagne in the cupboard that I’d been given by my employer when I resigned and had kept for the first time I made a bestseller list. So, I popped it and celebrated with friends.

Brett: If you were given the opportunity to have one of your novels turned into a movie, which would it be?

Lilly: I’d love to see THE WARATAH INN series as a movie. Readers tell me all the time they wish the series could be made into a film. It would be another dream come true to see something like that happen to one of my books.

Brett: I rarely use a friend or family member’s name in my books. I like to choose names for my characters that no one in my real life has that name. Have you ever used the name of a friend or family member for one of your characters? Have you ever based a character off a real-life person or situation?

Lilly: Most of the names I use aren’t connected to anyone I know. However, there are friends’ names in some of my books. For example, in THE SUMMER SISTERS, the protagonist is named after a childhood friend – Bindi. Also, in COTTAGE ON OCEANVIEW LANE, Meg is named after another of my childhood friends.

Brett: Who is your favorite author(s), and what are you currently reading:

Lilly: My favourite author at the moment, is Kristin Hannah. Her books are so amazing, and really evocative. However, they’re also intense, so I tend to read them interspersed with other types of books in a variety of genres. I recently finished reading “A Gentleman in Moscow,” by Amor Towles, and loved it – so beautifully written. I’m currently reading, “Big Little Lies” by Liane Moriarty, a fellow Aussie, and am truly enjoying the storyline and characters.

Brett: If you could spend an entire weekend doing nothing but binging your favorite television shows/movies, what would they be?

Lilly: My favourite TV show of all time is “The Gilmore Girls”. I’ve watched that series many times. A great Australian show I also love is “Seachange,” and it’s very similar in style to my books. It carries a similar theme too, of leaving behind the city life for a seachange – downsizing to move to a small beachside town.

Brett: If you could co-write a book with a famous author, whom would that be?

Lilly: Kristin Hannah, of course. I’m sure she’s going to call me up any moment now. Just waiting by the phone.

Brett: As a reader, I’ve never been fond of ebooks, but in the past year I’ve developed an appreciation for them. What is your favorite format when you have time to read a book (ebook, physical book, audiobook)?

Lilly: I always read ebooks now on my kindle. I love that I can pack my kindle and have multiple books with me wherever I go. They’re so easy to hold and to read as well. Plus, it’s waterproof, just in case my wine glass slips.

Brett: You released a new book in October and another releases in December 2021. Tell us about them.

Lilly: Beyond the Crashing Waves released on October 12, 2021, and An Emerald Cove Christmas releases on December 1, 2021

BEYOND THE CRUSHING WAVES is an historical fiction book based on real-life events of forced child migration from the UK to Australia in the 1950s. It’s amazing how few people actually know about the way British children from orphanages or poor homes, were sent to colonies all over the world and forced into farm labour from a very early age. This book follows two fictional children to a farm school in Australia and explores the themes of loss, grief and finding a home wherever you land.

AN EMERALD COVE CHRISTMAS is the final book in the Emerald Cove series and takes readers back to the Cove for a heartwarming Christmas celebration with the Flannigan family. The family has changed, with divorce, marriage, new pets, and new homes, so it’s a challenge for them to manage all the personalities and conflicts, but they’ll find a way.

Brett: Lilly, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy wife/mother/author life to be a guest on my AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT blog. It was an honor to talk to you today, and it’s my hope that this blog will introduce you to my readers who may not have had the opportunity to read your work, as well as be entertaining to the many readers who love you. I’ve enjoyed the book and a half that I’ve read so far, and I look forward to catching the rest of them soon.  

Lilly enjoys hearing from her readers. If you’d like to contact her, you can do so through her website by clicking this link: https://www.lillymirren.com/contact. If you subscribe to the newsletter on her website, you’ll get a free bonus scene from THE WARATAH INN and also be notified of upcoming releases.

You can also follow her on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/authorlillymirren

Lilly’s newest release, BEYOND THE CRUSHING WAVES is available on Amazon, by clicking here: https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Crushing-Waves-emotional-page-turner-ebook/dp/B099ZYXP59

Her upcoming release, AN EMERALD COVE CHRISTMAS, releases December 1, 2021, and can be purchased here: https://www.amazon.com/Emerald-Cove-Christmas-ultimate-feel-good-ebook/dp/B08PFD7853

If you’d like to check out Brett’s novels, you can click here: https://www.amazon.com/Brett-Nelson/e/B08D2C1YSC