Helen – HS Valley

What happens when your enemy becomes your friend ... with benefits?

Red, White & Royal Blue meets The Magicians in this surprising, wildly original and joyously funny LGBTQ YA novel set in a magical boarding school.

Tim Te Maro and Elliott Parker - classmates at Fox Glacier High School for the Magically Adept - have never gotten along.

But when they both get dumped the day before the big egg-baby assignment, they reluctantly decide to ditch their exes and work together.

When the two boys start to bond over their magically enchanted egg-baby, they realise that beneath their animosity is something like friendship ... or physical attraction.

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About the Author

H.S. Valley grew up on the Waitemata Harbour in Auckland, at the foot of Takarunga. She now lives near the Waitakere Ranges with her partner.

She has a bachelor's degree in design and a diploma in teaching and is using both simultaneously to teach teenagers how to have good taste.

She won the Ampersand Prize for her debut YA novel, Tim Te Maro and the Subterranean Heartsick Blues. She likes hot drinks in cool mugs, nature, fruit and driving the hell out of Auckland any chance she gets.

Her life long ambition was to marry rich and retire at 30. She failed, so now works a full time while also writing books and trying desperately to keep 176 houseplants alive. The best thing about being an author, she says, is getting paid and immediately spending all the money on plants and dresses and lego. The worst thing is people continuously asking her if she’s excited. (Spoiler: she isn’t, she hasn’t excited in years, it feels too much like hard work).

About the Author

H.S. Valley grew up on the Waitemata Harbour in Auckland, at the foot of Takarunga. She now lives near the Waitakere Ranges with her partner.

She has a bachelor's degree in design and a diploma in teaching and is using both simultaneously to teach teenagers how to have good taste.

A few questions for the author

Ok. You wrote a book, you must be so excited! Not really. It took ages. It’s all very weird.

I can’t find your book anywhere! It’s currently not readily available outside of New Zealand and Australia. Eventually other places might buy it. In the meantime, for paper books, try bookdepository.com, and for ebooks, use the Google Play store, or Kobo, or (in the US) Barnes & Noble.

Who’s your favourite author? Alexis Hall.

That’s not YA! No, is definitely is not.

So why are you writing YA? It was accidental? I used The Ampersand Prize submission date as a deadline to see if I could finish something and it got a bit out of hand.

Are you going to keep writing YA? I’ll do another one or two, I think. Maybe three. I have three and a half ideas.

Is H.S. Valley your real name? Not really. The H is real.

Why not? Because I’m a teacher and half my students are too young to read Tim’s book, so I can’t tell them anything about it.

Are you on social media? So far only Instagram and Goodreads.

Why aren’t you on facebook? Because facebook is horrible.

Are you Maori? Yes.

Are you bisexual? Yes. Fervently.

But you’re not a guy! I know. I double-checked.

So why are you writing about guys?

Internalised sexism (damn the patriarchy
Bi boys are currently in need of more representation than bi girls
Guys often get raised to hide their emotions and I think that’s trash. Let ‘em out.

Any advice for new writers? Yes. Read a lot of very good books. Then write a ton of fanfiction. Repeat steps one and two until your own writing doesn’t make you hurl. Fanfiction will also help you give zero shits about reviews, which is cool. And it’s free to play.