Home Field Advantage | Author Interview | Book Tour & Pride Month

I’m so excited to be a part of the book tour for Home Field Advantage that is hosted by TBR and Beyond Tours. I was really excited to also be able to interview the author for this book!

As well as being part of the tour for TBR and Beyond Tours, this is also a book I’m spotlighting for my month of Pride Month spotlights!

INTERVIEW

Welcome Dahlia! Thank you for allowing me to interview you! Can you start off by introducing yourself?

Thanks for having me! I’m Dahlia Adler, author of a bunch of novels, including Cool for the Summer and Home Field Advantage, and editor of a bunch of anthologies, including His Hideous Heart and the upcoming At Midnight. I also blog for Buzzfeed Books, run a site called LGBTQReads, work full time as an editor of mathematics for an academic publisher, and have two kids.

How would you describe Home Field Advantage in one sentence?

Home Field Advantage is a Sapphic YA romance between an aspiring cheer captain and the school’s extremely unwelcome first female quarterback. 

Can you introduce us to the main character(s) of Home Field Advantage?

There are two main characters in Home Field Advantage–Amber, a popular aspiring cheer captain who’s sort of perpetually looking for unconditional love, and Jack, who just loves football with all her heart and is so thrilled to have a chance to play, only find that no matter how good she is, no one wants her there. 

What representation will readers find in Home Field Advantage?

Amber is polysexual–she’s basically attracted to all genders except cis boys–and Jack’s a butch lesbian. Amber’s mom is openly bi, and her best friend, who’s a major secondary character, is Miguel, a closeted gay Cuban American boy on the football team with Jack.

Do you know from the beginning how your books will end or do you let your characters decide their journey?

I write romance, so I know that they’re going to end up together, but I don’t always know how they’re going to get there or how the non-romance elements of the plot are going to come together. In this case, I really struggled with what the climax would be, which is a more unusual question for me, but listening to my characters does always help!

Do you have a favorite scene, moment, or quote from the book?

There’s a double date scene I was so excited to write that I just love. Amber and Jack finally get to be a couple, and they go out with her best friend and his secret boyfriend, and it’s the first time they really get to let loose and have fun and stop looking over their shoulders. They’re at this absolutely ridiculous bowling alley, and it’s all just so queer, and I feel like it’s where the book finally takes a breath. (And then punches it out of you, but that’s another story.)

What is something readers will find in Home Field Advantage that they may not realize based on the synopsis?

I really tried to make this book a strictly fluffy romance, but my books just rarely end up that way, and it does weave in some heavier things–misogyny, homophobia, blackmail, discrimination, abandonment… I mean, how many of us really have fluffy romance lives, especially being queer in an area that isn’t friendly to it? 

What’s something you hope readers will take away from Home Field Advantage?

That some people are meant to be your present and future, and some people are meant to be your past, and that’s okay. Just make sure you’re prioritizing the right ones.

What are three books you would recommend if someone enjoyed Home Field Advantage?

Easiest question ever: Like Other Girls by Britta Lundin, She Drives Me Crazy by Kelly Quindlen, and Some Girls Do by Jennifer Dugan. It’s basically a mashup of those three books, despite having been written before I knew any of them existed. 

What’s next for you? Anything you can share?

A lot, actually! My next anthology, At Midnight, comes out in November, and it’s a collection of fairytale retellings written by some amazing authors and includes my Sapphic Mean Girl version of Rumpelstiltskin, and then my next novel with Wednesday is a bi YA Sliding Doors novel about a girl named Natalya who has to choose which parent (and on which coast) she’s going to spend her summer, and the similar-but-different paths her life takes when she lives out each option. That should be out in the summer of 2023, and then in the winter of 2024, my next anthology, Out of Our League, which I coedited with Jennifer Iacopelli, comes out, and that includes my Extremely Jewish Summer Camp story, “Volley Girl.” Lots of exciting stuff!

ABOUT THE BOOK

Synopsis:

In this sweet and funny new f/f romance from the author of Cool for the Summer, a cheerleader and the school’s newest quarterback are playing to win, but might lose their hearts in the process.

Amber McCloud’s dream is to become cheer captain at the end of the year, but it’s an extra-tall order to be joyful and spirited when the quarterback of your team has been killed in a car accident. For both the team and the squad, watching Robbie get replaced by newcomer Jack Walsh is brutal. And when it turns out Jack is actually short for Jaclyn, all hell breaks loose.

The players refuse to be led by a girl, the cheerleaders are mad about the changes to their traditions, and the fact that Robbie’s been not only replaced but outshined by a QB who wears a sports bra has more than a few Atherton Alligators in a rage. Amber tries for some semblance of unity, but it quickly becomes clear that she’s only got a future on the squad and with her friends if she helps them take Jack down.

Just one problem: Amber and Jack are falling for each other, and if Amber can’t stand up for Jack and figure out how to get everyone to fall in line, her dream may come at the cost of her heart.

Dahlia Adler’s Home Field Advantage is a sparkling romance about fighting for what – or who – you truly want. 

Content warnings: off-page death by car accident, off-page pregnancy loss (including some on-page conversation about abortion), homophobia, misogyny, alcohol use (light), references to racism

ABOUT THE AUTHOR