Lee Welch lives on top of a hill in the windiest city in the world: Wellington, New Zealand. She shares the house with her family, two cats, a dog and quite a lot of spiders. Lee studied ancient history at Auckland University and creative writing at Birkbeck, University of London. By day, she works as a writer for a large government department. By night, she writes escapist m/m romances, usually with magic in them.

Behind the Bio

Hi everyone, and thanks very much to Casey for inviting me here today!

When Casey put the call out for romance authors interested in talking about representation in romance, I leapt at the chance to come and talk about an issue dear to my heart: the representation of older characters.

So many romances feature characters in their twenties or thirties. In mainstream romance they generally have perfect abs and gleaming hair as well. But older people dream of love and passion—and find it too—and I get particular satisfaction from writing about older characters who bring a wealth of experience to their love stories.

My last book, a fantasy m/m romance (Seducing the Sorcerer), featured two men in their mid-forties. I loved writing this book because they were both middle-aged cynics. They both had pasts, positions in society, responsibilities, and long histories of certain kinds of relationships. They also had entrenched beliefs about the world and what sorts of things they could hope—or not hope—for. Other people in the book had certain expectations of them because of their ages too.

Of course, younger characters have pasts and positions and responsibilities too, not to mention entrenched beliefs, but they usually have less life experience. I really enjoyed playing around with the effects of long-term experience on my two characters. I think the book could have worked with younger characters, but not so well. One of the main themes of the story is hope vs hopelessness – and I felt I needed older characters to really bring that out, because maintaining hope under duress for 20 years is harder than maintaining it for two or three years. There’s a doggedness required.

Have you written any other books with older characters?

My contemporary novella Mended with Gold has an age-gap relationship: one character is 45 and the other is 26. That was an important book for me in terms of representation too, because I was keen not to make a fetish of the age gap. It’s there, and the characters acknowledge it and occasionally worry about it. But they address it and in the end are pretty matter of fact about it, which is how I think it should be.

A few quick personal questions – do you have any hobbies or special interests outside of writing?

I have a dog! She’s not a hobby, but she’s the reason I don’t have any. Bess is a border collie cross (pictured above), bred as a working dog for herding sheep. She’s so quick and keen to please it’s like she reads my mind. She’s surprisingly chill for a working dog, but she’s also got lots of energy. So we spend a lot of time out walking, mostly in the hills or the bush. My social media is basically pictures of Bess.

Plus we have two cats. The rest of my social media is pictures of them. I spend a fair bit of time sitting extremely still because I have a cat on me. Cats are very conducive to plotting novels, I find.

How do you unwind after a stressful day?

I take Bess out. She’s so happy it’s infectious, plus I always feel more relaxed after a walk. 

Then, if it’s been a really hard day, I encourage Turple, our big cat, to lie on top of me. He’s very heavy and has a great purr. Nothing’s more comforting than lying underneath a big, soft, warm, gently rumbling cat.

What is a piece of writing advice you’ve gotten that was actually helpful?

Find your own creative process and stick to it.

I like this because it’s empowering. It acknowledges that no one way is right. Lots of writing advice is well-meaning, but only works for people with a particular kind of imagination. The secret to finding your own process is to try lots of different things – experiment! Be free! Follow your actual interests and inclinations (not what other people think you should be interested in or do).

What’s next up for you? 

I’m writing another fantasy m/m romance about magicians falling in love. Ironically, having just talked about the importance of older characters in romance, both characters in this book are in their twenties. 

But this book is very different – it’s about mistakes, magical and otherwise, and how we navigate them. It’s also about learning that achieving a dream doesn’t necessarily bring happiness, and I think that’s a lesson more likely to be learned by a younger person. 

But it’s a romance as well, because I do believe that finding true love with the right person is one of the surest ways to long-term contentment.

Lastly, favorite book of the moment?

I gotta choose two, and series at that. First, I know I’m late to the party but I’m loving Martha Wells’ Murderbot Diaries. I just read the fifth in the series and can’t wait to get to the next one.

Second, I went on a Nghi Vo bender recently and read everything she’s written. The Empress of Salt and Fortune series is tremendous. I loved her alt-Great Gatsby book the Chosen and the Beautiful too. I’m telling everyone to read that.

Seducing the Sorcerer

Homeless and jobless, Fenn Todd has nearly run out of hope. All he has left is his longing for horses and the strength of his own two hands. But when he’s cheated into accepting a very ugly sackcloth horse, he’s catapulted into a world of magic, politics and desire. 

Fenn’s invited to stay at the black tower, home of the most terrifying man in the realm: Morgrim, the court sorcerer. Morgrim has a reputation as a scheming villain, but he seems surprisingly charming—and sexy—and Fenn falls hard for him.

However, nothing is as it seems and everyone at the tower is lying about something. Beset by evil hexes, violent political intrigue and a horse that eats eiderdowns, Fenn must make the hardest choices of his life.

Can a plain man like Fenn ever find true love with a scheming sorcerer?

Content Warnings: graphic sex scenes including consensual rough sex/spanking/humiliation; kidnapping (named character is tied up and gagged); gun violence (gun is held to a named character’s head); death by crushing (non-named character); mention of suicide.

(Pictured: art of Morgrim and Fenn from Seducing the Sorcerer.)

Where you can find Lee:

Website + newsletter sign up: https://leewelchwriter.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/leewelchwriter

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leewelchwriter

Bluesky: leewelchwriter@bsky.social

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/wwwgoodreadscomlee_welch