The Next Big Thing Blog Hop

I was invited to this blog event by Dr. Anna Leahy, author of Generation Space. You can read her post here on her Lofty Ambitions blog. Anna has also been a guest blogger on my Writers on Wednesday series--click here to read her past post. Thank you Anna, for inviting me! 

While there is a part of me that is superstitious about talking about work that is out with editors, (documented in The Submission Jinx by Jennifer Haupt at Beyond the Margins) I'm going to throw caution to the wind and dish. 

What is your working title of your book?

The Summer After

Where did the idea come from for the book?

I was on book tour for CHOSEN in a hotel room in Santa Monica. I went to bed with the windows open to hear the ocean and I dreamed the plot of this beach story in the night. It was tricky, though, because I had my three kids with me on tour and we hit the ground running the next day--our promised day in Disneyland and then I had a book club that night. It's a scary thing, trying to hold a story in your mind before you can get it down, like carrying a plate full of steaming, slippery spaghetti, and worrying the whole thing will slip off and be lost. I had to hold that dream until we were on a red-eye the final day to dash down the details of the story. The summary is below: 

 Dean Adler flies to Grand Cayman when his teenage son is involved in a tragic accident on the island; Juliet has been sent there at her family's insistence--an urgent change of scenery. The summer after the loss of their spouses, this widower and widow meet over the sandcastle friendships of their children in the sweltering sun of the Caribbean. 

As Dean and Juliet navigate the tentative steps out of grief, love blossoms among the hibiscus. But the quietly brewing storm of Juliet's secrets threaten the tenuous bonds and their tranquil summer.  All vacations must end, and their love story has a built-in expiration date. When the past catches up with them both, a pending hurricane forces an answer to the question--is the greatest tragedy the loves that they lost, or the potential devastation of what they just found?

What genre does your book fall under?

Mainstream/upmarket womens fiction--the kind of book you would want your book club or sister to read and chat about with you. I always say that I aspire to be a Jodi Picoult, only with a little more grit, slightly edgier, less formulaic. 

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

Oh I love this question! The guy in my dream looked exactly like Martin Donovan, who played Nancy's dead DEA husband in Weeds, which I was watching back then. There is something so sympathetic and St. Bernardish about him that the character of Dean grew out of him. I want the reader to feel worried for Dean and the goodness of his heart as Juliet's story unfolds. For Juliet, Sandra Bullock comes to mind. Or Claire Danes, because I want her to play all of my characters, but I don't think she's quite right for this one. 

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

The Summer After -- a dark past catches up with a widow and widower stumbling through grief and threatens their quest for love the second time around.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency? 

I am represented by Maria Massie of Lippincott, Massie, McQuilken. This work is currently out with editors.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

It's funny--I was working on another book and while that manuscript was going out, I dreamed this one. I threw together the above blurb and editors got more excited about this story than the one I was clunking away on. I backburnered the first project and wrote this in about six months. It was a new experience, going back and writing from nothing after years of revision on both CHOSEN and the book in the middle. It was a huge relief to see that I could still sit down with a blank screen and create a world.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

Nicholas Sparks SAFE HAVEN

Diana Abu Jaber BIRDS OF PARADISE

Julia Glass THE WIDOWER'S TALE

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

Two things, really. I'm at the age where a lot of friends are navigating the grief of loss, and the challenge of love the second time around. It's hard and heartbreaking and hopeful all at once. I wanted to write happy love stories for them all, but then there's always the past, and the rub, and second time around, often the kids. It's complicated. I love digging around in messy domestic stuff and encouraging the reader to root for a good outcome.  

I also use stories to write love letters to places I have loved and left. I've been waiting for the right story about Grand Cayman, where I was living when I met my husband. Because of our history with the island and the years we lived there, I knew I knew my Cayman story had to be a love story, but there also had to be some drama. This feels right.

the exact spot where I met my husband

What else about your book might pique the reader's interest?

The pace of the book is a little faster than a typical love story. Plus there's the setting--who wouldn't want to live out on the remote Rum Point in Grand Cayman for a summer, even if it's only a virtual visit? 

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Tagged authors:

Emily Kennedy

Hannah Shelton

Michelle McGee