Meghan Quinn is a USA Today bestselling author of dozens of novels, most recently publishing the hit rom-com Bridesmaid for Hire, a steamy enemies-to-lovers romance set in Bora Bora. We sat down with Meghan to talk about her latest release and book tour, and even got some sneak peek info about her upcoming novels.
Bridesmaid for Hire by Meghan Quinn
Maggie Mitchell is an event planner on a vacation in Bora Bora when she unexpectedly encounters her sworn enemy, Brody McFadden. Brody is there for a wedding, hoping to secure a promotion, and Maggie sees an opportunity to boost her business by posing as his girlfriend to help plan the event. Despite their rocky history and rising tensions, Maggie and Brody’s fake relationship starts to spark real feelings, but complications arise as the wedding approaches, threatening both her business and her heart.
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Congratulations on Bridesmaid for Hire. The Bora Bora setting was *chef’s kiss*. Where did you come up with the idea, and how much of the antics that happened were made up in your head vs real life events?
In terms of the funny antics, I really enjoy a hero who presents himself as someone who’s a strong alpha with a control on everything, when in reality he’s kind of a cinnamon roll. He might not know everything or how to do everything, and I think bringing them down to their knees, back down to reality is a lot of fun.
When I was writing this book, I was thinking, “How could things go wrong in the best way possible that makes her like him a little more, so that he’s not so much of the guy that she first saw?” These little pieces where she sees him break this wall he has up, it lends to her liking him a little bit more. I personally enjoy that in a hero. I’d like to say I plotted it all out, but I’m a bit of a pantser and for me, they just were spur of the moment honestly. I’ll ask myself these questions when I’m writing, “how could I make this go just a little bit further that would bring this to the comedic side?” I came up with the story because I like destination books, and when I was at a book signing in Canada, there was a wedding going on right outside my hotel suite window and I recorded the whole thing on my Instagram stories and I did an ESPN announcer play-by-play of the wedding. When I was watching it, I was like, “I need to write a wedding book”, and I’d recently read an article I’d read about a Bridesmaid for Hire company, it wasn’t quite the same offerings, but I pulled it together that way. And then I chose all my favorite tropes ever and smushed them together. Enemies to lovers, one bed, fake dating, brother’s best friend… those to me, are the gold standard for tropes so it was really fun pulling all of those together.
What was the highlight of your book tour & is there anything that surprised you?
The highlight would be talking to the readers. I love interacting with them and asking them questions and giving them time to talk about themselves or talk about the books. Talking to the readers reinvigorates me. It’s a lonely job as an author, and when you’re constantly at your desk by yourself, you can get in your head, like “does anyone like me or is anyone reading these books?” When you get to go to signings, you get that sense “I need to keep doing this and making people happy.” I heard so many stories about how my books helped people through tough times, it saved someone’s marriage, or it helped them bust a reading slump. My favorite stories are when someone is going through a tough time and my books helped them escape their reality. I thought that was lovely to hear. I was surprised that so many people came to see me, honestly, I was shocked that we were able to sell out the tour. There was a woman who flew from Florida to Colorado just to see me! She said she only came for my tour. It was so nice and the fact that I had so many people come to see me was amazing.
Are there any romance tropes you try to avoid or don’t like writing?
I tend to avoid anything with children. I like the spontaneity of characters who don’t have any responsibilities. I have two children myself and it takes a lot to manage said children. The spontaneity is kind of gone, and it’s harder to write that. I think it’s even hard to write a dog in a book! Someone has to take care of the dog, feed the dog, take out the dog, worry about where the dog is at all times. I tend to avoid those if at all possible. The logistics are too much, I’m not a plotter, the story is in my head, so to add an element where I have to keep track of a child, it’s too much for me. The other thing that’s hard for me to wrap my brain around would be any sort of amnesia trope.
You publish an impressive number of books every year. HOW do you get it all done?! Do you have a set daily schedule?
I honestly have a really strict schedule that I follow. I know when I‘m writing, and then when I have time off. We have it scheduled in a calendar. It takes me about 6 weeks to write a book, about 5,000 words a day. I found that 5,000 words is a really easy, soft spot for me to hit. I keep track in a calendar and I keep track of my writing sprints. I aim for 1,000 words per sprint and I can usually get it done in the morning and then do more admin stuff in the afternoon. I was a Division 1 athlete, I got a full ride scholarship for softball. My life has been very focused on goal setting and how to accomplish those goals, and I’ve carried that mentality over to writing. I look like a robot on paper, but I am human! I’m just goal oriented and I have a really good work ethic. Writing is a lot of fun for me, it’s not a chore, so when I sit down to write, it’s easy for me to accomplish what I need to because I enjoy it.
You touched on this earlier, but are you a plotter or do you just sit down and see what comes out?
For me, pantsing is more about, here are the tropes and the situation, and how they get to the situation is when they “pants”, and I’m just going for it. I usually have an end goal for what’s supposed to happen. For example, in my Christmas book, it’s a small town romance, so I had to plot out the town and the neighborhoods like, what stores are there, where can I send my characters, who are they talking to? So for that, my plotting is more focused on the world, and not so much what will happen in the book. I wrote down the characters, where they live, who their neighbors are, so I have a general idea of what’s going on. Those are the kinds of things I’ll plot out, but the actual plot of the story is mostly developed throughout the story. Sometimes I’ll get myself in a hole, but that keeps it fun and refreshing, I’ll say, “Ok, how will we get around this to get to the next scene or chapter?” It’s fun because I never know what will happen moment to moment.
What’s been your favorite book or series to write?
I would have to say, it’s hard because I look at them differently… Certain books I loved because of the storyline, or because they changed my life and they changed readers’ lives. Up there would be the Cane brothers, they are some characters that are an ode to my rom-com background and what I watched growing up. They’re also a huge part of the universe I created, connecting all of my characters together in this world, it’s created so much more than I ever expected. I love my hockey boys, my Agitator series, they’re so fun to write and I just love a group of guys that can be empathetic and show their feelings and emotions and I think I developed that really well with that series. Plus, their text messages are so great! I would also say I love my baseball series, baseball is my favorite sport so those were a lot of fun to write.
How do you keep the steamy scenes fresh? Do you keep track of that somewhere?
It can be hard, but there’s always a teasing moment… for example, I love a good dry hump! I think that’s really important. You might get a little bit, but you don’t get the full thing. I try to keep it fresh… I’ll ask, who did vibrator stuff? Is it too soon to do vibrator stuff again? Have I done a shower scene lately? Or, I don’t think they’ve done it on the stairs before. I try to come up with different situations where it could work, but there’s overlap because sex is sex and that’s just how it’s gonna be, but I try to throw in a new situation in each book. I’ll go back in my repertoire of what I’ve done to see how I can make things different.
How do you come up with all of the quirky traits/scenarios that your characters seem to get into?
My mom and her friends always thought I’d be on SNL when I was younger. I was a storyteller in the way that when I’d tell a story, sitting around the dinner table, I liked to elaborate and fluff things up a bit. They definitely thought I’d do something along the lines of sketch humor. I spent my high school years watching Friends over and over, I think a lot of my humor comes from that. I think sometimes you can hear the Chandler Bing in me. I think humor just comes easily to me and I love storytelling. I told a story at a book signing, because someone had asked if I put any real-life experiences in my books, and I went on for probably over five minutes, about a story I put into The Mother Road when the heroine sees her brother pleasuring himself while she’s hiding in a closet, and I told the entire story to 1,000 people in all my glory, everyone laughing hysterically. Afterwards, I was like, “Oh my gosh, I just threw my brother under the bus,” but in the moment it was the greatest thing. Storytelling is in my genes, it’s who I am.
If you weren’t an author, what would you be doing?
I was in sports event planning before this, I would probably stay within the sport event planning world. I worked for the Special Olympics, and then got a job in CO with a National Governing Body (it’s under the Olympic umbrella), each sport is called a National Governing Body. I did event coordinating and event planning type stuff. BUT, if I had to choose what I’d want to do, it’d be wedding planning. I did an internship and I really thought I was going to go in the direction. I LOVE love and my entire world is around romance. If it doesn’t have romance, get it out of here. If there’s no kissing, no relationship building, I don’t want it. I need a happily ever after, thank you! I think I’d be a wedding planner. I’m an ordained reverend, I’ve married six couples, and if I were to really choose, I’d have a barn somewhere and throw events and it’d be amazing.
You can take 3 things to a desert island (not including your wife and kids), what are you bringing?
I would take my Kindle, a notebook and pen, and then an endless amount of trail mix. I love trail mix, but I really love monster trail mix. I just want raisins, peanuts and M&M’s, nothing else fancy.
Can you tell us what’s next for Meghan Quinn in 2024?
We have Posey’s book coming June 25th, So This is War. That’s the end of the Agitators series. Then, we have August 20th, Bridesmaid Undercover. That will feature Hardy and Everly, both former characters from Bridesmaid for Hire. Then, How My Neighbor Stole Christmas on October 22. That’s a rom-com spinoff of the Grinch, it has all the Grinchy rhymes in it, each chapter begins with a Grinch-type poem. There’s a narrator throughout the book narrating the story, popping in occasionally and bantering with the hero. It’s an enemies to lovers, small-town romance.
As a fellow Swiftie, I have to know, what’s your favorite song from TTPD?
Honestly, it’s hard because the album is so long, I feel like it’s been hard for me to narrow it down, but “I Can Do it with a Broken Heart” is my anthem. Obviously I don’t have a broken heart, but she’s saying, “No matter what, I can put on a smile and get my shit done”. That’s exactly what I do every day. That’s my anthem.
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