L.M. Bennett on Flipping the Script on Earned Happily Ever Afters

I am always curious about how my favorite authors take tropes I sometimes struggle with and make them absolutely delicious. In this episode, I chatted with L.M. Bennett, the author behind some of the most soulful and beautifully complicated Black Sapphic romances on my shelf. We dive into her journey from writing Matlock-inspired courtroom dramas as a kid to centering Black queer women who are allowed to be messy, soft, and wholly themselves. L.M. also shares why she refuses to skip the hard conversations in her second-chance romances and how she layers softness into every steamy scene.

L.M. writes indie Black Sapphic romance because she believes Black Queer women deserve stories that let them be messy, soft, stubborn and wholly themselves, warts and all. L.M. wants Black Sapphic love to be portrayed as joyful, soulful, deep, and beautifully complicated.  

Key Takeaways:

• L.M. shares her diverse writing history, moving from Sims stories and horror to finding her home in contemporary romance.
• Why centering characters’ emotional connections creates a more authentic and soothing reading experience than just telling the reader they are in love.
• A deep dive into why third-act breakups and messy second chances make a Happy Ever After (HEA) feel earned and sustainable.
• L.M. discusses her Hot Mic series and her Sports Romance series, bringing much-needed Sapphic representation to MMA, F1, and even professional poker.
• What it looks like for an indie author to be in the streets this year, from Book Con to Pride Lit Con.

If you are new to L.M. Bennett’s work, I highly recommend starting with Retwist. It is a beautiful, intimate introduction to her style and the perfect way to find a new favorite diverse creator.

CONNECT WITH LM BENNETT:

Website

Instagram

Patreon

Shop

BOOKS/AUTHORS MENTIONED:

Retwist (Amazon) 

Hot Mic Series (Amazon)

Track Four Is Not About You (Amazon) 

The Art of Going Rogue (Amazon) 

Sports Romance Series (Amazon) 

You Were Almost Home (Amazon) 

Running list of books mentioned (Doc)

Transcript

Intro: Meeting LM Bennett

SPEAKER_01 0:01

When I find a new favorite author, I am always so curious about their writing process, how they got to where they are, and understanding how they're able to take the tropes that I maybe sometimes might not like, then actually make them enjoyable. Today we're talking with LM Bennett, who is the author of a bunch of sapphic black romances. She has everything from novellas to full-length novels, sports, music. There is something for everyone. She also has a new book, Track Four Is Not About You, coming out tomorrow from the day of the release of this episode. So definitely go check that out. Listener discretion is advised. This podcast contains mature content intended for adult audiences only. Hello, Elm. I was so excited to have you on the podcast. If you could start by telling everyone who you are and a bit about your author journey.

The Author Journey: From Fanfiction to Indie Romance

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Hi, everybody. First of all, thank you for inviting me. I am Elm Bennett and I am an author of Black Sapphic Romance Contemporary. And my author journey has been mostly being a chaos goblin. I just started out writing like fake courtroom dramas as a kid because I used to watch Matlock and Perry Mason with my grandma and didn't know what I was doing, but she found it funny anyway. I just know that I used to pass it around to my friends as an adult. I started writing stories about my Sims, which was weird, but that was like the thing that introduced me to serials, and then I just started writing literary fiction, speculative fiction, horror until I figured out I actually enjoy writing romance.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

What a journey! Oh my goodness. Okay, so now I'm curious, were you on Wattpad at any point? Because I feel like 2010s, early 2010s, it might have been.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

I know I was on Wattpad and I was like writing there and my age, I'm gonna give away my age. My corner of the fandom actually predates Wattpad. Okay. We're talking about fanfiction.net. We're talking about live journal. Yeah, that that's my part of the fandom. Like, in fact, when we were starting to move on in the fandom to other things, AO3 had just been getting started. So that's how long I've been in the game, and that's how old I am.

SPEAKER_01 2:48

I love that though. And I love that your journey has been like it, it's not a all right. I started writing romance and I just kept writing romance. Like you've had such a diverse journey of exploring different genres and sub-genres and maybe interests at the time. And it sounds like you went through like a bit of a gothy phase too, in there, right, with the horror. And like tapping into what felt right to write at that time, which I think is really important when you're an author, right? Like that you get to write for fun, because then I feel like that's when the best stories come through. I'm it was introduced to you through your sapphic romance. I absolutely love it. One thing I love about your stories is the care and the softness is shown rather than told in how you write. Like, how do you do that? Because every time I read your stories, I'm like kicking my feet and like this feels so soothing, like so lovingly soothing. And I yes, I'm here for it. How do you do it?

SPEAKER_00 4:04

As center, my characters, not just in my own past experiences, sometimes people I know, so I can write authentically and really pick out the things that are important to have readers understand or feel in the moment so that they can really connect with the characters and how they are feeling and how they show each other affection. I like I really like bringing those things out and letting you see them and letting you experience them along with the characters instead of just telling you.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

That's something that you do so beautifully. And I've read a few of your novellas, and I was like, yes, I like these, these are good. And I'm trying to think, the spice is soft too. It's a good palette cleanser between urban fiction, kind of streetlit, that kind of stuff, and maybe monsters banging and aggressive. And I feel like it's just such a soft place to land. Why is that kind of softness important to you? In yes, you're showing it in these characters, but it is just very refreshing to read.

SPEAKER_00 5:16

I mean, I take it back to what I feel that a reader wants out of romance, they want that softness, and don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with something that is a bit more forceful or something that's a bit more intense, mutually intense, of course. But there's certain ways that I like to express intimacy between characters on the page, and that's just what I I stick to. I try to be creative, at least thematically creative, in how these two characters express love towards each other. I know that sex is part of the romance, but it's not the focus for me. So I like to really bring that out in a softer way.

SPEAKER_01 6:04

Yeah, that definitely makes sense. You've mentioned what readers want and like thematically putting things into stories. What kind of I guess classically trained is not the right word, but what kind of like research do you do that goes into the stories? Or is it more of this is kind of what I'm feeling, and then I'm gonna test it with maybe my Patreon audience and see how they like it, and then go from there. What does that process look like for you as you're like planning out a new book?

SPEAKER_00 6:34

For me, there's planning. If I'm gonna be talking about a job that I have never done, or if I'm talking about like athletic stuff that I haven't done because I'm clumsy and nobody wants to see me break any bones trying to investigate things to see how they break. But like how I do that in a romance is that I take a lot of craft courses. There is one course that I I took that was really interesting that showed how to like slowly layer in like romantic elements, how to have characters establish a connection so that by the time they're body to body, they're on the same page, the reader is on the same page. So for me, there's two different types of research that I do.

Centering Softness and Intimacy in Sapphic Stories

SPEAKER_01 7:25

That is interesting, and you do have a Patreon, so I do want to make sure we mention that because I'm part of a few Patreons, I love them. And so, like, how do you get your books to Patreon? How do you like give them bonuses and things like that? Because I know that when we find readers that were like, yes, I love you, I want more of you, and I want it before anyone else can get access to it. Patreon is such a great way to do that. So, how are you utilizing Patreon for your patrons?

SPEAKER_00 7:52

I utilize Patreon by just giving them a little bit extra that they're not going to get if they just go like on Amazon and go get the book. So I will give like extra prologues that I don't really post anywhere else, extra epilogues. Like I did like a whole series worth of epilogues after my last Christmas book. And they're not a part of the retail release, but they are there for people on the Patreon so that they can see where all these different characters landed. And I usually like to give my readers like some insight. Like, I like a really good playlist for my books, so I will post the playlist link there. I'll be like, here's why I picked this song, or I will usually just give them stuff early, like this book that I'm about to come out with. They're getting it early, and I hear that it's highly anticipated, so I like giving things away early to the readers who want to be there, who want to stick around. And occasionally I do ask them what it is that they want to see. You want to see the next book cover, you want to see character art, just tell me what it is that you want to see, or do you just want to hear me yapping about my next release? I usually ask like maybe a couple times a month, like even especially if I don't know what I want to have them have, I'll let them tell me what they want to see. So I do it that way.

SPEAKER_01 9:27

Yeah, all the patrons that I'm part of, it's usually either there's a monthly book that I get, like a small mini book, or it's hey, when their new release comes out, it gets mailed to me. Anything that's like I get it first, I am here for. Okay, so tell me a bit about your backlog. So for anyone who's not familiar with you, shame. But beyond that, tell me about your backlog, and then we'll get into this book that you're about to release. But you have quite a few books out there, including some novellas. So, yeah, let's go ahead and go through them.

SPEAKER_00 9:59

Yeah, I love a good novella. As you said, it's a palette cleanser. Sometimes, if someone is looking to get into a new author and they're not sure if they want to spend like a whole novel getting to know them, I have shorter works, like retwist and corn. I love that one.

SPEAKER_01 10:18

So second chance, just it's very intimate in the experience with them and the kind of push-pull, will they won't they? Obviously, they're going to because it's a romance, but also will they won't they? It's just it's so beautiful. So that is such a great introduction to you, I think. That one.

SPEAKER_00 10:38

Thank you. And I have like my longer works, which are still like like short novels, like the Christmas series that I've just recently finished. I was writing that for three years. And just the longer works, like You Were Almost Home, and the one that's coming up next track for, and The Art of Going Rogue, those are like longer books that you can get a little bit more lost in, I think. Once you figure out like the way this author writes, I kind of want to read more. I would definitely recommend going into those books. Some of them are, you know, they're soapy, some of them are really juicy and messy, and I really like that kind of thing. So that's what I enjoy writing. So if you like characters who are a little messy sometimes, then maybe you might want to pick up one of my books.

SPEAKER_01 11:32

You also have some books that are sports romance and sapphic, which I think is such a good combination that we don't see a lot of representation for sapphic women, especially black women in sports romance. You have Tap Out, which is an Enemies to Lovers boxing, right? It's boxing, it's MMA. MMA romance. You have Pit Stop, which is an F1 Enemies to Lovers. I think those are the only two, unless I'm missing one.

SPEAKER_00 12:02

There's also Bad Beat, which is poker enemies to lovers. I consider poker a sport. I know everybody doesn't feel that way, but I do. To me, it's a spork.

Exploring the Hot Mic and Sports Romance Series

SPEAKER_01 12:11

What was your thought going into? Hey, I'm gonna do some sports ones and show this representation because, like I said, it is something that we don't see a lot of.

SPEAKER_00 12:21

Everything to me started with Bad Beat. That was supposed to be a one-off book. I was not planning on doing an entire sports series, but I was in Las Vegas, and while I was writing Badbeat, they were setting up the track for F1 because that was gonna be F1's first year in Las Vegas. And I was supposed to be writing another book entirely, and I was just like, yep, nope, I'm writing an F1 book. It's gonna happen, it's gotta be a thing. And I already knew that I wanted to write an MMA book because I'm big into MMA too. I've been a fan of poker for about 20 years, been a fan of MMA for close to 15 years, and I was a newer fan of F1 at the time. I just started to grow interested in it, like really like obsessively. So that was where that came from. And because I also I love the city of Las Vegas, that's like my second home. We go there several times a year at this point. So I just knew that it had to be black, of course, it had to be Staffic, it had to be sports, and then I also wanted to further challenge myself by giving it the same tropes and still somehow producing three different stories: forced proximity, enemies to lovers, and all these other different things. And I was just like, I'm just gonna challenge myself and come up with three completely different stories and just see where that takes me because I'm a pantser. So half the time I'll be starting stuff, and I don't even know where it's going. So I just planned it out that way.

SPEAKER_01 14:02

Oh, that's so cool! Yeah, I'm trying to think, there's maybe one other hooker romance that I can think of. Christina C. Jones has one where it's a black romance. That one is intense, it's very Vegas dark side, like the dark side of Vegas. And so I haven't read this one, but I'm definitely interested to read it to see like how you put your LM spin on it. You also have some musician ones as well. Yes. I'm always curious that I love music, but the idea of writing a music story is like the industry is so strange, there's so much behind the scenes. What kind of went into that?

SPEAKER_00 14:44

Real life celebrity gossip that I just tossed into a blender. And I'm being dead serious. I took different stories that I've heard of and put them all into a blender and just said, let's just see what comes of this. That is fun.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

Because I feel like you could just make it your own. And I think that's also the beauty of writing contemporary romance is yes, you make it believable enough, right? You're not like I have to suspend my belief to even think that this would possibly ever happen, but you can still spin it however you want. You have a book coming out literally tomorrow from when this is being released, April 4th, 2026 is when your book comes out. What is it about? Where can we get it? All the things I want to know. I think.

SPEAKER_00 15:38

Okay, all right. So the book is called Track Four Is Not About You. And it's another music book. It's book two in the Hot Mic series. Book one was, of course, The Art of Going Rogue, and book three is going to be Kissing the Ops. And this story is right smack in the middle of that, and it is about an artist who is forced to work with her producer ex, who she ghosted years ago, who's maybe feeling a little bit sore about being ghosted since they were together for yeah. That story started out very differently for me, but there's there was just nothing that was landing. So when I came up with this, I was just like, oh, this is messy. This is messy, and it's gonna be a great story.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

I love when they're messy though, which I think I'm now I'm curious how you blend like the messy with the soft, because yes, you have like really soft stuff that can also be a little messy, and it's like the emotions and the feelings, and I guess that hormonalness of being women in women's bodies for me that can come with all of that, and so how do you make it so that it's like okay, they're not too messy, which I don't believe anyone's too messy to find love, but sometimes it's like y'all need therapy first before we even get into this book. So, how do you kind of balance that as you're writing these characters, or is it during the editing process that it's like, ooh, yeah, we need to work on this?

Flipping the Script: Why We Need the Third-Act Breakup

SPEAKER_00 17:19

It's a little bit of both. Like, I have an idea of where I want the characters to end up when I'm sitting down to write a book. I know where I want the messy story to start, but I know that by the time the story ends, they've got to want for nothing. So then I take each moment and layer it out, smooth everything out, and I try to like each chapter just gradually soften everything just a little bit. I make it a little bit bumpy in the middle because you have to have just a little bit of friction, just a little bit of resistance, not too much, and then we figure out how to make things soft, lowering the temperatures that the characters can find their way back to each other because I feel like, and I know that there are a lot of people that don't like the third act breakup, but to me that's just proof that they want it enough and that they have the tools to sustain that happily ever after. That's how I see it. I don't always have a third act breakup, but I feel that in order to keep the story moving forward, something has to happen that has to test the relationship, whether that's coming from inside the house or it's coming from outside the house, it's got to be there because to me that's how the HEA, the happily ever after, feels earned, and it makes the reader want to root for the characters to stay together, I think.

SPEAKER_01 18:58

Yeah, I think that while third act breakups can there, yeah, there's a whole like camp on no third act breakups. I do agree that I think sometimes, like even thinking about my own relationship and like where I'm at now, and I've been with my husband for 13 years at this point, and like the messy parts, right? Where it's like we're figuring each other out, we're also growing as humans, having kids, hormonal shifts that happen with that, and then refiguring out who we want to be in our 30s, and then thinking about okay, in 10 years we're gonna be in our 40s. What kind of people are we gonna be in our 40s, too? Like thinking about all the evolution of who we are. And I think that if you just show the all right, everything's fine and everybody's happy, then it can sometimes feel like, but are they gonna be fine in five years? Like, really fine, if they haven't gone through the things that make it like, no, I'm gonna fight for this relationship, and this relationship is worth fighting for instead of well, I feel good in this relationship, so I'm gonna stay in it, which is never a good place that you want to be at.

SPEAKER_00 20:09

Right.

SPEAKER_01 20:10

And so I don't mind the third act breakups. I think that we could probably use more of them, if quite honestly.

SPEAKER_00 20:16

Yeah, but they've gotta make sense though. Like you can't just have two people meet and then they go through this whole thing and they're ready, they're standing at the edge of forever, and then there's a miscommunication that would take five minutes to solve. Those are the ones that I think that people they get mad over and they should be mad over it because if it takes five minutes to solve it, why are you wasting my time? Why are you putting us all through this? If the girl standing next to him was his sister, why wouldn't he just say that? But I like to write the kind of, if not third act breakups, but the whole third act where there might be some things that need to be said that haven't been said and they need to talk about it. And sometimes it may take more than one conversation to fix what's wrong, especially if it broke apart very hard. There needs to be those really tough conversations in order for things to come back together again.

SPEAKER_01 21:18

Now I'm curious too. I'm always curious. I feel like I started questionable. I'm curious. You guys are just here for all of my curiosities. I want to know second chance. I have feelings about second chance. In my mind, I'm like, y'all broke up for a reason. And I can understand maybe you broke up in college, you guys went your separate ways, you went different careers, whatever happened. Like that I get. But the I don't want to say random, but like the other anything else, I'm like, I don't understand it. Why'd y'all break up and then now you're gonna be together or now you've grown? So I'm curious how you quote unquote fix that for your characters in your second chance romance. Now, retwist is short, so we don't have to get into backstory or anything like that. And it's pretty simple, here's where we are, and here are the things that were left unsaid, and then spicy times, right? So it's like that. But for your longer second chances, how do you soothe the reader with there are reasons why this maybe didn't work at that time?

SPEAKER_00 22:23

What I do is that I do not have them skip the hard conversations. And I feel that there's some stories that do that, but I feel like if I'm gonna tell a second chance romance, then I do the characters and I do the story a disservice if I don't pick apart what happened the first time. And to not make it so that they can start all over fresh, but so that they can build something new on top of what they lost. To me, that makes it satisfactory as a second chance romance, and it's not pulling any punches about this person's trauma or that person's malfunction that made it not work the first time and what they've learned about themselves and what they've learned about their partner in order to make it work this time for good. And that's something that I revisit in track four, and it's also something that I really spent a lot of time on, especially after I've finished that first draft of You Were Almost Home. I kept plucking at that thing until it made sense. Yeah.

Writing Messy, Stubborn, and Wholly Authentic Characters

SPEAKER_01 23:37

So a lot of work going into it. Yes, sounds like which I think is good because then it shows your reader that you're trying to create a story that's not just, hey, I thought about this and here you go. I wrote it. It's no, I genuinely care about the reading experience they're gonna have with these characters as they explore this journey in a way that's believable and also healing for not just the characters, but for the readers as well. I think that there's something really beautiful when we can see our journeys or the world outside of us reflected in romances. So I appreciate you taking the care with them because yeah, that second chance I think is so important to have that kind of care. Because there are people who have that second chance romance in real life. I have a friend, Lisa, she's been on the podcast a couple times, and hers was a second chance, and I'm always amazed when I hear her story. I'm like, man, I would have left that man of the time. Fool me once, shame on everybody. Like, I'm Virgo though, so yeah, you mess with me once, and then all the bridges are gone, and I don't talk to you and I don't know you, so like let's go.

unknown 24:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:51

But I do think that it is a real life experience for a lot of folks, and so handling that with care can be really important. What is next for you? What are you uh kind of panting at the moment?

SPEAKER_00 25:05

Well, right now, my 2026 is pretty much a lock. After we get track four off the ground, we're moving on to Kissing the Ops, which happens to have a character from track four who is a thorn on the side of Bishop. They can't stand each other. But Cam gets her own book, and then I have a Friends to Lovers Thanksgiving novella coming out, and I'm gonna be doing a lot of touring this year. 2026 is gonna be very interesting. You're gonna see less books from me, but you'll be seeing me in these streets a lot more this year.

SPEAKER_01 25:44

Nice. Are you gonna be at BR BR white black reader book?

SPEAKER_00 25:49

Yeah, no, my business partner loving color. They're going to be there, and they will have some of my books down on display for anyone who wants to purchase them. I will be at BookCon. I'm going to be at Golden Crown Literary Society. I'm going to be at Boozy Book Tour, which I'm super excited about because I don't know if you saw the stuff for Denver. No, I cannot wait. I have people coming out just because we told them this is what's going to happen. And they're like, oh no, we got to be there. So Boozy Book Tour, Golden Crown Literary Society, BookCon Indy Alley. There's also going to be Pride LitCon next year is love and books and read the rainbow. There's a lot of stuff that's happening. There's going to be lots of chances for me to meet you and for you to meet me and for us to talk, books, and all this other wonderful stuff. And I can't wait to meet everybody.

SPEAKER_01 26:48

Awesome. And where's the best way to follow you to get information on what events you're going to be at? Is Instagram or subscribing to your newsletter? The best way to get that information for people.

SPEAKER_00 27:00

Definitely my newsletter. I always have it at the bottom of my newsletter after I'm done yapping about everybody else and everything else. I have a list of events that I'm going to be at that I am confirmed for. There's some I cannot talk about. I have those listed in my newsletter. If you want to know where I'm going to be, if you want to pre-order some books, you want to chop it up in person, there is the best place to find out what's going on.

Where to Connect: 2026 Tours and Signed Copies

SPEAKER_01 27:27

Perfect. And we'll have make sure that we have that linked in the show notes for people for your website where people can sign up for your newsletter. But if you want to buy your new book or if they're interested in any of your catalog, where's the best place to support you with that? Like, where should we go buy them?

SPEAKER_00 27:43

I'm one of the Kindle authors, uh KU. So if you have a KU subscription, you got some credits, you got some Audible credits. I have a I have the whole sports romance series on Audible. So in case anybody wants to binge that. But mostly I'm in Kindle Unlimited. And if anybody wants to purchase like a paperback for me, I do have my store website where I have some paperbacks that are available. And that's pretty much where you get my stuff online. Or if you want to connect with me and you just want to see more of these characters that talk to me at all hours of the night and of the day, apparently, then you can get on Patreon. I'm probably gonna be on there yapping about them at some point doing something.

SPEAKER_01 28:32

Awesome. And we'll make sure we have links for all of that in the show notes and the YouTube description for anyone off doing other things as they're listening to us. Make sure that you snag those to connect with LM. LM, this has been so much fun. Thank you so much for being on and sharing about your author journey and all of your wonderful books. Everybody go check out Retwist first. If you're new to LM, go check that one out. It is so sweet and such a wonderful palette cleanser. And then dive in from there. There's lots of options for you.

SPEAKER_00 29:04

Lots and lots of options.