Vanessa King (’05 English)

When author Vanessa King graduated from Chapman University in 2005 with a degree in English, she probably didn’t expect her future would involve writing about hot, 20- somethings, who aren’t the brightest boys on the block, but yet, her she is, fresh off the success of her 2021 debut A Certain Appeal, and celebrating the release of her second novel, Ellie Hayes and the Himbos – a heartfelt, hilarious story about loss, love, and learning to embrace the chaos.

The Voice of Wilkinson sat down to talk to King, who now lives in Austin, Texas, with her husband, their 11-year-old daughter, and what she describes as “two objectively terrible cats,” about her new book, Ellie Hayes and the Himbos (or as she would say, HIMBOS), which is available on November 4.

Voice of Wilkinson: Congrats on the book. Tell me how it all started.

Vanessa King: I wrote HIMBOS over the course of about two years. There wasn’t a deal in place for it, so I’d visit it when I had time, focusing on getting a synopsis and a good hundred or so pages ready for my agent to take on submission. When I received my two-book deal in July 2024, my delivery date was October 15, and I still had a quarter or so of the book to go. It was my first time writing with a deadline. That was interesting.

VoW: Tell me about Ellie Hayes and these HIMBOS she lives with.

VK: Thirty-something Ellie Hayes is generally prepared for the worst—living with endometriosis will do that—but when a new medical flare-up points to a possible MS diagnosis, her carefully laid plans fall apart. When her live-in boyfriend proposes a “break,” she proposes a breakup and finds herself renting a room in a house of collegiate beefcakes: Grant, Alistair, and Diego.

Type-A Ellie takes on housebreaking her roommates (all the grout in the shower should be white, not ombre; meals should consist of more than protein bars), and they help her take charge of her fitness, encouraging her to embrace the chaos of living with them. Bonus: Grant’s older brother Ian is the gorgeous mountain man she made out with the night she moved in. But as Ellie and Ian get closer, he feels like less of a break from her real life and more like an excellent life choice.

VoW: What inspired you to write the book, and is there some truth in the reality?

There are several entry points to HIMBOS.

In April 2022, I was looking for a new project to work on. About that time, social media became saturated with promos for The Lost City. Channing Tatum was everywhere, clips of his sweet, dim character offering protein bars and not knowing what to do with cake. He was a himbo. An inspiration.

For the uninitiated, a himbo is simply a kind, hunky, stupid man. I hesitate to use the word stupid, but they’re….not bright. At all. Any wisdom is 100% intentional and they are incapable of irony. But they are also beefy, and, most importantly, they are kind. And I wanted to write about kind men.

I’ve lived in a few college towns and have witnessed countless young men wandering the aisles of grocery stores with carts full of Pop-Tarts and deli meat and fought the urge to gently nudge them toward the produce section. There’s also a rental property next door to me in Austin, and the undergrads who lived there when we moved in were a group of guys who’d taped a sign reading “DAWGHOUSE” to their mailbox and somehow labeled the residence as a hostel in Google Maps.

Considering the state of things inside the DAWGHOUSE, given what I observed of its residents, had me thinking about what it would be like for a slightly older type-A woman having to live among them. From there, I needed to come up with the circumstances that would lead her to that desperate point. My first thought was a breakup. But what caused it?

A friend of mine had gone through a divorce a few years earlier. The circumstances were infuriating; it was already a “death by a thousand cuts” situation, but she’d gone through a medical nightmare and was still recovering when her husband served her with divorce papers. It’s fair to say that there’s never an ideal time to be served with divorce papers, but when you’re a few weeks out of a medically induced coma, it’s particularly heinous.

The medical situation felt like a good angle, but I didn’t want to simply mine my friend’s misfortune. I had my own medical mystery to fall back on. One morning in December 2018, I woke up blind in my right eye. It was optic neuritis, an autoimmune issue which, 50% of the time, is the first sign of MS. The MRI I had then showed no sign of MS, but there was a six-month window where, if I experienced another nerve attack, I’d automatically be diagnosed. I never had that second flare-up, but the experience did give me the story’s catalyst and a ticking clock.

VoW: What do you hope readers will gain from reading HIMBOS?

VK: Great question! My goal is always to make readers laugh and swoon, but in the case of this book, I also hope to inspire them to reconsider their relationship with fitness. As I noted before, Ellie has long considered her body in terms of how it holds her back. With the MS possibility looming over her, she wants to find out what she can do…while she can. She’s working with what she has, and really, that’s all any of us can do.

VoW: Do you have a favorite part in the book?  

VK: There are so many scenes that I love, but a particular favorite is the moment Ellie and Ian give in to their attraction to one another. It involves a deadlift gone awry, some private instruction on lifting form, quality banter, a celebratory hug… and then they cave. It’s a long time coming, so it’s very satisfying.

VoW: I love cover art! Tell me about the art/artist and the collaboration? 

VK: The artist is YY Liak, who does a lot of work for Grand Central Publishing and has a really unique style. She also has the patience of a saint because I was asking to tweak this thing well past the point my editor thought was reasonable.

Cover art is an interesting process—I even wrote a blog post about my experience with my debut novel. This time, I had more input. I filled out a brief, providing examples of what I like and what I didn’t care for in the genre, some character descriptions, and reference images for Ellie and the guys. I also mentioned a specific scene in the book, when the HIMBOS helped Ellie move out of her old apartment. Her ex-boyfriend shows up, and the roommates, shirtless, as is their preferred state, carry her out of the unit in an armchair like a queen on a litter. That ended up being the basis for the cover. From there, I had veto rights on the color scheme, and we fine-tuned Ellie’s expression. She’d initially looked startled, then wry, but I wanted her to look joyful, and I think we got there!

VoW: What is next for you? Are you already working on the next project? 

VK: I have another book due to my publisher in January. It’s a follow-up to HIMBOS, and the hero is Grant, one of the roommates. It takes place five or so years after HIMBOS, because, no offense, current Chapman attendees, but I’m not writing about the romantic lives of college students. I’m too old for that, and your ways confuse me. The heroine/POV character shares a connection with another figure in HIMBOS, but you’ll have to read it to find out more! Though I’ll have to finish writing it first…

In any case, LEDA BYRNE IS NOT TO BLAME is set to release on December 6, 2026.