Timothy Janovsky: Love and Connection Are Key to a Happy Life
In this interview, author Timothy Janovsky discusses how a conversation about ghosts led to his new paranormal romance, The Invisible Roommate.
Born and raised in New Jersey, Timothy Janovsky is the USA Today bestselling author of over 10 romance novels ranging from sweet to steamy and contemporary to magical. Find him on Instagram.
In this interview, Timothy discusses how a conversation about ghosts led to his new paranormal romance, The Invisible Roommate, his hope for readers, and more.
Name: Timothy Janovsky
Literary agent: Samantha Fabien at Root Literary
Book title: The Invisible Roommate
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Release date: September 29, 2026
Genre/category: Paranormal romance
Previous titles: Never Been Kissed, You’re a Mean One, Matthew Prince, New Adult, The (Fake) Dating Game, You Had Me at Happy Hour, The Merriest Misters, Once Upon You & Me, A Mannequin for Christmas, One Week to Win the Chocolate Maker
Elevator pitch: A popstar on the run from fame takes a room in an old Victorian house on a remote island in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay, only to discover its already inhabited by a scientist who has turned himself invisible to hide from the law. In the weeks leading up to Halloween, their secrets and blossoming feelings for each other grow difficult to keep hidden.
What prompted you to write this book?
The Invisible Roommate first came to me in a conversation I had with my partner’s late grandmother. She was telling us a story about the ghosts that lived in the farmhouse she grew up in and said, “It was like having invisible roommates.” I stored that nugget away in a note on my phone because I thought that The Invisible Roommate was such an evocative title.
When I began brainstorming a story around that title, I planned to write a straightforward paranormal romance where a pop star on the run ends up rooming with a ghostly love interest. But something kept drawing me back to the movie version of The Invisible Man from 1933 and my love of Sue Storm aka The Invisible Woman from Fantastic Four. I thought it would be fun to have a character who was corporeal but couldn’t be seen.
Then, I remembered the hit Netflix reality dating show “Love is Blind”where contestants “date” each other from separate rooms using speakers to talk to one another. The show served as the baseline reality for building this fantastical romance.
All those disparate pieces clicked together. From there, the characters sharpened in my mind and the story spooled out.
How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?
The idea for The Invisible Roommate came to me in spring of 2024, I turned in the full manuscript to my editor in summer 2025, and now it will be out in time for fall 2026. From initial spark to finished book, the idea went from being vaguely silly and paranormal to a story with more of a sci-fi edge and grounded character arcs.
When I reread H.G. Wells’ classic The Invisible Man, I was reminded how entrenched in optics the story is and how many writers have praised and critiqued the accuracy of Griffin’s experiments over the years. The word “optics” really jumped out at me. It always makes me think of public perception, especially in relation to celebrities. That’s how I came to pair Emory Griffin—the novel’s med-school dropout on the run from the law—with an international popstar as his love interest.
Initially, I planned to write a rom-com that was heavy on the “com.” I was going to give the book the same camp sensibility as the beloved Universal Monsters movie The Invisible Man from 1933. But as I dove into Emory and Gerard’s backstories, their depth and struggles with being seen and experiencing love on their own terms rendered the slapstick a bit too much. Through the editorial process, we scaled back on the hijinks and mustache-twirling and homed in instead on the beauty of a forced proximity romance. At its heart, this book is about two scared men at pivotal moments in their lives who, above everything else, are desperate for true connection.
Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?
The biggest learning moment in the publishing process of The Invisible Roommate came after the manuscript was complete and off to production. I was working with the publication team on back-cover copy, trying to distill this story down into a couple hundred words that would attract readers to this cozy, kooky, emotional novel. We went back and forth with editorial, marketing, sales, and even early readers to get feedback—a process I had not been through before with my nine previous novels.
Since the main thrust of the story takes place in the lead-up to Halloween, including pivotal scenes on mischief night and at a community holiday party, we were keen on calling this a Halloween romance. But the more we toyed with that, the more we were told that using Halloween in the copy would pigeonhole the book by making it season-specific. We went through a similar conversation when calling the story “gothic.” The main setting of the book is a small, remote island in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay that’s only accessible by infrequent ferry or private plane. Our main characters shack up in a crumbling Victorian house and storms abound which add to the spooky, trapped nature of the narrative. Emory embodies the “mad scientist” trope. In my mind, that made this a gothic novel. However, we came to learn that from a retail standpoint, most readers hear “gothic” and think dark academia, romantasy, or thrillers, none of which describe The Invisible Roommate.
As a reader, I have always been drawn to a cover and the first few pages when deciding whether a book is for me. Through this process, I learned how important back cover copy can be at introducing the tone, style, and tropes to readers before they ever even crack the spine. If the back cover copy doesn’t align with the content of the book, it can create mismanaged expectations, which is like blundering a first date you were really excited about.
Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?
The biggest surprise I got when writing The Invisible Roommate was when I was digging into refractive indexes and blood substitutes to better explain Emory’s invisibility work in the story. I stumbled upon the 2024 study by researcher Zihao Ou and his team who had successfully turned the skin of a mouse transparent using food-safe dye.
I never much excelled at science when I was in school, so writing a character like Emory was a challenge. I knew I needed to be smarter to do his inner life justice and found myself utterly fascinated by the topics I explored. This study out of Stanford University excited me because I could root the science-fiction elements of the story in real-world applications. Invisibility seems less abstract than I originally thought it to be.
Funnily enough, my partner works for a science nonprofit organization in editorial that processes and hosts press releases announcing new scientific findings. When I brought up to him at dinner that I had discovered this paper online, he was like, “Why does that sound so familiar?” Turns out, he had processed a release on the study during a shift months earlier! We had a good laugh about it.
What do you hope readers will get out of your book?
At the start, Emory and Gerard are two characters burnt out by society’s expectations on them, so they try to self-isolate. Those plans are spoiled by having to share a studio apartment with only one bed with a total stranger. What begins as a burden, turns out to be a blessing. I hope readers will come away from The Invisible Roommate feeling hopeful and reminded that love and connection are key to a happy life.
If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?
A standard piece of writing advice is that writers must read. While I agree with that statement, I’ll add that I also believe that writers should listen to audiobooks. I’m a firm believer that audiobooks count as reading, and that reading via audio opens new ways of thinking about language and character.
Our sentences contain music. Our dialogue has rhythm. When an audiobook narrator interprets the text on the page in a recording session, they are breathing into the punctuation, discovering through the line. In turn, we as writers get to hear how story moves and emotions land. Reading is a conversation between text and the reader. Reading via audiobook is a conversation between text, the reader, and the performer(s). As with any conversation, a third participant is bound to add new perspective. I’d challenge any writer out there who never or rarely reads via audio to try it out and see how it can impact your craft.
