Born in Sulphur Springs, Texas, where Without Merit takes place, Colleen Hoover is familiar with complicated family relationships. Her mother divorced her physically abusive father and later remarried a dairy farmer when Hoover was two. The family struggled financially, but Hoover’s mother stressed the importance of education. Both mother and daughter attended Texas A&M University, simultaneously achieving their degrees in social work. Hoover worked as a counselor in the Women, Infants, and Children federal program while starting a family and writing her first few novels on a borrowed laptop. After self-publishing her first book series, Hoover gained popularity on various social media platforms, especially TikTok. Her giant fanbase enabled Hoover to negotiate more favorable publishing contracts with larger publishing houses.

Hoover’s personal and professional experiences influence the literary elements in her writing. Her dynamic, complex characters address serious themes like alcohol and drug abuse, sexual abuse, mental illness, trauma, suicide, and infidelity. Although Without Merit is categorized as a contemporary romance novel, Sagan and Merit’s attraction to each other hardly influences the plot’s direction. Hoover is known for resisting being branded in one specific genre, writing suspense and thriller novels in addition to YA and adult romance.