Elba Luz is an accidental author. From childhood, she’s always been a lover of stories – whether in the form of anime, manga, video games, or, of course, books – yet she couldn’t quite figure out how her own story should be written. She tried her hand at becoming an illustrator but found her inability to remember color theory too much of a pain. She researched becoming a video game developer and found she’d much rather play them than make them. She studied astrophysics in college and realized her math skills needed a lot more work.
After a series of failures, she took solace in her books and was reminded how much she loved being in those specific worlds built by words on a page. She went from writing fanfiction with hundreds of thousands of hits to trying her hand at original ideas. After fumbling around, books became her steady ground – and she eventually landed on becoming an author.
Too afraid of earthquakes, she remains an East Coast girl through and through, working by day at a Big Five publishing house in New York, her world revolves around books daily. When she’s not writing or playing an RPG for the millionth time, she can be found cuddling with her adorable pit bull, Stormy, upholding her title as “Coolest Aunt” with her many nieces and nephews, or traveling down to Charleston, where she reads on the beach for hours. Elba writes romance for adults and teens, and her only hope is that people find her funny.
Legally Yours, Violet Lopez centers on a highly ambitious student who dreams of becoming a lawyer and defending people, even while navigating complicated feelings about the privileged world around her. What inspired you to create Violet and build a YA story around a teen legal society and disciplinary trials?
This story came from a book I had written but didn’t sell! At first, it was going to be more about Violet trying to get her father a date before going off to college. But when I thought more about Violet and started thinking about her motives and her personality, I knew she wanted bigger things for herself. She was the kind of girl who could do anything, and wanted to be the best at it, and for a teen, where can the most ambitious student go? So I thought of Harvard, her dream, and came up with Bell Haven, which is the high school equivalent. I loved Legally Blonde and Suits and wanted to create a world in which those high-stakes legalities could be used in a YA setting. To bump up the stakes, we have a teen who may or may not be being framed, and of course, he happens to be most beautiful guy in school. Violet loves law, she loves intelligence, and she loves to win—maybe because she feels like she’s lost too much in life. Having her in this society, facing her peers, means she’s confronting a life she both wants and is jealous of, and it was the perfect complexity the main character needed.
The book features an “opposites attract” dynamic between Violet and Theo Hudson, a charming but frustrating classmate she initially despises. What drew you to this enemies-to-lovers style of romance, and how did you develop their banter and tension?
I think enemies-to-lovers is such a fun pairing to work with. With Violet as the grumpy one and Theo as sunshine, their dynamic always has this fun push and pull even when they’re genuinely getting along. Theo is charming, but he can be self-centered, and Violet has to combat that pull toward his charm, as well as her genuine annoyance with not just him, but herself, when she’s reminded of his flaws but not able to completely pull away despite them. Theo, however, views Violet as both soft-hearted and incredibly stiff, and he loves to get under her skin to get her attention. Even when she’s berating him, he’s usually like, “Well, I’m just happy to be here.” I think what makes enemies-to-lovers special is that you have to really move past people’s flaws to fall for them, and it’s all the sweeter to fall in love with someone who has seen you at your worst and wants to be with you, not in spite of it, but because of it, and all that you are.
Violet begins the story with a clear life plan—becoming valedictorian, attending Harvard, and supporting her father—but the case against Theo challenges both her ethics and emotions. How did you approach writing a character whose strong ambitions are tested by unexpected feelings and moral dilemmas?
For me, Violet was so interesting to write because she can be completely selfless in some ways, and yet that selflessness actually makes her selfish. She wishes to get ahead in life, to become successful and take care of her father, and that in itself is beautiful. But when you anchor yourself to one goal, to helping one person, even if it’s because of genuine love, does that free you from any damage you may do to others? Life is hard, and inevitably we hurt people, and Violet does so in the book. But I think what’s more important in the grand scheme of things is what you do when you’re faced with your own actions. When you look in the mirror and realize, morally, you’ve done something wrong and hurt people you’ve come to care about, do you ignore it and keep moving toward your goals? Do you apologize? Do you feel genuine regret and want to be better? I think leading with your heart is always the right answer. Violet’s heart is so big, it was kind of painful to put her into this situation. Her father has always come first, but she has to think long and hard about how she wants to look back on the path she took to get to where she wants to go, and decide if she wants to confront her feelings and let her moral compass lead, or let her ambition guide her. For Violet, she’s constantly fighting against ambition and heart. And as I wrote, I put her in situations that let her decide what was more important to her.
A key element of the story is the legal “trial” within the school, where Violet considers manipulating evidence and witnesses for revenge and money. What was your process for creating those courtroom-style scenes and making them feel both dramatic and believable for a YA setting?
I rewatched Suits and Legally Blonde so much that, genuinely, I could probably quote them both word for word. Courtrooms and legal implications have such an intense, but clean, kind of tension. You’re not physically coming to blows, but you have to be conniving. Violet is cunning, she knows it’s cutthroat during any case. So I always wrote with this in mind, having Violet believe that once you’re in the courtroom, it doesn’t matter if it’s simply a case of vandalism, being late three times in a row, or a prank gone wrong—each case is as intense as if your life could genuinely change if a client (student) was found guilty. I wanted it to feel like even if it’s just getting kicked off a team, getting detention, or getting suspended, in the grand scheme of things, are those things major? Not always. But to teens living through it, yes, it’s life-altering!
As a Puerto Rican author who loves storytelling across different media—from books to anime and video games—did any of those influences shape the tone, humor, or character dynamics in Legally Yours, Violet Lopez?
Yes! The relationship between Violet and her father isn’t exactly like my own, but my father always used to bring me treats or say the strangest jokes to try to get a laugh, along with coming from Puerto Rico, teaching himself English, and getting a job, that was all inspired by my dad, too!
As for anime and video games, when I was a teen, I loved this anime, Special A, where the two top students fight for the number one spot, and the girl is desperate to be the very best, while the guy is absolutely smitten with her and she’s so oblivious. It was genuinely so funny. And, this is so far away from what I write, but I study Dragon Age for its dialogue whenever I draft. It’s an RPG, and the characters have their own distinct personalities, goals, relationships, and constant great banter. I think those writers are so brilliant at having a single line of dialogue say so much about a character. I really admire them.
At its heart, the novel explores themes of ambition, integrity, and seeing past first impressions. What do you hope readers take away from Violet’s journey by the time they reach the final verdict of the story?
I would love it if people who read, if they are more Violet’s peers, would try to look at people in their lives who might not have as much as them and be more empathetic to their worlds. To realize that some people have to work so hard to get even a fraction of what other people inherit at birth. And I’d love it if the people who saw themselves in Violet learned to take it a little easier as they go through life. To take breaks and realize that they, too, deserve to be cared for in the way that Violet cares for the people in her life so deeply, she forgets to take care of herself. And I hope that people grappling with ambition and integrity realize that love should be stronger than anything else, and we should all be better to each other. Maybe then it’ll be easier to reach our goals.
INTERVIEW: YA SH3LF