Editor's Note: L. Marie Adeline -- a pseudonym for Lisa Gabriele -- is the bestselling author of S.E.C.R.E.T. Shared. Here, as part of Biographile's Lessons Learned month, a month of authors sharing lessons they've learned while writing their book, L. Marie Adeline shares the secret to a good story and the origin of her confidence as a writer.

Biographile: Both S.E.C.R.E.T. and S.E.C.R.E.T. Shared take place in New Orleans and you write about several “real” places in the book. How did you decide to set the books there? In many ways New Orleans is a powerful character in the series. How did you approach writing the city in such a way?

L. Marie Adeline: I felt that an underground organization that grants women their sexual fantasies has to exist in a city that reflects a kind of intrigue -- and New Orleans does. Its music, food, culture, history, the sheer tumult it has experienced in the past century, let alone decade, makes it feel like this has made its inhabitants a bit wiser and a bit more worldly than other mid-sized cities in the United States. That’s the sense I got while spending time there researching the book. I also knew I wanted the locations in the book to be real and I’ve always hoped that establishments like the Café Rose Nicaud or in S.E.C.R.E.T. Shared, a store called Funky Monkey where Dauphine Mason works ,would receive corollary benefits any attention might create. The decision to set the action in those particular places had to do with my own visceral reaction when walking into the café and that store, in particular. They both felt dramatic and authentic. They were both quite evocative spaces, the café for its casual coolness, and the store for its sheer variety and creativity.

BIOG: Did the reader response to S.E.C.R.E.T. affect how you wrote S.E.C.R.E.T. Shared?

LMA: Well, first of all, I was stunned by the response. Even though it reportedly “took Frankfurt by storm,” the book still had to find its readers -- in over thirty countries. And I didn’t expect the response to be so powerfully positive. Not just critically, but emotionally. So many people wrote to tell me how much they related to Cassie and her journey to find sexual confidence. Again, when you write a book, you hope people connect to your characters, but this blew me away. So it affected me only so much as I owed them a strong follow-up, more obstacles for Cassie to overcome, higher stakes (read: a sexier book as Cassie grows in confidence) and a satisfying conclusion to S.E.C.R.E.T. Shared as Cassie makes her wending, and complicated way to her Happily Ever After.

BIOG: You are also a bestselling author of literary fiction and nonfiction as well as a former television producer. What have you learned about women and the erotica genre in the process of writing the S.E.C.R.E.T. series? What has surprised you the most?

LMA: I learned story is story, regardless of the genre, but none of that matters if my heart’s not into it. And I am in thrall of these characters and this world I’ve had the privilege to create. Writing erotica has also shown me that good sex is really about connection and honesty. Confidence grows from that. Like Cassie, you don’t have to start out confident, but if you stay true to yourself and your desires, you’ll get there. I was most surprised by the readers’ own candor. S.E.C.R.E.T. readers are not shy about telling me what they liked and wanted more of. I am continually inspired by their boldness. They’ve given me the confidence to push this series to places even shock me. So, I guess, brace yourselves S.E.C.R.E.T. Shared!

For all Lessons Learned articles, visit the archive here.