Romance is the biggest selling genre worldwide and award winning author Ruth Long, in all her various incarnations as RF Long, Ruth Francis Long and Jessica Thorne, writes romance combined with fantasy - from parallel worlds to sci-fi space opera, for both young adults and adults. Discussing what romance is and why it's so popular, Sam Blake explores how Ruth develops character, the secrets of world building and what makes a successful book in this huge genre. Ruth outlines how important community is and how organisations like the Romantic Novelists’ Association can be of huge help in assisting authors build their career.

Ruth Frances Long writes young adult fantasy such as The Treachery of Beautiful Things (Dial, 2012) and The Dubh Linn trilogy set in the world of demons, angels and fairies that exists alongside our own in modern day Dublin (A Crack in Everything (O’Brien, 2014) , A Hollow in the Hills (O’Brien, 2015) and A Darkness at the End (O’Brien, 2016)  .

In 2015 she was the winner of The European Science Fiction Society Spirit of Dedication Award For Best Author of Children’s Science Fiction and Fantasy for A Crack in Everything.

As Jessica Thorne she writes fantasy and space opera romance – The Queen’s Wing (Bookouture, 2018) and The Stone’s Heart (Bookouture, 2019), and the forthcoming Mageborn (2020), the first of a new series called The Hollow King. 

As R. F. Long she writes fantasy & paranormal romance such as The Scroll Thief, Soul Fire and the Holtlands stories (The Wolf’s Sister, the Wolf’s Mate and Songs of the Wolf) which were originally published with Samhain publishing and which she recently re-released along with the full-length, final part of the series The Wolf’s Destiny.

She lives in Ireland and works in a library of rare, unusual & occasionally crazy books. But they don’t talk to her that often.

Find @RFLong on Twitter

Behind the Bestseller is part of the HeadStuff Podcast Network

Theme music by Tim Nerney