Meet the Author: Rebecca Thorne

Photo credit: TwoComforts Photography

4 November 2025

Rebecca Thorne is a USA Today, Indie, and Sunday Times bestselling author, specialising in all things fantasy, sci-fi, and romance. When she isn’t writing (or avoiding writing), she’s either working as a flight attendant, or hiking with her lovely wife and their dogs.

Rebecca will be familiar to many Suffolk readers for her Tomes & Tea series. Rebecca’s latest book is This Gilded Abyss which is published by Tor on 20 November. You can also find Rebecca’s books on the Catalogul Bibliotecilor Comunitare Suffolk.

Were you surrounded by books as a child or did you visit a library?

I was absolutely surrounded by books! Both my parents loved to read, and always spent their evenings winding down with a good story in hand. Once we were old enough, my father would take us every Tuesday night to our local library. He used to have to put a limit on how many books my sister and I could check out! It’s one of my fondest memories of childhood. 🙂

Your journey to publication was not an easy one. You wrote 15 books before your breakthrough. What kept you going through all that disappointment?

I think that if you truly love writing—the act of crafting a story, fine-tuning what’s on paper so it matches the journey in your mind—everything relating to publishing is just noise. I wrote for fun from age 11 to age 22, and started pursuing traditional publishing in earnest by 23. Ten years later, I finally had my break-out book… but everything in between was just doing more of what I loved: writing!

I think if anyone is struggling to succeed, it helps to constantly better your craft. Read books on the craft of writing. Attend writer’s conferences. Talk to other writers. Learn about the publishing industry. I treated this as a second job, and because it was my passion, I knew I’d make it someday. It was just a question of when. Now, looking back, I’m glad it took so long; I’m a much better writer today because of that work I did in my twenties!

You have expressed your admiration for Tamora Pierce’s books in interviews. What is it about her work that you admire and draw on?

Tamora Pierce fascinated me, because before picking up her book series, I didn’t really think about companion books existing. If I read a series, it was always with the same characters, following the same story. Then, I picked up her Protector of the Small series, and realized she was alluding to a character I’d never met. After I read Alanna’s quartet, I was confounded—the idea of showing multiple stories in the same world, separated only by time and distance… that was a method of storytelling that I adored, even as a child!

Plus, she was the first person I’d found to write the realities of growing up. I really appreciated how Kel struggled to fit in, and how Alanna had to figure out what her period was, and how to handle that in a school for boys. Reading that at the same age was very impacting

Care este rutina ta de scris?

I try to aim for a certain word count per day, a leftover habit from National Novel Writing Month. Most days, I spend the morning answering emails and having my coffee, and then I’ll run a few “word wars,” where I join my Discord server, and we set a timer and compete to see who can write the most words in 20 minutes. (It’s a friendly competition, don’t worry!) I aim for about 2000 – 3000 words a day on the days that I write.

Something else I’ve done is section off a specific “writing” space. If I’m in my office, on my dual monitors, I’m either doing extensive work for my business (writing professionally isn’t all creative, after all), or I’m writing a book. Once I leave my office, my productivity drops drastically. LOL.

Readers in the UK immediately picked up on your Tomes & Tea series. How did the series come about and how did Kianthe and Reyna come to life for you?

I’m always really grateful for Kianthe and Reyna being my true debut characters—I couldn’t have picked a better pair to spend so much time with!

The Tomes & Tea series came about directly after I read Legends & Lattes, by Travis Baldree. I knew that cozy fantasy was coming like a freight train after learning that his self-published book was picked up for reprint by Tor. I thought that maybe if I wrote fast enough and well enough, and self-published my own version a month before Legends & Lattes’ re-release, I might be the Divergent to his Hunger Games.

Lucky for me, that worked!! LOL.

I was really fortunate, though, that cozy fantasy was something I was genuinely interested in. Tamora Pierce’s books always felt so cozy, really comfort reads for me. When Travis’s book changed publisher’s opinions on lower stakes and quieter stories, I was delighted to add my own. It was just a matter of sifting through my ever-growing pile of book ideas to find one that fit.

Kianthe and Reyna were originally innkeepers, managing a B&B at the edge of dragon country, and the book was supposed to be a series of vignettes about their strange guests—most of whom were thieves attempting to raid the dragons’ hordes. It was too quiet of a story when I first created it, but once the timing was right for the industry, I ran with it!

Your latest title in the UK is This Gilded AbyssNe poți spune câte ceva despre asta?

This Gilded Abyss was my thesis project for my masters degree, actually. At the time, I’d written two Tomes & Tea books, and was getting a bit… cozied out. I wanted to dive into something with extensive world building, interesting characters, and higher stakes. The plot of this book is following two women—a soldier and a princess—as they descend to an underwater city in a luxury submarine. (Think if the Titanic was a submersible!) Naturally, chaos befalls them when a disease starts turning the passengers violent. Trapped in the bottom of the ocean, threatened on all sides, they have to band together to survive!

My goal with this book was to show readers that I’m more than just a cozy author. I was afraid of being boxed into one genre, or being known only for my Tomes & Tea series. I write with a pretty wide range, and it was exciting to temper the cozy stories with more heart-pounding ones as I wrote This Gilded Abyss and its sequels.

This Gilded Abyss is a horror fantasy which is a departure from the cosy world of the Tea books. What are the challenges to you as a writer of bringing in new elements?

To be honest, after the Tomes & Tea series, I was ready to write something darker—murder, intrigue, violence. I wanted readers to be on the edge of their seat, turning pages, reading deep into the night. And then, when they finished, I wanted them to pick up the Tomes & Tea series for a breather. LOL.

I’m pretty lucky that it took me so long to get a big, breakout book. With Treason being my 15th novel, I’ve spent a lot of time exploring a lot of genres. Moving from cozy into a science fantasy with thriller elements was pretty easy for me after all that experience!

Ce urmează pentru tine?

I’m playing around with a few things in my free time! But up next, officially, is a new cozy sci-fi trilogy that I’m so, so excited about! It follows a girl who buys a starship from her space station’s impound lot—except the ship is alien-made and covered in moss. When she gets on board, she realizes that the moss is actually sentient… and has severe abandonment issues after being left on this space station for a hundred years.

Moss, the character, was so fun to write—think Kaz from The Spellshop meshed with the sarcasm of Murderbot! I think this book will be a wonderful way to continue my cozy streak, while also injecting something new into the space. Cozy sci-fi is a very underdeveloped genre, and I’m thrilled to toss my hat into the ring!

The best part is the title of this book. It’s called Moss’d in Space. I had to fight to keep that title, and I love it so much. 😂

What is the funniest or strangest thing your readers have shared with you?

The funniest thing had to be when I first self-published Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea. The original file had a corrupted image, so no one who bought ebooks could open them. I duplicated the file and reformatted it, but when I uploaded that version to Amazon, I didn’t realize the software had renamed the book: Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea Copy.

So, everyone who bought Treason in the first 48 hours had that new title—with “copy”—on every other page.

Someone kindly DMed me on Twitter about it, and I was horrified. But because my readers are the best, they felt like this was a special edition—and so, the Copy Copies were created. There are 78 Copy Copies of Treason’s indie printing in existence, and I did it again for Pirates. When the book was re-released with Tor, I signed 100 of the Waterstones versions with “Copy Copy,” and sent them off.

People are confused. But I loved it. 😂

Ne poți spune un lucru despre tine pe care cititorii tăi s-ar putea să nu-l știe?

I failed 2 FBI polygraphs in college. They thought I did drugs and serious crime. 😂

In reality, polygraphs are incredibly unreliable, but the US government insists on using them as if they’re fact. (And that instance is why, after obtaining a bachelors in Criminal Justice, I became a flight attendant instead of a cop. Pretty grateful for the change, honestly.)