BIOGRAPHY

“Ilona Andrews” is the pseudonym for a husband-and-wife writing team. Ilona is a native-born Russian and Gordon is a former communications sergeant in the U.S. Army. Contrary to popular belief, Gordon was never an intelligence officer with a license to kill, and Ilona was never the mysterious Russian spy who seduced him. They met in college, in English Composition 101, where Ilona got a better grade. (Gordon is still sore about that.)

Gordon and Ilona currently reside in Texas with their two children and many dogs and cats.

They have co-authored several bestselling series, including the #1 NYT bestselling urban fantasy of Kate Daniels, rustic fantasy of the Edge, paranormal romance of Hidden Legacy, and Innkeeper Chronicles, which they post as a free weekly serial. For complete list of their books, fun extras, and Innkeeper installments, please visit their website at Ilona-andrews.com.

PRESS KIT

Ilona Andrews is the pseudonym for the husband-and-wife writing team, Gordon and Ilona. The couple are the #1 New York Times and USA Today bestselling authors of Urban Fantasy, Sci Fi, and Paranormal fiction.As of 06/01/2020:·        

• #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR
• #2 USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR
• #1 WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLING AUTHOR
• WASHINGTON POST BESTSELLING AUTHOR
• BGI BESTSELLING AUTHOR
• AMAZON TOP 10 BESTSELLER/AMAZON TOP 50 RANKED AUTHOR IN 5 CATEGORIES
• BEST GOODREADS AUTHOR
• OVER 3.5 MILLION ILONA ANDREWS BOOKS IN PRINT
• FOREIGN RIGHTS SOLD IN 18 COUNTRIES
• OVER 500,000 REVIEWS/RATINGS ON AMAZON
• 1,770,127 GOODREADS RATINGS/ over 22,000 FOLLOWERS

WEBSITE STATISTICS:

OVER 4 MILLION UNIQUE BLOG VIEWS IN ONE YEAR
OVER 9 MILLION TOTAL SESSIONS LASTING 3 MINUTES, 88% RETURNING VISITORS
40k FACEBOOK FOLLOWERS & 27.7K TWITTER FOLLOWERS

“Ilona Andrews’s books are guaranteed good reads.“—Patricia Briggs, #1 New York Times bestselling author

“One of the brightest voices in urban fantasy…Ilona Andrews delivers only the best.“—Jeaniene Frost, New York Times bestselling author

“Andrews is an auto-buy no matter what the genre!“—Romantic Times

“If there is one author that defines Urban Fantasy, it is Ilona Andrews.“—Fresh Fiction

ROAD TO PUBLICATION

 Our story to publication is long and a little strange. 

I never wanted to be a writer.  I wanted to be a scientist. Both of my parents had advanced degrees, and it was expected that I would one day end up with a PhD in something. Of all the sciences, I found biology and chemistry to be the easiest, so I tried to aim for that. However, I had been trying to write stories since I was a child.  I just never viewed it as any kind of career.

Gordon, meanwhile, planned on an English degree after his military service, but quickly decided that history fit him better. We met in college, ended up dating, and realized that combining our skills resulted in better grades. Pretty soon all of our papers were written together.

A year into my college career, I had to drop out.  Despite my 4.0 GPA, my scholarship was cut due to administrative budgetary concerns. Gordon and I were a couple by that point, and we married. Soon after, our first daughter arrived, then our second one, and I found myself home with two toddlers and a computer.

Two novels later, we decided to try getting an agent.  We were not sure what an agent did exactly, but a cursory search online said we should get one. We did zero research, sent out novel #2, and got rejected. Then we tried a publisher.  Our manuscript came back stamped with “We do not accept unsolicited submissions.” Neither of us knew what that meant. We tried an “electronic publisher,” who promptly rejected us as well.

What began as a hobby now turned into the source of stress. But also, both of us have a strong stubborn streak, and being repeatedly told no made us double down. We joined an online workshop. It was a trial by fire. People shredded our work, and since pain is an excellent teacher, we worked hard to avoid it.

Our writing began to improve. We started a new project, a fantasy. Eventually Charles Finlay – whom I will always consider a mentor and a friend – selected one of our chapters for an Editor Choice, which meant it would be highlighted in a newsletter and critiqued by a professional author. The critique was complimentary but warned us about relying on the staples of the genre.

One day I sat down and wrote an opening of a new story. It was like nothing I had written before, but it was also a lot like the doomed #2 novel, the one that had gotten us all those early rejections. Gordon read it and said, “We should workshop this.” We edited it, posted the opening, and got a weird reaction: more.

By that point, life had been beating us up for a while.  Gordon went back in the military to keep us fed and to make sure we had medical insurance. We finished that new novel, called it Lost Dog, and sent it to Tor, who was doing an open call for submissions.

We had sunk years into the writing and seemingly got nowhere. At some point I gave up. I just wanted to be free of it and started deleting the files, but a friend happened to message me online.  She asked what I was doing, I told her, and she talked me off a cliff.

I ended up talking to Charlie Finlay later that night online. I’m not sure if our mutual friend told him about our conversation or not, but he was very firm. He thought Gordon and I had something, and he urged us not to quit.

Next week an email from Tor arrived. Liz Gorinsky read our submission and liked it.  She wanted to fight for it. I remember being so excited for about ten minutes, and then the brakes kicked in. Three months passed. I emailed to Liz asking if there was any progress. She said that unfortunately there wasn’t. She suggested that I give her a reason to bring it up again: sell a short story to a pro publication or get an agent.

We had tried selling short stories, but at that time the wait for a pro publication was frequently a year long and we always got rejected, so we tried for an agent instead. We did our research this time, found an interview with an agent who was actively acquiring, and sent a query with a partial.  Three days later he asked for a full and a week later we shook on it.

A month later our agent reached out.  He wanted to pull the novel from Tor and sent it to Anne Sowards at Ace. We said yes.

Our life was falling apart at that point, and we were desperately trying to stabilize ourselves.  Gordon completed his time in the military, finished his degree, and got out.  We were looking for a new place to live and new jobs, while trying to keep our little family afloat. Neither of us had any hopes.

One evening we got a phone call from our agent. I was playing World of Warcraft at the time, and I was in the middle of the dungeon, so I didn’t want to take the call.  I was sure that our agent would drop us.

Gordon put the phone to my ear.  I hid a sigh and said, “Yes?”

“Anne Sowards at Ace would like to buy ‘Lost Dog.’ Congratulations.”

I didn’t believe it. It wasn’t real for a while, not when we got an email from our now editor, not when we signed the contract, not even when editorial suggestions arrived. It became real when the advance landed in our bank account. We sold two books for $5,000 each.

Lost Dog became Magic Bites and the rest was history.

Magic Bites came out on March 27, 2007.  As I write this, the book is now 19 years old and we have over 30 novels in our backlist and list of professional accomplishments: #1 NYT, #1 WSJ, Washington Post Bestseller, Amazon Top Ten, international bestseller, millions of books in print… Our latest novel – a surprise self-published side quest – hit #1 on Amazon. We have readers. A lot of them. We even have a fandom.  They call themselves the Book Devouring Horde, and they are the best fans any writer could wish for.

Somehow we have come full circle. We started with epic fantasy all those years ago, and recently we sold an epic fantasy trilogy. And we sold it to Tor. How interesting, isn’t it?

People focus a lot on talent when they talk about writing. I don’t think our story is about talent.  I think it’s about perseverance. And friends who help you along the way.