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Photos courtesy of Alexis Daria; Avon By Sofía Aguilar February 26, 2025 – 12:00 Alexis Daria is the award-winning and bestselling Puerto Rican author of six romance novels and several novellas and short stories, including the best-seller You Had Me At Hola . Throughout all of her work, the Bronx-based author explores family, secrets, old flames, past trauma, and the power of love in our lives. This May, she will be releasing her newest book and the highly-anticipated third installment of her Primas of Power series, Along Came Amor , which follows divorced schoolteacher Ava Rodriguez as she navigates her messy relationship with handsome hotelier Roman Vasquez after a one-night stand in the penthouse suite. In this book and others, Daria is passionate about showcasing how romance can offer a little bit of hope, optimism, and excitement, both for the characters and the readers. She’s been highly successful as a romance author, with her books winning multiple awards and honors, receiving starred reviews from Kirkus, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly , being highlighted in dozens of “best of” lists, and being chosen for multiple book club picks. It’s a success that has been no small feat considering the lack of Latinx representation in mainstream romance and the cultural stigma around the genre as a whole. But it’s a success that Daria is grateful for, especially in a genre that has meant so much to her. “The thing that I really love about the romance genre is really the only rule of the romance genre, which is that it ends with a happily ever after or a happily for now,” she tells HipLatina . “As a reader, that really works for me because I know that no matter what happens in the book, there’s going to be a satisfying ending. I’m not going to be blindsided by a potential romance between the main characters and somebody who doesn’t make it to the end of the book. It’s knowing that whatever journey they’re on, they’re going to sort it out by the end.” Daria grew up with a love for reading and books which has carried on into adulthood. Growing up in the Bronx, her mom filled her room with books from different genres ranging from biographies to mysteries. But her mom’s all-time favorite genre was romance. Sometimes, she would read aloud the funny parts of the book she was reading at that time to Daria, whose curiosity was aroused. Wanting to read more of the funny bits, Daria snuck a book from her mom’s collection, though she was quickly caught and told she was too young. Later when she was 15, she and a friend decided to spend the summer reading romance novels together. Her friend gave her novels by Nora Roberts and some Harlequin titles, famously known for their romance novels, and also took her to the Pelham Parkway Library in the Bronx and that’s when everything began. When she was a little older, Daria finally tried to try out writing herself. At first, she was writing more in the genres of fantasy, young adult, and paranormal and horror. But over time, she realized that she was most interested in her romance subplots rather than the bigger story, and she decided to try writing a novel that focused solely on romance. However, it was hard to ignore the elephant in the room, which was that many of the romance books that inspired her didn’t often center on Latinas/women of color especially the women she saw growing up in NYC. Stay connected! Subscribe now and get the latest on culture, empowerment, and more. SIGN ME UP! This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and Google Privacy Policy and the Terms of Service . Thank You! You are already subscribed to our newsletter “That was something that I really wanted to include in my books, but it wasn’t something I was seeing a whole lot of in the books that I was reading,” she explains. “Growing up in the Bronx in New York City and being part of not only a Puerto Rican family, but also a multicultural family, it was hard enough to find New York City stories that touched on what my experience because New York in literature is often not what it’s like for those of us who grew up here. So I wasn’t seeing different cultures or characters who were representative of my reality as I knew it. Not to say that none existed, but I hadn’t found them and it became important for me to the stories that I wish that I’d had growing up. That’s really what it’s about, trying to contribute in that way.” As she became more involved in the romance writing community, she was able to talk to other Latina romance authors who had the same or similar experiences like Annette Chavez Macias, Adriana Herrera, and Zoraida Cordova. They also wanted to write Latinx characters and infuse their different cultures into their books, so that readers might feel seen in these sweeping, romantic stories. They were able to form a group, which provided Daria a space to talk about how she was feeling. At the same time, writing romance can be complicated, no matter what kind of support network you have. Despite how fun it can be to read and how lighthearted it is compared to other genres, it isn’t always respected. Though it’s certainly improved over time, reading and writing romance is often looked down upon by prestigious institutions and non-romance readers, and carries a certain stigma that’s been hard to shake off. To the point that Daria used to put a book cover on whatever romance novel she was reading that day because she didn’t people to say anything about what she was reading on the train. When she worked at a bookstore, she didn’t talk about the romance books she was reading because she was afraid of their teasing – despite the fact that she worked in the romance department. But as Daria points out, the numbers don’t lie. “Romance is a publishing powerhouse. It makes money in the industry,” she says. “Unfortunately, I do think that the packaging of the book plays a role in people’s perceptions of it, which is silly because you have romantic movies that do super well and everybody goes to see. You would never say to someone like, ‘Oh, you want to be in love? How gross,’ so why should books about it be considered inferior? It’s a lingering mindset that we need to call out and stop repeating. For me, choosing to write romance is me saying, ‘I need to own this. I’m not embarrassed of it.’ I can’t act like I am when I tell people what I do because I don’t want to give them the opportunity to feel like they can say something negative about it to me.” When it comes to her writing process, Daria takes a fairly organized approach that starts off small until she has a fully formed story. First, she starts off with an idea or a jumping-off point that she writes down as a list in the Notes app on her phone. She keeps thinking about the idea and adding to the list, including scene snippets, until she can create a synopsis. From there, she delves into the preparation stage, which takes up the bulk of her time. In notebooks, she writes down everything she knows about the characters, their experiences, and different moments from their lives that have shaped them and can then be included in the story. After completing a first draft as quickly as she can, she spends another chunk of time revising, which is when the story begins to be refined and take better shape. “I read through the whole book. I create a scene map where I write down every chapter and what’s happening in that chapter. Then I make a to-do list where I write down everything that I want to do in the book and organize it by chapters or categories. If it’s a lot of work, I color-code it to mark if it’s related to the romance arc, if it’s about this main character or the other, if it’s about their family or their job, and those all have a different color. I also go through and add all the details I didn’t put in the first draft. In between, I try to recharge by reading and watching lots of TV and movies, so I can get in as much as I can in the little bit of time I have every day.” In any good romance novel, the chemistry and storyline of the main couple is foundational to the story and crucial to keeping readers engaged. The steamy romances only work when the characters themselves work. For Daria, creating romantic chemistry is all about character, character, character. “I do a lot of character work before I write the book. I think about who these people are, who they are before they land on page one, who they are before they meet, especially if they’ve met before, and their dynamic when they’re on the page together. I write lots of quick little exchanges that capture how they talk to each other, how they interact,” she says. “The key is to make sure that there’s tension and to think about why can’t these people be together, what’s keeping them apart, and why should they be together? Why are they perfect for each other?” Daria also considers their character arcs individually and together, who they are at the beginning, middle, and end. As she learned in a workshop run by English author Matt Haig ( Reasons to Stay Alive ), she demonstrates how every character is wearing a mask at the beginning of the story. Over time, they must let it go and be who they really are and the romance then can bloom authentically. “And there’s always that moment around the third act where they decide that change is too scary but it’s also where they’re getting closer and closer to everything that they want. They have to realize, ‘Actually, I’m not happy holding onto this mask anymore, I have to let it go. This is going to lead to me having everything that I want.’ Not just love, but having better relationships in your life, more success in your career, just living in the true essence of who you are. That’s the journey that I always think about for my characters in the book,” she explains. For Along Came Amor , Daria noticed that Ava was one of her toughest characters to write about because Ava didn’t know what she wanted out of life, or at least she was lying to herself about what she wanted and was refusing to do anything about it to change her circumstances. Enter Ramon, who understands her, is committed to his work, and is so supportive that it almost overwhelms Ava. He in turn needs to learn how to care for himself as much as he cares for others. Thus, their chemistry comes out of both of them learning to set boundaries and balance each other out, from Ava convincing herself that she can’t have him but also not being able to deny how safe and comfortable she is with him. “I think she’s extremely relatable and sympathetic,” Daria says. “She is that character who doesn’t have great boundaries with her family. She loves everyone, but she’s also at her wit’s end. She’s washing dishes at her own birthday party, she’s the one who shows up early and stays late to help with everybody else’s things. She’s also feeling really lonely even though she’s like completely surrounded by people all the time because she just feels like she can’t say how she really feels about anything. She has all this conflict within herself from her childhood and family, feelings of abandonment and unworthiness. She may be a little frustrating at times, but in a way that I think might be very familiar to people. And then she gets this fairy tale romance, which is what I really wanted for her.” Looking ahead, Daria has multiple exciting projects coming out this year. In addition to Along Came Amor releasing on May 27, she will be re-releasing her novel Dance With Me , the second installment of her Dance Off series and which has been out of print for several years, on September 16th. She also has a new novella, which she wrote in five days, that is projected to come out this year as well. In everything that she does, she wants to fill a gap in the romance landscape that is seeminly getting smaller and connect with readers who are searching for the same thing she did as a child, from visibility to comfort to safety. She notes: “I write very character-driven stories because I want readers to feel something as they follow them through the story. I want to write characters who make the reader reflect on things within themselves. A few people have told me things like, ‘This book healed something in me’ and that’s really powerful to me. That’s not what I’m trying to do when I write the books, but I’m trying to show the healing journey that the characters go on and hope that somebody who needs to see that will find it in my books.” In this Article alexis daria books books by latinas Featured latina Latina Author latina books romance romance books More on this topic Culture Love in the Time of Marianismo & How to Break the Cycle February 17, 2025 – 06:00 Culture 14 Romance Books by Latina Authors Coming Out in 2025 February 13, 2025 – 10:00 Culture 17 Must-Read Romance Novels from the Last Decade by Latinas February 12, 2025 – 10:16 Culture 17 Must-Watch Afro-Latinx Documentaries February 07, 2025 – 11:00
