Welcome to my weekly Author Spotlight. I’ve asked a bunch of my author friends to answer a set of interview questions, and to share their latest work.
Today: A.B Julian is an M/M Romance author and the creative force behind A.B Julian Books, Inc. Known for If I Met You First… and Hated: Care No More, they bring a deep academic background in Forensic Psychology and Education to every emotionally resonant story.
Currently residing on the East Coast with three demanding cats, A.B Julian spends their days in the world of academia and their nights crafting high-heat, captivating novels.
A.B Julian Books, Inc. is dedicated to providing high-quality romance across all formats; many popular titles are also available as professional audiobooks on Audible.
Thanks so much, A.B., for joining me!
JSC: How would you describe your writing style/genre?
ABJ: I write high-stakes, emotionally intense MM romance with a nonnegotiable promise of a Happily Ever After, though my characters usually have to bleed for it.
I don’t do effortless fairy tales. For me, romance is at its most powerful when it collides with harsh realities and deep personal struggle. A great example is my book, The Silent Hate, set against the brutal hockey culture of 2012 Winnipeg. My leads were fighting an uphill battle from day one: navigating rampant prejudice, facing the systemic racism experienced by an Indigenous player, and surviving an era in professional sports where being openly gay could easily turn you into a permanent healthy scratch (an uninjured player on the active roster who is left out of the game-day lineup by the coach’s choice.).
There were moments during plotting where I genuinely wondered how they were going to make it out in one piece. But that friction is exactly where the magic happens. I’d describe my style as unflinching, deeply character-driven, and emotionally gritty. If my characters get their happy ending, it’s because they fought tooth and nail for every single inch of it.
JSC: What was your first published work? Tell me a little about it.
ABJ: My debut was a YA romance called First Crush, published on June 10, 2016. It was a story built entirely on fragile trust and brutal betrayal. My main character, Sam, was being ostracized and bullied at school by his own friend group, who believed he had betrayed them. Isolated and miserable, he finds an unexpected protector in the second lead, Kevin. The twist? Sam had no idea that Kevin was the one who orchestrated the bullying in the first place.
Looking back, it proves that high-angst, emotionally fraught MM romance was running through my veins right from the beginning.
I’ve since pulled the book from the market, primarily because my catalog has evolved. First Crush was a sweet, non-explicit young adult romance, whereas my audience today come to my books expecting serious heat, mature themes, and intense adult relationships. I didn’t want a new reader stumbling across my very first baby and thinking that tame style represented what I write now.
If I could go back, my biggest piece of advice to my younger self would have been simple: never underestimate how much your readers are going to want the smut.
JSC: Are you a plotter or a pantser?
ABJ: I’d say I’m about 60% pantser and 40% plotter. Every single one of my books ignites in full pantser mode, but once the flame catches, a deliberate plot line eventually takes the wheel.
Some of my most popular books like If I Met You First and Hated: Care No More were driven almost entirely by the seat of my pants, letting raw character impulses steer the journey. But lately, my process has evolved into a tighter hybrid.
A great example is The Debt of Hate. It started with nothing more than a single, burning scene in my head. George had been a secondary character in I Hate You a football left tackle who participated in the bullying alongside Michael, but confessed at the end to having targeted a boy named Santiago who ultimately fled the school. That unresolved guilt sparked the premise: an electric confrontation years later in college, where George faces Santiago again to attempt an apology.
The moment that scene clicked, the entire structural outline poured out of me. I locked in the roadmap and followed it step-by-step tracking Santiago’s calculated revenge on George, the heavy dynamic of BDSM, and the painstaking, fraught process of building trust in an enemy who once destroyed you. Having that framework made drafting far smoother.
My current projects continue to embrace that balance: let the gut-level discovery happen on the fly first, and then build the structural tracks so the train can run full steam ahead.
JSC: What tools do you feel are must-haves for writers?
ABJ: For me, the single most indispensable tool isn’t software—it’s music. A pair of good headphones and the exact right soundtrack to match the emotional pulse of a scene will unlock a writing frenzy every single time. Music sets the atmosphere; the words just follow the rhythm.
When it comes to hardware and apps, I’m zero percent romantic about fancy pens or leather-bound notebooks. It has to be a keyboard, but I’ve learned that the specific device doesn’t matter nearly as much as just capturing the lightning when it strikes. While my ideal setup is sitting at my laptop drafting directly into Scrivener, the writing muse rarely waits for optimal desk conditions.
I wrote the entire first draft of my novella, Revelling in Him, completely inside the Notes app on my phone. Break Me Never came to life tapping away in Google Docs on my mobile screen. Half the time, my “process” is frantically typing out whole chapters on my phone wherever I happen to be, then copy-pasting them into Scrivener later to polish and organize.
At the end of the day, fancy tools are secondary. When inspiration takes over, all you truly need is the right track playing in your ears and any open digital space to get the words down before they vanish.
JSC: How do you approach covers for your indie stories?
ABJ: I actually design and manipulate my own covers! I rely heavily on stock platforms like Depositphotos, combined with photo editing software, to composite the precise mood, lighting, and story elements living in my head.
One of my favorites that I created is for Shattered. The main character, Terrence, carries severe emotional and physical scars from an accidental fire in his teens. I designed the cover with a fractured, broken glass motif, meticulously adjusting lighting and shadow to evoke that dark, wounded vulnerability.
For The Silent Hate, the visual direction had to be exact. I licensed an incredible photo by Paul Henry Seers featuring the model Kristofer, who captured the physical presence of Thomas, my Indigenous lead, flawlessly. But because he wasn’t holding sports gear, I had to source a separate hockey stick asset and spend hours carefully compositing and blending it into Kristofer’s hands so it looked seamless and natural on the ice. The effort paid off; it came together beautifully.
While I love doing hands-on design, I also know when to bring in dedicated talent for specific vibes. For The Debt of Hate, I collaborated with the brilliant artist Alissa Ray Dark. She did an unbelievable job capturing the intense BDSM dynamic and the stark height contrast between George and Santiago.
Whether I’m blending multiple assets late into the night or partnering with a specialist, my goal is always the same: the cover has to immediately telegraph the raw emotional stakes waiting inside the pages.
JSC: What is your writing Kryptonite?
ABJ: Hands down: shiny new plot bunnies.
The moment I try to buckle down on a current draft and assign it a firm deadline, my brain immediately rebels. It slaps a giant mental label on the project that reads WORK and instantly whispers: “You know what sounds way more fun? Dropping everything to chase this brand-new, shiny story idea over here!”
It happens without fail. I was deep in the trenches trying to finish If I Didn’t Know Any Better, and my brain abruptly hijacked the session: “Okay, but what if a cruel prince ruined Christmas? What if the Grinch was a royally sadistic prince?” And just like that, the new premise took off.
Just yesterday, I was disciplined and focused, working through If You Stop Lying to Me, when out of nowhere, an irresistible plot for a gritty mafia romance barged in. I’ve never even written a mafia romance before, so you can imagine the sheer temptation to abandon my current manuscript and dive down that brand-new rabbit hole.
Discipline gets tested every single day. Keeping my hands on the wheel of the book I’m supposed to be writing while a dozen new plots clamor for my attention is definitely my biggest creative battle.
JSC: Name the book you like most among all you’ve written, and tell us why.
ABJ: Without hesitation, it’s I Hate You: An MM Bully Romance.
I am fiercely protective of this book. I have never put it on sale, and I’ve never offered it as a freebie. Well, with one exception. I was in Paris, floating in a great mood, and let my guard down enough to gift copies to two author friends. Even then, it felt like parting with a piece of my soul! I genuinely believe this story has to be earned; it’s an experience worth paying for.
I love Michael Mackenzie with everything in me. A reviewer once left a 1-star rant declaring that he is an absolute bastard; violent, abusive, casually cruel, and completely undeserving of being an MMC. Honestly? That review was pure gold to me. That reader paid Michael the highest compliment possible! It’s a bully romance. If someone thinks bullying exists in a vacuum separated from real cruelty, class disparity, and harsh verbal violence, they don’t understand real bullying. If a reader expects the bully in a dark romance to bring daisies and apologize by chapter three, my books aren’t for them.
Beyond Michael, the book is simply everything I personally crave as a reader. It was a massive labor of love: I started it in 2017 and didn’t publish it until 2024. Over those seven years, it was overhauled and rewritten repeatedly, an entire 50,000-word manuscript sits retired in my “obsolete” folder because it wasn’t hitting the mark yet.
It took years to mold it into the exact story I envisioned, and I am so grateful I refused to rush it. I Hate Youdeserved every ounce of patience, grit, and care it took to get right.
JSC: What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever done in the name of research?
ABJ: When I was writing Revelling in Him, my browser history went down an intense rabbit hole on the legal frameworks of sex work.
The story is set in a fictional state where prostitution is fully legal, and I wanted the worldbuilding to reflect that with absolute realism. That meant digging into the bureaucratic nuts and bolts: what legal protections would workers actually have? What safety protocols, healthcare mandates, and business structures would exist under genuine regulation?
The weirdest and frankly most eye-opening part of that deep dive, however, wasn’t just the logistical mechanics of the trade. It was researching whether I, as an author, was legally protected when writing about sex work in a positive, empowering light.
A lot of authors don’t realize that depending on local, national, or international obscenity statutes, certain themes in creative fiction can tread alarmingly close to real-world legal liabilities. Suddenly, my casual romance research evolved into analyzing penal codes and speech protections just to ensure my fictional world wouldn’t cause a legal headache. It definitely made me look at the boundaries of creative freedom with a whole new level of respect!
JSC: What does success mean to you?
ABJ: To me, success isn’t chasing an algorithm, an Amazon rank, or a fleeting banner. If you define success by moving goalposts, you’ll spend your whole career running and never feel like you’ve arrived. I look for success in the small, deeply human connections.
Success is when a complete stranger, someone who doesn’t know me at all, spends their hard-earned money, reads my book to the very last page, and takes a moment to leave their honest thoughts. When a reader truly sees the heart and nuances you poured into a story, that is the ultimate reward.
The United States is my biggest readership, and seeing reviews like the ones for If I Met You First means the world to me. One US reader broke down the enemies-to-lovers progression between Xander and Myles so thoughtfully, noting not just the steamy tension, but Myles’s emotional growth, watching him learn how to love and stand up to his father’s disapproval. That showed me they were truly invested in the characters’ souls, not just turning pages.
I love seeing that connection resonate internationally, too. Readers across the UK, Canada, and Germany picked up on the sharp class dynamics and manipulation in If I Met You First with a German reader even wishing it was 100 pages longer! And for Kiss Between the Roses, an Australian reader completely nailed the exact blend of gothic atmosphere, psychological suspense, and magical realism I strived to create.
Knowing that someone anywhere in the world picked up my words, felt every twist and emotional collision, and walked away entertained that is what true success means to me.
JSC: What are you working on now?
ABJ: Right now, my top priority is delivering two books that my readers have been waiting on with heroic patience.
I originally serialized both stories on Radish, releasing them one chapter at a time. I adored publishing that way and engaging with the community, but right when both manuscripts were sitting at about 75% complete, the platform shut down. It has been a year since that sudden blackout, and the cliffhangers have been eating away at everyone.
The first is Love Me Blind, the third installment in The Clan series. The previous book, Keep Me Safe, ended on a massive cliffhanger two years ago, and leaving readers hanging on that ledge when the platform went under was brutal. I’ve even had readers email me directly demanding answers and honestly, they are completely justified! I’m working hard to bring it across the finish line, and I promise it’s going to be the absolute best, most rewarding book of the entire series.
The second is If You Stop Lying to Me, the fourth book in The Right One series universe. The serialized readers were head-over-heels for this story and filled the comment sections every single week. It’s significantly closer to the end zone now, and my goal is to have it wrapped up and in readers’ hands in time for this Christmas.
After all the chaos and waiting, I cannot wait to finally give these characters and their loyal readers the endings they’ve fought so hard for.
And now for A.B.’s latets book: The Silent Hate: Winnipeg 2012:
An M/M High-Angst Hockey Bully Romance.
He was meant to break me. Now he’d burn down the league to keep me.
Blake:
I was born into hockey royalty, groomed to carry the Wilson legacy without a single crack in the armor. Every shift, every presser, every breath was calculated by my father to forge the NHL’s next great defenseman. Then came Thomas Desjarlais—a Cree phenom dominating the ice like it belonged to him. He stepped onto my rink, and I made it my mission to teach him the pecking order: break him, run him out, and protect my throne. But the harder I pushed, the more his cold defiance consumed me. What started as ruthless sabotage quickly spiraled into a dangerous, suffocating obsession I can no longer control.
Thomas:
Blake Wilson, the privileged, untouchable, and ruthless captain of our team, thought he could intimidate me off the game my people created. He told me to run back to the reserve or spend every day as his personal target practice. He didn’t realize he wasn’t the first bully to weaponize my heritage, and he sure as hell won’t be the last. I was raised knowing how to survive môniyâw like him. I took every brutal check, absorbed his malice, and threw it right back. But behind closed doors, our war twisted into something electric, dark, and lethal. He wants to own me—and God help me, I might just let him destroy us both.
The Silent Hate – Winnipeg 2012is a high-stakes, dark MM enemies-to-lovers hockey bully romance. It features an arrogant legacy captain, a fierce and resilient Indigenous center, brutal locker-room power dynamics, intense angst, and a hard-won, guaranteed HEA (Happily Ever After).
It is a STANDALONE read set in the Hate Love Story universe.