Romance Author Jasmine Guillory Has Some Flirting Tips For You

New York Times Best Selling romance author Jasmine Guillory wants to teach us how to flirt. Even more than that, she wants us all to know how to scope out the right moment to set the scene for a steamy moment — whether that’s in person or in your Michael B. Jordan fanfiction.

Timed to her latest novel Flirting Lessons, Liquid I.V. whisked journalists and romance novel enthusiasts away to their Club Quench event at Hero Beach Club in Montauk. Following newly single Avery as she learns how to flirt from Taylor (the biggest flirt), this book is a first for Guillory. It’s a queer romance. Flirting Lessons is also the book that made her fall in love with romance all over again.

“Thirst is important when it comes to these romance novels and like that tension that we experience reading them,” she said. “It's very relatable. You have a coworker who reaches up to get something off a high shelf, and their crush is looking. A romance is perfect, because there's that thirst, and then they get together. And as a reader, you're like, ‘Yes, this is what I've been wanting.’ I feel like for so many people, that's the culmination of a dream for them, and you get to experience it in a book.”

Sitting on a cloudy beach day, sipping the brand’s newest creamsicle-tasting Orange Vanilla Dream flavor, Guillory introduced the intimate crowd to an extended scene about her latest fictional lovers. The tension, the banter and the teasing built up for a truly seductive read. Liquid I.V. also released a summer reading list full of trysts and plot twists.

Here, Guillory tells us all about her latest novel, the importance of Black romance, and the art of creating just the right amount of thirst.

JG: This is my first book in two and a half years. My first book came out in 2018 and since then, I've been kind of releasing books on a regular basis. And then during the pandemic, I didn't have anything else to do so I was just writing books back to back to back. And then I burnt out. And I had the idea for Flirting Lessons but the thought of writing seemed overwhelming, and my agent was like, you need a break. I took a break, and then once I could get my mind around writing again, this book made me fall in love with writing again and made me fall in love with romance again. 

Avery and Taylor are both at a crossroads. They come together to just have fun and learn new things. And that was kind of what I was trying to do. I also feel like coming out of the pandemic, so many of us forgot how to talk to people. We were so used to being in our own little bubbles for so long. So I feel like it was a fun way to think about this. That's one thing that I was thinking about a lot in this book. And then coming to understand yourself more, and then falling in love with someone else. 

JG: I've always been a huge reader. I grew up reading a ton, but there weren't a lot of books when I was a little kid about little kids like me. People of color have to grow up with a lot more empathy, because you're reading a lot of books about people who aren't you, and you're recognizing we're all the same. 

But I wondered why there isn't a book about someone exploring the area that I live in? I see that for little white girls and they're all these books for them. And so then I think about what are the small parts of life that we can think about and talk about as Black people? There's always, there's so much in media about, like struggle and pain and when it comes to Black stories, but I'm always thinking about what are those times when the whole Black family is celebrating together and somebody made a cake, and somebody's doing this, and everybody's laughing, like, what are those stories? Because that's the world that I live in. 

JG: I think bringing together like Liquid IV and reading is so perfect for me. I am always a person who forgets to drink water throughout the day, and especially in the summer. When I'm working or reading, it is always good to have something extra, because then I get to the end of the day and I'm feeling faint. So it's always good to have something extra. 

JG: I feel like you have to lead up to it some. It can't just be, you know, it's not the scene when the main characters sleep together at the start of the book. It’s the lead up, the “Oh, they're looking.” You need the background on the characters for it to be a really good thirst scene. And it helps if they can't be together at the moment for whatever reason. It’s that yearning. But thirst is more than just the yearn. It's also a little teasing from the other person, like, “Oh, yeah, I know you can see when I'm bending over to pick something up.” It's a little bit of mutually teasing one another that I love.

JG: There are two of them. One is Taylor from Flirting Lessons. She's such a flirt. She knows that she's attractive and is very comfortable with that and using it. And I love that energy, because I feel like that's very aspirational. And then also Ben, from While We Were Dating. Ben was a minor character in another book of mine, and as soon as he was on the page, I was like, I love him. With most of my characters, I feel like I have to really develop who they are. As soon as I wrote Ben in The Wedding Party, he just sort of sprung into my head fully formed. I knew exactly who he was, and he was just so much fun to write. I feel like maybe this shows that I have a type, because he's also a big flirt and is just very good with people. If he loves people, he really loves them. I just love Ben and had a lot of fun writing him.

JG: I do really like that moment at the beginning of The Wedding Date. In Drunk On Love, there's a lot of thirst, especially in the first half of the book, because the book starts with Luke and Margot sleeping together. And then they realize the next day that she's his boss, and so they cannot do that anymore. But then they're seeing each other all the time at work.