L.R. Lam
Sunday Times and USA Today bestselling and award-winning author of fantasy and science fiction, notably Seven Devils and Dragonfall, a Barnes & Noble monthly pick.
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El, or L.R. Lam, is the USA Today and Sunday Times bestselling and award-winning author of epic fantasy romance, gaslamp fantasy, cyberpunk, near-future thrillers, and space opera novels, including the bestselling epic fantasy romance Dragon Scales series (Dragonfall, Emberclaw), the gaslamp fantasy Micah Grey trilogy (Pantomime, Shadowplay and Masquerade), cyberpunk near-future thrillers False Hearts and Shattered Minds, space operas Seven Devils and Seven Mercies, co-written with Elizabeth May, and near-future thriller Goldilocks.
El’s ground-breaking debut Pantomime won the Bi Writers Association Bisexual Book Award for Speculative Fiction and was a Top Ten Title for ALA’s Rainbow List. It was nominated for the UKYA Book Award in Sci-Fi and Fantasy, the British Fantasy Society Best Newcomer Award, the ALA Popular Paperbacks GLBTQ category, the Cybils Award, and the NE Teen Book Award. This trilogy will be re-released across 2025 and 2026. Dragonfall hit the Sunday Times, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly bestseller lists. It was the top-selling Barnes & Noble Speculative Monthly Pick of 2025, a Locus Recommended Read, and was longlisted for the British Science Fiction Best Novel Award. Accolades for El’s other novels include BBC Radio 2 Book Club Selection, Romantic Times Top Pick, Summer Reads picks for Wired and Marie Claire, Amazon Editor’s Best SFF Pick, a Kirkus star, and the Waterstones Best of 2020 list.
El studied English and Creative Writing at California State University and the University of Aberdeen before lecturing on the Creative Writing MA at Edinburgh Napier University for seven years.
Over the years, El has worked with most of the big SFF publishers across both sides of the pond: DAW, Hodderscape, Wildfire, Orbit, Tor, and Angry Robot. Their work has been praised by authors such as Robin Hobb, Leigh Bardugo, Andrea Stewart and Samantha Shannon.
El’s work runs the gamut of speculative fiction and takes them from researching cutting-edge science to write books set a blink from now, to crafting fantasy secondary worlds and dreaming up elaborate history, languages, and societies. Their work aims to make the Other familiar, straddles boundaries, and breaks binaries. Many of their protagonists are queer and trans, and Pantomime was the first Young Adult novel in any genre to have an intersex protagonist. Their work often focuses on themes of identity, bodily autonomy, and the corruption of power. El also writes queer romance as Laura Ambrose.
When not writing, El reads, lifts weights inconsistently, and is regularly distracted by their cats. El would be an ideal coach for writers playing in most science fiction and fantasy sub-genres. One of their favorite parts of mentoring is when they see someone’s eyes light up as they realize exactly how to fix a particular problem and are creatively revitalized and ready to continue tackling their story.
If you’re seeking a writing coach to help you tackle the challenges of your exciting speculative fiction ideas, El is the coach for you.
El’s Genres
- Fantasy
- Science Fiction
Please note: all genuine emails from L.R. Lam will come from @thenovelry.com.
Emberclaw
An ancient danger. A broken bond. The fate of two worlds hangs in the balance.
Arcady and Everen have been separated, parted by the Veil. Alone in Vatra, Arcady embarks on their greatest con yet: posing as a noble student at the University, determined to prove their grandsire’s innocence once and for all. Imprisoned in Vere Celene, Everen is hated by his kind. When he is released to defend his people, visions of the past and the future haunt him. If he steers the wrong path, he may never create a future where humans and dragons can live in harmony.
Time is running out. Threats rise from Arcady’s old life and their new. And between the worlds, an ancient danger is awakening. Together, Arcady and Everen can face it—but only if they can find their way back together and restore the trust that has been broken.
Book 2 of the Dragon Scales duology.
Dragonfall
The last male dragon. A desperate thief. A bond that will save the world... Or shatter it.
Long ago, humans betrayed dragons, stealing their magic and banishing them to a dying world. Centuries later, their descendants worship dragons as gods. But the ‘gods’ remember, and they do not forgive.
Since they were orphaned, Arcady has scraped a living thieving on the streets of Vatra, dreaming of life among the nobility—and revenge. When the chance arises to steal a powerful artefact from the bones of the Plaguebringer, the most hated person in Lumet history, they jump at it, for its magic holds the key to their dreams.
But the spell has unintended consequences and drags Everen—the last male dragon who was once foretold to save his kind—into the human world. Trapped and disguised as a human, Everen soon realizes that the key to his destiny and regaining his true power lies in Arcady.
Seven Devils
Seven resistance fighters will free the galaxy from the ruthless Empire—or die trying.
After Eris faked her death, she thought she had left her old life as Princess Discordia—heir to the galaxy’s most ruthless empire—behind. But joining the Novantaen Resistance, an organization opposed to the Empire’s voracious expansion, throws her right back into the fray.
Resistance fighter pilot Clo has been given a mission: infiltrate an Empire spaceship ferrying deadly cargo to gain vital intelligence. A task made all the more difficult when she’s forced to partner with an old enemy—Princess Discordia herself, Eris.
They discover more than they bargained for on the ship: fugitives with firsthand knowledge of the Empire’s inner workings. With this information, these women might just bring the Empire to its knees. But the clock is ticking: Eris’s brother Damocles, new heir to the throne, plans to disrupt a peace summit with the only remaining free alien people, ensuring the Empire’s total domination. Unless this band of unlikely rebels stops him, millions will die...
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