Annabel Monaghan is the national bestselling author of Nora Goes Off Script and Same Time Next Summer. Currently residing with her family in the suburbs of New York, we sat down with Annabel to talk about her latest novel, Summer Romance.

Summer Romance by Annabel Monaghan

A summer romance is supposed to offer a brief, carefree enjoyment within the risk of heartbreak, or so she thought. Ali Morris, a professional organizer whose life is in disarray after her mother’s death and her husband’s departure, finds an unexpected connection with Ethan. Despite her reservations and reluctance to complicate her life further, newly single mom Ali is drawn to Ethan’s smile and the possibility of a summer romance.

Order the book now: Bookshop.org | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Where did the idea for Summer Romance come from?

Usually I have more of an idea when I start a book, but with this one, the nugget was “a professional organizer whose house is a disaster.” I was thinking about how our external lives don’t always match our internal lives, how we show things to other people, and that what’s going on on the inside is totally different. I knew she was a mother, and recently divorced. Then, the rest of it sort of happened while I was writing. I knew she’d have a romance with a guy, but I didn’t know anything about him. I didn’t know that her mother had passed away and that that was a big part of the story until I was a couple pages into writing it. That all evolved as I went. 

How did writing this novel differ (if at all) from writing your first two novels?

This one was actually kind of a mess. I really had, I think at first, been trying to do too many things in the story. It wasn’t for a while until I understood who Ali was. The wonderful thing about my editor (besides everything) is that she always asks: “Why?” “Why does she feel this way, why would she have done that, why?” She asks me that enough times, until I cough out a draft that feels emotionally resonant. This was also different because I poured a lot of my own stuff into this book, grief over losing my mother, thoughts and feelings I’ve had about choices that women make sometimes, putting their families first- everybody ahead of them. And, times in my life that, frankly, I’ve felt very stuck. I think that I drew more on my own stuff, so this book is very personal to me which was why it felt harder to write.  Compared to The Same Time Next Summer, I was in a full scale panic the whole time I was writing that book. It was “the sophomore slump”, the feelings, the expectations, all of those things… that book took me over the hump, where I didn’t feel like that again.

The tone of this one felt similar to Nora Goes Off Script, was that on purpose or did you also feel that as you were writing?

I’m not quite sure how I felt, I’m getting a lot of feedback from Nora fans that they really loved this book, and it is a romance that takes place in a domestic situation. What I like about that, and what feels similar to Nora, is the constraints that children put on you. If you’re a single woman and you fall madly in love, you can spend the whole day with that guy. If you have children, there’s the element of sneaking around, which I kind of love. There’s the element that you have to be doing real life all the time, and I like writing that. I enjoy writing about mothers. 

There are so many fun summer activities in this novel, whether it’s barbecues, kayaking, etc – what does your perfect summer day include? (No rules!)

My ideal day… I wake up, I walk my dogs with my husband. And then I take my OWN walk – BY MYSELF. This is going to make me seem like a nerd, but I go by myself and maybe I’m listening to a book or a podcast. I head back inside and I get to work all day. I really like to work in the summer, because I can work outside. At 5 o’clock, I’m on the water, and I’m picnicking with ice cold wine and something delicious being grilled, and all my friends and my children show up. That’s my perfect day. 

What are you most looking forward to for your book tour? Is there anywhere you haven’t been that you’re particularly excited to go to?

I’m going to Dallas, to Half Price Books this time, I’ve never been so I’m really excited about that stop. I’m excited about the whole thing. If if you looked at my schedule, you’d think. “Wow she’s going to be exhausted”, but I’m not. You walk into the room and everyone is there because they wanted to be, and they’re excited about your book and they have questions about the thing you made up. I can’t tell you, it’s such a thrill and it’s totally energizing. So that’s what I’m excited about, I love it. To be able to take in all that goodness, and exchange thoughts, it’s wonderful. It’s so gratifying. It is such an intimate way to connect with someone. 

Can you tell us more about your writing process?

I’m a total pantser but I really don’t want to be. I’m really getting tired of it.  I know my life would be better, I would like to plot, but the way these three books have worked, I’ve had a nugget of an idea and I start writing, and I write a full draft of the story. By the end of that time, I’m like  “OH, I think I know what I’m trying to say”, and then I go back to the beginning. I don’t outline at all. The right side of my brain, the creative part, is the better part, so if I can stay there longer and then switch back to the left side and clean up what I wrote, that usually works. I would LOVE to be a person with an outline, it seems so relaxing. 

What’s your favorite thing about being an author? 

My favorite thing is making something out of nothing. It’s a really fun feeling, to just type, and then you’ve made something. You didn’t use any natural resources, you just made it. I love that. I love sharing that with a reader. It makes me feel really connected to people. It’s like, “this is the stuff that’s in my heart, here it is”, and then someone else says “This is also in my heart”, so it’s really special.

What advice would you give to an aspiring writer?

The easy thing to say is that you need to be writing a little bit every day, because it’s a muscle and if you stop writing for a long time, you get out of that flow. My real advice is that you need to write the story that is personal to you, and that you’re excited to write. If you’re looking on a manuscript wishlist, and agents want true crime, so you decide to write one of those because there’s a market for it. However, by the time you’ve written that book, no one wants it anymore, and also, it wasn’t the book that you were meant to write. Write the book that you were meant to write and that you would want to read. 

Can you talk about what’s next for you? 

It’s still a work in progress, but it’s about a former child star who is now grown up, and is trying to make it in Hollywood and right the wrongs that happened when she was a child. And, there’s a guy and he’s ADORABLE. So, that’s all I’ll say about that. Actually, I read I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy and you know what I did when I finished reading it? I opened it up and read it again. TWICE IN A ROW. That was kind of what got me thinking about this story. I was blown away by her writing and her story, and I just kept thinking… “What if all the horrible things hadn’t happened? What would it be like to be a person who was so well known on television when you were a teenager and now just be walking around as an adult?”  That just fascinated me.