Annabel Monaghan – Evocative Romcoms

This week on Binge Reading, Annabel Monaghan and the ultimate summer nostalgia read about an engaged woman who comes face to face with her first love who she hasn’t seen in 14 years. What happens next calls into question, everything she thought she knew about their love story and herself. Hi there. I’m your host, Jenny Wheeler, and on Binge Reading today, Annabel talks about Same Time Next Summer, her latest funny good-hearted romcom, just the thing to get through the winter or to laugh over at the beach. Giveaways – more than 100 books on offer We’ve got a great lucky dip of Giveaways this week from a BookSweeps mystery draw, to Kobo free genre fiction, and Bookfunnel free books. Three different offers. with in total more than 100 books available, so get online to make your choice. I’ve teamed up with 40 fantastic authors to give away a huge collection of Mysteries, Thrillers & Suspense novels to 2 lucky winners! Oh, and did I mention the Grand Prize winner gets a BRAND NEW eReader? 😁 You can win two of my books in the Of Gold & Blood Book Bundle 2, plus books from authors like Gabriel Farago (on ​Binge Reading podcast​) and Rosalind Barden. Enter the giveaway by clicking here 👉 https://www.booksweeps.com/giveaway/july23-win-a-bundle-of-mysteries-thrillers-suspense/ Enter now and Good Luck! BOOKSWEEPS DRAW GIVEAWAY – JULY CHILLS FOR BEACH READING Ready for some great beach reading? Look no further! These bestselling authors have teamed up to offer a delightful selection of new books. Including Sadie’s Vow, #1 in my Home At Last trilogy. july chills for beach reading ​https://books.bookfunnel.com/julychillsbeach/7jggzr5fey Available for a limited time. KOBO FREE GENRE FICTION KOBO genre free fiction: This is a truly international offer – but you may need to change the flag on the Kobo homepage to access it…. FOR ONE WEEK ONLY A wonderful range of thrillers and mysteries in this truly international offer from Kobo – including Poisoned Legacy, #1 in the Of Gold & Blood series Visit the following link(s) to see the promotion: ​https://www.kobo.com/p/free-ebooks​! If you live in a country that isn’t included in this promotion, you may have trouble accessing the sale link. If this happens, change the flag at the top of the Kobo homepage to one of the included countries to see the sale link properly. KOBO FREE GENRE FICTION And do remember if you enjoy the show, leave us a review, so others will find us too. Word of mouth is still the best way for others to discover the show and great books they’ll love to read. Where to find topics mentioned in the show Carley Fortune: https://www.carleyfortune.com/ The Philadelphia Story: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032904/ The Proposal:  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1041829/ Romance Tropes: https://eviealexanderauthor.com/150-romance-novel-tropes/ Annabel Monaghan Column: https://annabelmonaghan.com/category/column/ Amy Poepell: https://www.amypoeppel.com/ Amy On Binge Reading:  https://thejoysofbingereading.com/amy-poeppel-fresh-funny-romcoms/ Lisa Jewell:  https://www.simonandschuster.com/authors/Lisa-Jewell/75656043 Elizabeth George:  http://www.elizabethgeorgeonline.com/ Where to find Annabel Monaghan online Website: annabelmonaghan.com Social media @annabelmonaghan (Instagram, Twitter and Facebook) Introducing romcom author Annabel Monaghan Annabel Monaghan Jenny Wheeler: But now here’s Annabel. Hello there, Annabel, and welcome to the show. It’s great to have you with us. Annabel Monaghan: Thank you. I am so happy to be here Jenny Wheeler: Romance is a genre I notice is changing quite remarkably from maybe five or seven years ago. There’s a lot more “life” in the stories as well as the romance, and your stories are a typical example of that. These days it’s about much more than finding the right guy, isn’t it? Annabel Monaghan: I think it’s always been in life a lot more than just finding the right guy. And I do see how people are diving a little bit deeper into what is actually going to make you happy. Because you can have the right guy and he can have all the right pieces and parts and you can still be unhappy. I love seeing stories where women are finding their best selves, along with finding a great guy. Jenny Wheeler: That’s lovely. And the two books that we’re going to be talking about today, both very much exemplify that. Tell me what drew you to romance as a genre to write books in, in the first place? Writing a romance when you don’t know it Annabel Monaghan: It’s a funny you ask that because it didn’t I. When I wrote. Nora Goes Off Script I was writing a story that I might want to read and I didn’t really think about the genre that I was writing in. And when Putnam picked it up I had my first marketing meeting and they said, we’re going to market this book as women’s fiction and as a romance, and we’re going to see who picks it up. We’re going to see who is excited about it. And overwhelmingly it was the romance readers that were excited about the book I wrote, which made it into a romance. I went about it in a backwards way. I didn’t really think about what kind of a book I was writing, but I guess I wrote a romance. Jenny Wheeler: That first book was, as you’ve mentioned, called Nora Goes Off Script, and we’ll talk about that a little bit later because it was your first, but you’ve now got a second one that you’ve recently released, Same Time Next Summer. We’ll start by focusing on that because it’s the most recent one and that one is a first love story. We’ll get a little bit more into what the various ways are that you can tackle romance in a moment. But that one is a first love story. Tell us a bit about how that one came to be. Re-telling The Philadelphia Story 40 years later Nora Goes Off Script – a re-rite of The Philadelphia Story 40 years later… Annabel Monaghan: When you’re writing your second book, you do start to panic a little bit because you’re, you don’t want to write the same book over again. I was trying to come up with something that was totally different, really from what I had written in. Nora Goes Off Script and I had thought a lot about the movie, The Philadelphia story. Have you seen this movie? Jenny Wheeler: I don’t think I have, although I know it’s a classic. Annabel Monaghan: It’s a classic. It’s from 1940, and Katherine Hepburn brings her fiancé home to her parents’ house to get married, and her ex-husband is living next door. It’s a very fun story, but what it’s really ends up being about is about going home and seeing how much you’ve changed since you’ve left and what heartbreak can do to shape your identity. And I’ve thought a lot about that movie over the years and I decided that I wanted to write a book that was like that. I wanted to take a young girl and she’s a teenager and run her through a wonderful, heartfelt relationship and just blow the whole thing up to see what kind of a person she would become as an adult. So that story goes back and forth in time between when Sam and Wyatt are teenagers and in love, and now that she’s an adult and she’s going home and runs into him again. ‘Everything I want in a romance’ Jenny Wheeler: Yes. Now when she does go home, that’s nearly 15 years later, They haven’t seen each other since that terrible summer when it all broke up. And she’s got a fiancé on her arm, Jack, who she’s planning – very intensive plans – going on for the wedding. It does sound as if it mirrors ‘Philadelphia’ very closely. Now, Carley Fortune, who’s one of the rising romance stars, described it as “everything I want in a romance.” And I wondered, what do you want in a romance? Annabel Monaghan: I love Carley Fortune for saying that, by the way. That was so sweet. Here’s what I like in a romance. I like to feel it. I like to feel the whole thing in my heart and in my body. Sometimes when I read a romance and you have these people who have this great dynamic together and they fall in love and something terrible happens and then they get back together because one of them had a change of heart. That’s not enough for me because people don’t just change their mind and then they love you again. In a romance, I always look for the extra piece where something monumental has changed in them to make them come back together. Playing it safe after a broken heart Jenny Wheeler: That’s wonderful. When we start out, the characters are there. Wyatt is a little bit vague at the beginning because we don’t know much about him. We only see him through Sam’s eyes. But at the beginning, when we see Sam’s life as a woman, you’re a little bit puzzled about why she’s trying to convince herself that Jack is the one she should be marrying. You’re not ever really entirely convinced that she is convinced herself that she wants to marry him. What’s going on there with that? That she’s telling herself in her head, this is the man I should be marrying. He’s ideal. Annabel Monaghan: Sam’s part of her heartbreak was that everybody that she counted on completely let her down. And she was broken by that. I think that in this story, as an adult, she is looking for the thing that she can count on. And there’s a lot to be said for that. I honestly, I respect people who choose something in their lives that’s going to feel safe for them so that they can be okay. There’s nothing wrong with that, but when you do that, you’re giving up sometimes the ‘big magic.’ The big love that has the possibility to destroy you. And it made sense to me that Sam would choose a man who had everything all planned out. He knew exactly, what exercise he was going to do every day. He knew what sports their kids were going to play. He was very much a predictable, stable guy. He might have actually been an okay guy for somebody else. A story of sunshine, first love and the beach Jenny Wheeler: That’s a great way of seeing it. Also, it’s so much a story of summertime and the beach and being young at the beach. It infuses the story. Even 15 years later, they capture that feeling of what it was like to be 15 at the beach. And I wondered if there was personal experience for you in that, and maybe even a little bit creeping in of a first love at the beach in a teenage years. Annabel Monaghan: Oh, so many first loves at the beach. I think every time I was in love, it was my first love. But I grew up in Los Angeles, so my childhood really took place largely at the beach. We went to the beach all the time. We had to drive there. We didn’t live on the beach, but I spent a lot of time at the beach and there is something to me that is so sensory about those young memories. Being 15, 16, 17 at the beach and having the salt dry on your skin and the way the sun felt on you and the music that you listen to each summer can transport you. I have all of those memories still, and it was really fun to write a book that took place so much in the summer because it was easy to get back to that nostalgic feeling and conjure all those memories. Never Miss out! 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100%;}.formkit-form[data-uid="d471e51619"][min-width~="600"] [data-style="minimal"]{padding:40px;}.formkit-form[data-uid="d471e51619"][min-width~="600"] .formkit-fields[data-stacked="false"]{margin-left:-5px;margin-right:-5px;}.formkit-form[data-uid="d471e51619"][min-width~="600"] .formkit-fields[data-stacked="false"] .formkit-field,.formkit-form[data-uid="d471e51619"][min-width~="600"] .formkit-fields[data-stacked="false"] .formkit-submit{margin:0 5px 15px 5px;}.formkit-form[data-uid="d471e51619"][min-width~="600"] .formkit-fields[data-stacked="false"] .formkit-field{-webkit-flex:100 1 auto;-ms-flex:100 1 auto;flex:100 1 auto;}.formkit-form[data-uid="d471e51619"][min-width~="600"] .formkit-fields[data-stacked="false"] .formkit-submit{-webkit-flex:1 1 auto;-ms-flex:1 1 auto;flex:1 1 auto;} Annabel Monaghan’s individualistic writing process Jenny Wheeler: Wyatt is a musician as well, so music does play a huge part of his life. Annabel Monaghan: Yes, and that transports her back. I needed a lot of things to crack her very hard exterior that she has worked so hard to cultivate, to survive into adulthood. Jenny Wheeler: Now, in both books, there is a neat plot twist about three quarters of the way through, which gives you a of a pitch of excitement and something unexpected happening, and it made me wonder how you go about your writing process? How much outlining you do, or whether you let the characters themselves lead you to that point? How do you go about it? Annabel Monaghan: I go about it in a very messy way that I don’t recommend to any of your listeners. I start writing a story with a very narrow premise, and I write with abandon until I get to the end, and by the time I get to the end, I have an understanding of who my characters are, and then I start over again. It is the most inefficient, ridiculous writing process. But I find that I can have ideas about a book if I’m three quarters of the way into the book. It’s living in my mind and I can start having ideas while I’m taking a walk or doing the dishes. But I don’t have original ideas unless I’m actually typing. To start a story I have to sit down and write my way into a story. And once I hit the character, once I understand who she is and who he is, then the whole thing becomes quite fun. But it’s very exploratory for a long time until that happens. Getting to know your characters in the writing Jenny Wheeler: For the reader in this book, you get to know Sam at the beginning and Wyatt is still quite a mystery, quite a way in, until you start to see him. Was that how it was when you wrote it? Did you start with a strong idea of Sam and Wyatt gradually revealed himself? Annabel Monaghan: That’s a great question. No, I actually knew Wyatt quite well and I think that at some point during the million drafts of this book, I had maybe a hundred pages of Wyatt’s life in his perspective when he moved out to California and the jobs he had and the recording studio and the girlfriend. I had all sorts of stuff that got cut from the story. As you’re reading, if it feels as if he’s being revealed slowly, that’s because Sam doesn’t want to look at him or remember him as much as she does. And by the end Sam is remembering him as we’re getting to know him, and that’s when he becomes more clear. But I had a clear sense of him early on. Jenny Wheeler: Wow, that’s interesting. How many drafts would you have written of that particular book? Annabel Monaghan: Oh my goodness. I probably wrote 12 drafts of this book. Jenny Wheeler: Oh my goodness me. That’s fantastic. The well-known romance tropes Annabel Monaghan: It is. And it’s fun. Each one’s fun. There are a few days that aren’t fun, but finding a story is a really fun process. Jenny Wheeler: Nora Goes Off Script. One of the things that I particularly loved about it was the very knowing way you had of writing about romance tropes. The very well-known tropes generally that romance follows. And we know that in this book because Nora is a screenwriter for romance movies, so she’s very familiar with the various tropes. And I wondered what trope that book itself would fit. Annabel Monaghan: Regular person dates, famous person. I think that’s the trope that it hits. It’s actually very funny to me. I didn’t know the word trope until after Nora Goes Off Script was published. I’d never heard the word before and what I was thinking about instead of tropes when I was writing that book, I was thinking about all the ridiculous things that you see on the Hallmark Channel when you’re watching those made for TV movies. Do you know those movies? These are the movies Nora writes Jenny Wheeler: We don’t have Hallmark here, I don’t think, but I do know what it means, yes. Annabel Monaghan: They take place in very small towns. Generally speaking, there’s one person from the big city and one person lives in the small town and they don’t get along and then they fall in love. And those are the movies that she writes. And I think that what I was talking about was tropes, but I didn’t know that word. Jenny Wheeler: For those listeners who maybe have not come across that word before, how would you describe it for the general reader? Annabel Monaghan: It’s the thing that you run across in a romance. It’s grumpy guy falls in love and becomes not grumpy anymore. It’s the trope where you’re fake dating, where you have to pretend to be dating someone. Like in the movie The Proposal you get to the hotel and there’s only one bed. ‘There’s only one bed’ is the name of a trope. So it’s the tricks or the mechanisms that romance novels use to hook you. People have favorite tropes. They say that Same Time Next Summer is a Second Chance romance. That’s the trope. And all the people who love Second Chance romances want to read another one. You never get tired of the trope that you like because there’s so many different ways to approach it. Romance readers and their favorite tropes Jenny Wheeler: And it’s interesting how romance readers they know their trope, don’t they? Annabel Monaghan: They do. Jenny Wheeler: Is there a baby one? Either surprise baby, or fake baby or extra baby? Annabel Monaghan: Please don’t give me an extra baby. We might not make that a thing in real life. That just sounds terrible. Jenny Wheeler: I wondered as a trope expert – or you perhaps you’re not a trope expert? I assumed you were because there were so many different sorts of movies that Nora was writing and she knew what she had to do so well. But, in romance generally, have you noticed since this last upheaval we’ve been through with Covid and the political situation in the States, which is still quite fractious, do you think there’s been a change in the tropes that people like or are they timeless? Annabel Monaghan: I haven’t noticed a change. I think that they are timeless. And I think that a romance novel is a place where you go to escape, but also to learn something about somebody’s life and to process things. And I think those stand the test of time. Jenny Wheeler: Yes. do you read a lot of romance yourself and have you got a favorite trope? The only trope that never happens in real life Annabel Monaghan: My favorite trope is, and someone just told me that this is the only trope that actually never happens, which made me laugh. I really like the fake dating. you have to come home with me and pretend to be my fiancé because my parents are going to disown me. That never happens in real life. I don’t know anyone that’s ever happened to. But I just always find the awkwardness so funny. I love it. Jenny Wheeler: That’s lovely. And the other thing, ten years ago, romance was probably a little bit more formulaic than it is now. And a little bit less interested in the emotions. I see that many of the reviews of your books refer to the deeply emotional nature of the stories, and I had the feeling that was far more important to you than the physical expression of love. Annabel Monaghan: Oh, that’s such a lovely compliment. Yes, absolutely. I really get into when I’m writing, I really get into the emotional state of the characters that I’m writing about, because it makes the writing much easier and more fluid for me. And I find that the emotional connection to the person and then getting to be romantic with them the actual act of sex or being together is so much less impactful than just the satisfaction of the emotional buildup. So yes, I am writing from a much more emotional place, I think. Never Miss out! Never miss out on the hottest new authors, regular FREE BOOK OFFERS and Most Popular podcasts. Yes please to FREE BOOKS and updates on popular books We won’t send you spam. 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100%;}.formkit-form[data-uid="d471e51619"][min-width~="600"] [data-style="minimal"]{padding:40px;}.formkit-form[data-uid="d471e51619"][min-width~="600"] .formkit-fields[data-stacked="false"]{margin-left:-5px;margin-right:-5px;}.formkit-form[data-uid="d471e51619"][min-width~="600"] .formkit-fields[data-stacked="false"] .formkit-field,.formkit-form[data-uid="d471e51619"][min-width~="600"] .formkit-fields[data-stacked="false"] .formkit-submit{margin:0 5px 15px 5px;}.formkit-form[data-uid="d471e51619"][min-width~="600"] .formkit-fields[data-stacked="false"] .formkit-field{-webkit-flex:100 1 auto;-ms-flex:100 1 auto;flex:100 1 auto;}.formkit-form[data-uid="d471e51619"][min-width~="600"] .formkit-fields[data-stacked="false"] .formkit-submit{-webkit-flex:1 1 auto;-ms-flex:1 1 auto;flex:1 1 auto;} How Annabel Monaghan got into fiction Jenny Wheeler:. Turning perhaps away from the specific books to talk a little bit about your wider career. You’ve had a really interesting career in journalism before you turned to fiction, I wondered if you’d give us an idea of number one, how you came to write fiction and what you were doing in the years before you did turned your hand to writing fiction. Annabel Monaghan: I wrote my first book when I was 37 years old, I didn’t start right off the bat, but I always wanted to be a writer. From forever, like when I was a little kid, I wanted to write. I studied writing in college. But when I was graduating from college, I realized that I would have no way to support myself as a writer. And all of my friends were moving to New York City. And I thought I don’t think this is going to work. I got a job in banking. And I worked in banking for a couple years. I went and got a master’s in business. I went back to banking and I did that until I had children. And then I was at home with children for eight years and I did not start writing until I was 37. It was a very long way to get there. I don’t think that even if I had the opportunity to do it earlier, I would’ve had the confidence to do it. Or really anything to say before I was 37. But a friend encouraged me to write a book with her and I think that it was her confidence that made it happen. And that was really how I got started and then once I got started, I was hooked. Co-writing teenage fiction the beginning Jenny Wheeler: And what was the first book that you wrote together? Annabel Monaghan: We wrote a book called Click, and it was a nonfiction book for teenage girls about positive thinking. It was not a big success, but because we wrote that book, I had a literary agent. As soon as that was over, I started writing my first young adult novel, which was called A Girl Named Digit. And because I had that agent, then she sold that book and then I wrote a sequel to that book. And then I wrote my column – a column for women and mothers that I’ve written for about 12 years. And I was writing that until Covid hit when I sat down and wrote Nora Goes Off Script, which was my first thing that I wrote for adults. Jenny Wheeler: Do you mind me asking? You have got children, I’ve got the feeling that they were sons. Do you have any daughters? Annabel Monaghan: I do not. I keep looking for one. I do not have a daughter. I have three sons. What Annabel’s sons think of her romcoms Jenny Wheeler: And yet you’ve been writing books that are for young women? Annabel Monaghan: Yes. When I was writing my young adult fiction, people used to ask me all the time, how can you write about a teenage girl when you don’t have a daughter? And I thought I was a teenage girl. I still have that teenage girl inside of me. And I find that I understand the emotional life- my own emotional life and the emotional life of my friends, better than I understand what a man’s emotional life is. I’m not going to start writing about my sons, Jenny Wheeler: I guess teenage boys probably are looking for more adventure action stuff if they read it all, aren’t they? Annabel Monaghan: They are, although one of my sons has been wonderful about reading my books and giving me notes and suggestions. I really appreciate that. But for the most part, they’re not reading anything that I would want to write. Jenny Wheeler: That’s really interesting. And does a teenage boy have a very different perspective on your books than maybe that your readers would? Annabel Monaghan: Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. one of my sons he read Nora Goes Off Script and his comment was, ‘It’s just so gross, mom. She’s so old.’ She’s 37 years old, engaged in a relationship, or 39 years old, and I thought, wow, is that old? Yes. Thank goodness, they’re not my target reader. Things You Don’t Know About Me… Jenny Wheeler: Lovely. you’ve got a very funny part on your website that talks about Things You Don’t Know About Me, and I noticed there that one of the pieces of advice you give is Marry a Canadian. Now. I thought that was really funny. Annabel Monaghan: You know what? It’s actually great advice. My husband is Canadian and – we shouldn’t be generalizing about large groups of people, but there is something about – including his family, Canadians, I know that don’t get so uptight about everything. They let a lot of stuff go. And they’re very easy going. I love my Canadian husband. Jenny Wheeler: That’s wonderful.. Is one thing that you would ascribe to quotes, ‘the secret of your success’ in the creative area, what would it be? Annabel Monaghan: That’s a great question. Now I would tell you that I have a brilliant editor, so she is the secret of my success. She is so patient and so brilliant with me. But what I think has got me to where I am is being light about it. I don’t sit down and write a paragraph and then toil over it to make it a perfect paragraph before I move on. I don’t take my writing that seriously as I’m going. So, it doesn’t bother me to cut a hundred pages because I didn’t spend six years writing a hundred pages. And I think that part of that is because I’m a little older, I’m just not taking every single thing so seriously. The funny questions Book Clubs ask Jenny Wheeler: That’s wonderful. I noticed that you do have book club questions in your books and I wondered if you did many book club chats and what kinds of questions you got from them that might be surprising to you. Annabel Monaghan: I do a lot of book clubs. Lately people have been asking me and I had never thought of this before, who would I go out with? Leo from Nora Goes Off Script or Wyatt from Same Time Next Summer. I’m getting that question a lot this summer and the answer is, Wyatt, every time I get a lot of questions about, when these are going to be made into movies. I had one question one time that surprised me. A woman asked me if I intended to use such poor grammar in my books. I didn’t know how to answer that. I said I thought it was okay. Jenny Wheeler: You rely on an editor for that anyway, don’t you? Annabel Monaghan: I do. I said, I’ve never heard that before, but thank you for pointing it out. Jenny Wheeler: What did she object to? Was it split infinitives or…? Never Miss out! Never miss out on the hottest new authors, regular FREE BOOK OFFERS and Most Popular podcasts. Yes please to FREE BOOKS and updates on popular books We won’t send you spam. 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And she said it’s the way people speak. Jenny Wheeler: Ah. Annabel Monaghan: I was explaining to her that people don’t speak in perfect grammar. People speak in fragments and asides. And that’s just how conversation goes. But I thought that was such a funny question. I’ll never forget that. Jenny Wheeler: We always like to ask our authors about their own reading tastes because this is binge reading and we do focus on books that people read for escape and entertainment and pleasure, not necessarily for, improving their minds. What kinds of books do you like to read and what would you like to recommend to our listeners? Annabel Monaghan: My taste in reading – it’s probably because I’m just trying to get away from my own writing. – my taste in reading is generally very murdery. I like murder in England, so I like anything that Lisa Jewell writes. I will buy every single book-  I have bought every single book that she’s ever written. Do you know Lisa Jewell? Amy Poeppel one of her favorite romance authors Jenny Wheeler: I know the name. We haven’t had her on the show yet. Annabel Monaghan: Oh just drop everything and read them all. They’re all just very smart murdery things. I love Elizabeth George, who’s a mystery writer, and oh, I just, I’ll read all of those forever. That’s what I like to read when I’m just doing whatever I want. When I’m reading closer to what I write my very favorite is Amy Poeppel, Jenny Wheeler: Oh yes. Annabel Monaghan: Have you read her The Sweet Spot and Musical Chairs? Jenny Wheeler: Yes! We’ve just had her on in the last few weeks. Annabel Monaghan: Oh, did you? Oh, I think she is absolutely brilliant and I’d love her books, so I can’t wait for the next one. Jenny Wheeler: That’s wonderful. Fantastic. looking back down the tunnel of time, if there was one thing you’d change about your creative career, what would it be? What Annabel would change… or not Annabel Monaghan: I would’ve loved to have started… well…  the butterfly effect, right? You don’t want to change anything because everything worked out fine. I think that I would’ve loved to have had a little bit more faith in what I was actually good at a younger age. Maybe go work in publishing for a while or work in some capacity with words rather than numbers. I would’ve immersed myself in this life sooner. But having said that, the path you take is the path you take. Jenny Wheeler: But publishing is a business as well as a creative activity, isn’t it? Annabel Monaghan: Yes. Oh, for sure. For sure. Jenny Wheeler: It’s surprising to me actually. There are quite a number of authors. I’d say maybe 25% maybe, or 20% of the people that I ask that question. That is the thing they say. I wish I’d had more confidence in myself as a younger woman or person. Annabel Monaghan: And that doesn’t just apply to my writing career either. I wish that I had always had more confidence. That’s the beautiful thing about getting older. You receive your confidence, you step into your confidence. And it’s a very good feeling. What Annabel Monaghan has got coming up Jenny Wheeler: What is next for Annabella, as author say, looking over the next 12 months, what have you got on your desk that you need to pay attention to? Annabel Monaghan: I have my third novel, it’s called Summer Romance. that is due on July 14th. I am finishing that. I’m feverishly working on that now to get that back to my editor. And then in August, I think I’m going to start my 2025 book. I have a book coming out in June of 2024 and June, 2025, but I have not thought of an idea for the next one, so I’m writing. I’m writing all the time. Jenny Wheeler: Summer Romance will be the June 24 one. Will it? Annabel Monaghan: Yes. Invite me back. I would love to come talk to you about it. Jenny Wheeler: Fantastic. We’d love to have you. Do you love interacting with your readers and where can they find you online? I. Annabel Monaghan: I love it so much. I can’t tell you what a joyful part of my day it is to pick up my phone and have somebody say something or quote something back to me that mattered to them, and then they tell me why. it is the most magical thing about being a writer. Yes, I love it. My website is annabelmonahan.com and I am Annabelle Monahan on Instagram and Twitter and on Facebook, although I’m not on Facebook very often, I’m mostly on Instagram. Leo or Wyatt? Who would you date? Jenny Wheeler: Fantastic. You saying about loving to talk to your readers. I had not thought of that question of who would I like to date, Leo or Wyatt. It’s just fascinating the things that people think of, isn’t it? Annabel Monaghan: It’s wonderful. What’s your answer? Jenny Wheeler: Oh, I think it would be Wyatt as well. Annabel Monaghan: All right. All right, good. I want a trajectory where we’re improving the men with each book. Jenny Wheeler: Yes. I think Leo’s a nice enough chap and he was very restrained towards the end of the book. Annabel Monaghan: Yes, Jenny Wheeler: But Wyatt had a special something. Yes, Annabel Monaghan: He did. Oh, he did. He’s so sweet. Jenny Wheeler: Annabelle, thanks so much. It’s been a delightful chat. Thank you for being willing to come online today. Thank you. Annabel Monaghan: Thank you. I really enjoyed it. If you enjoyed Annabel you’ll also be interested in Amy… Fresh and funny romcoms from one of Annabel’s favorite authors… LISTEN TO AMY Next Week on Binge Reading Next week on binge reading. Madeline Eskedahl, and her Kiwi thriller Rings Of Water, the second book in her best-selling Matakana series. A narcotics pickup at sea goes horribly wrong. A man as lost overboard. A dangerous series of events sends shock waves through the local community. It’s set in a rural seaside community, north of Auckland, New Zealand. Sergeant Bill Granger is hoping for a quiet off-season. Instead, what seems to be a straightforward case of an unfortunate death turns that went to a complex web of small towns secrets and revenge that will soon place Bill and his family in danger. That’s next week on The Joys Of Binge Reading podcast. And remember if you enjoy the show, leave us a review, so others will find us too. Word of mouth is still the best way to discover the show, and for others to find great books they’ll love to read. That’s it for today. See you next time and happy reading. If you enjoyed Annabel you’ll also enjoy Amy Poeppel Next Week on Binge Reading