After the success of her 2017 debut novel The Idea of You, which was adapted into a feature film starring Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine in 2024, Robinne Lee is getting back in the saddle with a new romance—and once again subverting the genre’s traditional tropes. Crash into Me (St. Martin’s, July), set against the glamorous backdrops of Los Angeles and Paris, follows Cecilia Chen, an artist who falls into a tumultuous affair with Anouk Ferrand, a model from her past, which has Cecilia questioning everything in her life, including her marriage. At BookCon, Lee will join a panel about page-to-screen adaptations on April 19.
Did you feel pressure about writing a novel after the success of The Idea of You?
After The Idea of You, I had writer’s block for three years. I was pressuring myself to come up with something that would feel like a natural progression but would not alienate fans. I tried to do what was going to make me happy as a writer and as a reader. And that’s what Crash into Me became.
Why did you want to explore a queer relationship that Cecilia has in this? She doesn’t necessarily come out, but her connection with Anouk is undeniable.
I’m happily married to a man and have been for years. But there’s a part of me that finds women attractive in a way that could be more than just, “She’s pretty.” I feel like if I’d been born in a different time, I could explore that. I think a lot of women, especially my age, feel that way. I wanted to explore what it would be like to be a woman who thought, I’m gonna follow my desire.
Crash into Me jumps between Annouk and Cecilia’s past and present. Having that context is important, not only for under-
standing their relationship but for seeing what they both dealt with as women.
My generation put up with so many little microaggressions and micro-assaults as women. We just did, because that was just the tax for being a woman in certain businesses. I wanted to hold a light up to that and explore it and see what it’s like in hindsight, knowing what we know now and knowing what people will not put up with now. How many of us have those stories of things that we brushed aside? It’s important to remember where we’ve come from, and how far we’ve come, so that we don’t fall back into that.
I’m curious about your relationship with romance, because your two books are very romantic but don’t necessarily have happily-ever-afters.
Those are the stories I’ve always been attracted to. I don’t need a happy ending. Romances, formulaically, have to end up in a certain place, right? “I trust you as an author. Lead me somewhere, take me on a wild ride, and make me feel like I’ve lived this adventure.” I want it to be unexpected for my reader. I can’t trust you that you’re not going to be crying at the end, but it’s going to be interesting.
