Lenora Woods Levels Up Romance with D&D, Rivals and Vampires in Level Up for Love

What happens when the college rival who ghosted you suddenly reappears six years later, sitting across from you at a Dungeons & Dragons table?

For Reagan Riley, the heroine of Lenora Woods’ new novel Level Up for Love, the answer involves old wounds, plenty of competition and a particularly inconvenient amount of chemistry.

Woods joined Suspenders Unbuttoned Media to talk about her newly released second novel, a contemporary romance that sends its central love story into two worlds at once: Reagan and Wesley Locke’s complicated real-life reunion and the vampire-filled fantasy campaign they play together.

And according to Woods, September may be exactly the right time to enter both.

“I do think it’s like a fall kind of spooky read,” Woods told us, before describing Reagan and Wesley as former college rivals who reconnect for the first time in six years when Reagan reluctantly joins a D&D campaign run by Wesley.

Rivals in Real Life, Enemies in the Game

Reagan and Wesley originally met while competing in the same college video game design program. Their relationship briefly became something more before Wesley disappeared from Reagan’s life.

Six years later, Reagan has stepped away from her game-design ambitions and is living in Connecticut when her sister convinces her to join a new D&D campaign. The Dungeon Master waiting for her is, naturally, Wesley. The official book description sets up the same delicious collision: former college rivals, an old hookup, a ghosting and a very awkward reunion around the gaming table.

But Woods doesn’t use D&D simply as colorful scenery for the romance.

Inside the game, Wesley becomes Vadrien, a powerful vampire lord, while Reagan plays Sindra, a lady knight determined to bring him down. The novel includes interludes from Sindra’s perspective, allowing the fantasy campaign to become its own layer of the story.

For Reagan and Wesley, Woods described the D&D table as a kind of “battleground” where they can work through years of tension while also learning how to interact differently. They spent college competing against one another, but they had never actually played together.

That distinction gives Level Up for Love its clever hook. Their fictional characters may be fighting over a kingdom, but the game forces Reagan and Wesley to figure out whether they can trust each other outside of it.

Why Rivals-to-Lovers Works So Well

If the sparks between Reagan and Wesley feel particularly at home on the page, there may be a reason.

Woods told us that after writing the book, she realized rivals-to-lovers may be her favorite romantic dynamic, both to write and to read.

She is especially interested in what competition reveals about two characters. Rivals often want the same thing, which means the qualities making them opponents can also expose just how similar they really are. Woods also draws a distinction between rivals-to-lovers and traditional enemies-to-lovers.

There was originally even more Wesley on the page.

Woods revealed that she initially wrote portions of the novel from Wesley’s point of view, envisioning a three-POV story. That structure ultimately became too complicated and those sections were removed, but writing them helped Woods understand Wesley well enough to make him more dimensional when readers encounter him through Reagan.

A Grittier Romance After Roll for Romance
Readers who discovered Woods through her debut, Roll for Romance, will recognize her love of gaming, romance and the relationships formed around a D&D table. But Woods deliberately didn’t want to write the same book twice.

She described Roll for Romance as a sweeter, more traditional friends-to-lovers story centered on characters discovering both themselves and D&D for the first time. With Level Up for Love, she wanted to go somewhere a little messier.

“I just wanted something grittier,” Woods told us.

She was particularly interested in exploring more complicated characters and unpacking the way readers respond to so-called “difficult” female characters.

Reagan certainly gives her room to do that.

She’s hurting, defensive and not necessarily designed to charm the reader instantly. But one of the relationships that helps crack her armor is not romantic at all.

Sisterhood and the Softer Side of Reagan

eagan’s relationship with her sister became one of our favorite parts of the conversation because it reveals so much about her character.

Woods doesn’t have a sister herself, but she drew inspiration from her close relationship with her brother and from close female friendships. She wanted to explore what happens when you love someone deeply and desperately want the best for them, even when the way you try to help isn’t necessarily what they need.

Reagan’s sister is the person who nudges her back into the world following a difficult breakup, encouraging her to try things, meet people and, crucially, join that D&D game.

And Reagan reciprocates that devotion in her own pricklier way.

During our conversation, we noted that Reagan’s willingness to show up for her sister makes it much easier to see the softness underneath her rougher exterior.

That relationship also feeds one of the other major themes running through Level Up for Love: found family.

Every Vampire Campaign Needs a Little “Colin Relief”

Not everything in this vampire-filled campaign is brooding glances and emotional baggage.

Enter Colin.

Woods called Colin, an awkward employee at the game store and member of the D&D group, one of her favorite supporting characters to write. Reagan initially misreads him, only to discover that he’s essentially an adorably awkward gaming nerd.

And Woods knew her darker vampire campaign needed some comedy.

While trying to describe him as the group’s comic relief during our interview, she accidentally coined something better: “Colin relief.”

We’re keeping it.

Woods said Colin’s humor helps balance the scarier campaign, while the larger gaming group gradually creates the kind of found family that makes you want to pull up a chair and join them.

The Perfect Fall Romance?

Vampires. A gothic fantasy campaign. Rivals with unresolved chemistry. A heroine carrying more hurt than she initially lets anyone see.

It’s not technically a Halloween novel, but Level Up for Love has an awfully good résumé for a September reading stack.

Even its cover leans into that atmosphere, complete with bats. Woods told us that artist Chloe Quinn designed the covers for both of her novels, and she was particularly delighted by the final copies of this one.

When we asked Woods to give readers her own elevator pitch, she made the decision fairly simple:

“If you love rivals to lovers and vampires and D&D, give it a go.”

Frankly, that’s a pretty efficient roll for persuasion.

Level Up for Love by Lenora Woods is available now from Dell. Woods is also the author of Roll for Romance and currently lives in New England.

Watch our full conversation with Lenora Woods below.