Hi Virginia. Welcome to the What's your Next podcast?

I'm so thrilled to be back and chatting with you. Thanks for having me.

I am so happy. I was just sharing pre-interview that I had memories of our conversation because you came with Sonali, Deb and you both were just chit-chatting and it was just me as an outsider looking at a friendship of authors who deeply admire each other, but deeply respected each other and it was just so delightful and this interview was recorded in the midst of COVID which is a weird time that your current book actually dealts with. But Virginia tells, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Well, I've been a writer for, I just figured this out, a published author for 27 years.

my gosh, congratulations.

I know. It's so I am starting to feel like i'm almost achieving Crohn's status. But of course I started as a reader

Yeah.

I think that, storytellers that readers and writers are always in conversation.

Mm-hmm.

Partly through, of course, wonderful podcasts like this one, but I think writers start writing because they have something to say

Yeah.

and or we're trying to figure things out sometimes, both at the same time, but it's not really until we get it on a page and then someone reads it and it sparks something in their thoughts or their feelings. That connection is forged and that's what I write for. And nothing makes me happier than when I hear from a reader or at, or somebody comes up to me at a signing or heck interacts with me on social media and goes, I heard what you were saying. I feel seen, I feel understood and I'm just so lucky that I get to do this job. So I've been I think I wrote probably 15 books for Harlequin back in the day.

Oh my

I wrote an entire romance fantasy series for Berkeley. I did contemporary romance series set on the North Carolina coast for Berkeley. And then the last several books have really been, I've been digging into that connection between. The books that I loved as a reader that formed me as a reader and coming back to them as an adult and seeing what they mean to me now, and never, ever wanting to get in between someone else's experience of those books, but rather to share both what they meant to me then. And how I have a different perspective on them now. So that's been Meghan, Joe, Beth, and Amy, the fairytale life of Dorothy Gale and now Ann of a different island.

I love your little woman retelling like or re-imagining of them in this era. I think it, like little women meant a lot to me because it was a book that I read. The first classic English book that I read, I grew up in Puerto Rico, so we read a lot of Shakespeare and stuff like that, but we also read Spanish. Classics. So it was like a mix. And this was the first book that I read that I felt myself seeing, felt myself part of wanna be friends with these women and wanted to companionship. When we think about classics, we think about books that are like, they're intimidating, they're overwhelming. And I have friends who are. Love classic and have delve into, as introduced me to better ways to approach it. Little Woman is the one book that I have re reread multiple times and I love that re-imagining of them in this era. What would it be like?

Was interesting to me because when I was growing up, I wanted to be Joe.

Yeah.

think there's a writer alive who at some point hasn't gone, I'm going to be Joe. One of the interesting things for me going back to that book was how you really just wanna be part of the March family. You're almost like Lori hanging out, looking over the. Fence going, invite me. I want to, be part of this. But the other thing that struck me as I dug into it now is that all four sisters actually present a valid way of moving, navigating the world as a woman. And I think that was one of the brilliant things about Greta Gerwig movie.

Yeah.

Was that you saw aspects of them and went, that's what the Meg's approach to life is. Valid. And Amy's approach take no prisoners' approach to life is valid. And Beth's sweetness isn't weakness,

Yeah.

it's strength.

Yeah.

So I completely with you on the love, and I don't think of what I do as retelling so much as an homage.

Yeah.

It's really challenging when you do a retelling because you're taking on something that other people have a connection to the source material.

Yeah.

You fiddle with that bond at your peril.

Yeah.

and so the tricky thing sometimes can be let's not break the glass, let's just twist it so we can see it from a different direction.

Yeah.

But yeah, and of course when I did Ann of a different island, it was like. I'm not Canadian. This is gonna be a hard sell. But Anne was huge for me. And Gilbert was my first best book boyfriend.

Gosh, oh my gosh. I have a confession. I read multiple Anne of Green Gables. Reimagining. Retelling specific. But I have not read the source material. I've been told that I should read the source material. It is very clear that I will love the source material. I don't know why I'm resisting. And maybe this is like Christmas gift for myself is just to read the source material. Because your book actually was like, like this is like the ultimate series that you just wanna fall in love with it and you just wanna just dive into it. And I think you gave people who are familiar with the source material, but they're not so intimately. Like basically a calling card that you have to read this, like you're gonna like this is actually really good material that even certainly teenagers who may feel really unacceptable, may feel outside on Outcast, who will love this book and will create TikTok challenges about it.

Well, thanks. Actually this book is the first book in which the source material exists.

Yeah.

So when I did the retellings of. The March sisters and they're talking about fictional characters. They talk about the sisters in little women, but they don't, I mean, they talk about the sisters in Pride and Prejudice,

Yeah.

but they don't talk about the sisters in little women because little women doesn't exist in that universe.

Yeah.

When I did, the fairytale life of Dorothy Gale and I, it's hard to talk about this without spoilers, but again, l Frank Balm and his book and that movie do not exist.

Yeah.

But when I did Ann of a Different Island, part of what I'm talking about is the importance of stories, how much they mean to us, how much they comfort us, how much they inspire us, how much they really show us the path ahead. And then also that. The fiction and real life don't always meet up in the ways that we think that they should.

Yes.

And Ann's Ann Gallagher, who is the American heroine of my novel, who lives on Mackinac Island, Michigan, wants to be and Shirley from Prince Edward Island.

Yeah.

And in some ways. Her life follows along that path. She's a teacher. She aspires to be a writer. She has the perfect doctor, boyfriend.

Yeah. About that because that, that doctor boyfriend was just like maybe book boyfriends may not be the right ones. You wanna have just an FYI?

Well, I need you to read the Ann of Green ga, the Ann Series Because you will get.

yes

you will understand a reference later in the book.

Yeah.

zero in on.

Yes. So talk to us at a different island. What is the liver pitch? Just a little bit. For listeners who may not be familiar with Anna Green Gables, or Anna a different island, where's a side? Because it's suddenly a unique island. They don't have cards.

Okay, so you lived in Chicago. I don't know if you ever took a trip up into Michigan to Mackinac Island.

I was in a COVID bubble, so I was

Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. Well, then we probably should talk about that too with relation to this book. So Mackinac Island has been a getaway for the wealthy in Chicago. I mean, it was originally a French fur trapping

Yeah.

island, and very important to the the Native Americans in that area. Then it became sort of a getaway for the rich and maybe not so famous but they made that gorgeous grand hotel and for people who are into old romantic movies, somewhere in time was filmed there.

Wow.

What I wanted to leverage a little bit when I was looking for a way to talk about. And Shirley and the power of imagination and the import.

It's

But what I wanted to do was sort of lean into the nostalgia and the comfort because I don't think we live in comforting times right now.

Yeah.

And what was interesting to me was that you can go to. Lucy, Maude Montgomery's se books, and not just the Anne series, but she's, written some other really wonderful books. And you can get comfort, but they were not written during uneventful times.

Yeah.

And one of the things that's interesting in Anne and that I think that the more recent television series, Anne with an E, which was on Netflix for a while, leaned into. Was that her backstory? I mean, basically she's an orphan

Yeah.

who goes is adopted out, almost purchased

Yeah.

to a brother and sister who live on this rural island.

Yeah.

and they wanted a boy to work the farm

Yeah.

and they end up with this skinny little imaginative girl.

Yeah.

And, but if you look at Anne's backstory, it's actually really difficult. If you look at the circumstances of her life and the setbacks she faces some significant setbacks and she's finds a way to, she to cope with charm, with determination, with and she's so funny because she can be very overdramatic I actually did try to. Use some of that impulsiveness when I was thinking about my own character, Ann Gallagher. But I love her resilience.

Mm-hmm.

think as a, it's her imagination and her resilience, which are amazing. And then there's the nostalgia of that old time setting. So what I was looking for was the nostalgia of an old time, sort of this old time nostalgia, but also the idea that somebody could face circumstances that were difficult in a time of change with a certain amount of resilience.

Yeah.

So Mackinac Island, look, I can actually get my way back there to is, has, was it playground of the well off. And then at some point, like after the automobile was introduced,

Yeah.

it scared the horses

Oh.

and so Mackinac Island decided that prohibited motor vehicle traffic on the island.

Yeah.

Now they have a police and they have an ambulance, and they have a fire truck and a couple utility trucks

Yeah.

That's it.

Yeah.

So I thought they had these charming Victorian houses, which would've been from the original Ann's time. You can ride in carriages, which is part of the originals Ann's time, the year-round population at Mackinac. Varies between five and 600,

Mm-hmm.

which is not, I wanted that limited community that you, that like Prince Edward Island. And interestingly, I, the two of the series that I wrote for Berkeley back in the Auts and the tens, one was a fantasy series called Children of the Sea Set on an island off the coast of Maine. One was the Dare Island series set on an island off the course of North Carolina. I think there's something about a small, relatively isolated community that, again. Sort of forces the kind of connection that I'm really interested in exploring. So that was the reason for Ann of a different island and why it's set on Mackinaw Michigan. Plus they make fudge

fun. You make horse, dry curry horse, coming,

horse-drawn carriage. We can do it.

Yeah. But I have to tell you, as someone who grew up in an island, I grew up in the Caribbean, grew up in Puerto Rico, which is an island, it's a US colony. It's a little bit bigger than Mackinac Island. But there's something to be said about, as you mentioned, things about the island. We're a tight-knit community. Even though there's millions of people know each other, people know it's family. They ask what's your last name? Who are you related to? What are your, it's your profession. The specifics we are in everyone's business. We're noy as fuck, and it's lovely and it's just like a sense of community, which you lose when you're in the mainland, when you're actually neighbors don't help like and Puerto Rico neighbors help each other. We all are. Helping each other out. It may not always be pleasant as someone who's growing up in the island. 'cause he has dreams of exploring the world and traveling and having this space of making it big and getting it out. And so I identify with in, in the sense of getting out of the island at 18. Very naive, very usher. How to handle it, how to make friends, because you've been with the same people for 12 years in your school, so you kind of have, they already know you, they already have made an assumption. So you actually have to make new friends. In my case, I went to school. Our class was 54 of us. And then I went to Syracuse, which is because it looked pretty on the pictures. I did not have a proper coach. I did not. winter time. I had no idea though. Snow will be there for 10 months out of the year, and yet I was like, okay, we're making it work. And I knew one of the things I knew that I had to make it or break it, that I was like, I need to just, we're just gonna figure the shit out. And that's the beauty of, and then figure out. What to do after graduation? What should you, how do you stay in the mainland in some ways and try to be successful in your twenties where you just have no idea what you're supposed to be doing? And you think you're supposed to know your whole life plan and it's, and someone with anxiety. I don't have adhd, but I have anxiety and that's it. It reflects in very similar aspects of it. It's very difficult to manage life the way you're supposed to manage. And especially in 24, I can feel it like. And then you have COVID, which we gotta talk about. This book is said in COVID. Post COVID, it is 2022, fresh of the COVID mind. It's, yeah.

Well, when I was talking earlier about. Safe places to explore difficult subjects. I think that there are, and I don't know if we were taping at the time, but we were talking about writers and readers and connection. So one of the things that has happened is I've heard from readers who came of age in a time of COVID. Missed things. They missed their graduations, they missed for, they at a time when they thought they would be setting off. They're moving home with their families. Their relationships were either fast tracked or derailed

Yeah.

By the isolation of COVID. And I thought it was interesting that there aren't. A lot of stories. It's as if we've had a cultural amnesia.

Yeah. I don't know if we're gonna get COVID stories in 50 or 60 years. Just like we see World War II stories now. Like maybe we'll have that. But I think in some ways, because it was traumatic. I think in some ways we just were so scared to revisit. It's like readers say there's COVID. Oh, I don't wanna read this. And it's no, but there's actually something welcoming about the idea, the reminder of the time that we're alive, the time where we're just scrounging for toilet paper and then watching these shitty Netflix shows that were just a cultural touch point and we're having. Thanksgiving and Zoom and having major life events and the fact that we couldn't. Say goodbye to our loved ones because we were in isolation. There's certain things that happen and especially the generation, there are COVID kids, the COVID high school kids, the COVID kids who have, may not have the same level of of experimentation or willingness to take risks. There's a lot of divide. I'm an elder millennial and there's a lot of conversation how the Gen Z is looking at the elder millennials and trying to understand our life. And we're like we, because we lived through recession, we lived through wars and. Nine 11 and it's very interesting to watch the Gen Z. Okay, well we're not gonna do that. We're not gonna drink, we're not gonna, make the mistakes you made. But there's something to be said about the, there's a very strong divide between what was my early youth, thirties, years old, and to younger, like the younger generation who may not have those because there were stunted, there were just, they have, there have different limitations that we did not have.

And another thing that's. Made a big difference too, I think is the way we use social media and the way we are able to be connected

Yeah.

through, through our phones, through FaceTime, through whatever, through texting. So what I wanted to do I do wanna say I didn't set out to write a political novel. I don't think it is a political novel. But I did want to say to. My readers who came of age in a time of COVID that I see you.

Yeah.

And more importantly, I wanted to use that time. That's a trauma that we kind of know the ending of the story. I mean, not that it's ended, but that we survived. Right.

Yeah

since I'm talking, I wanted to talk about resilience.

yeah.

I wanted to talk about finding a way forward,

Yeah.

I thought that it's sort of a metaphor, so you'll notice that the book opens in April,

Yeah.

of 2022, and it ends in 2025.

Yeah.

And. The reason for that is to, again, address times when we are divided or we feel isolated and how do we find our way forward. There's a wonderful line in the original, at the end of the original. And if Green Gables, this is not a spoiler 'cause hello, this book came out in 1908. Where? Ann has the Aunt Shirley, the OG aunt basically says, I saw my future and now there's a bend in the road

Yeah.

and I'm gonna have to go around the corner and I don't know what I'll see. I'm paraphrasing here. But I'm going to find my way. And that's really what I, that's the soul of the book for me.

yeah.

So there are things that I do differently. Obviously since I'm setting classics in modern times and all of my heroines are older than their historical counterparts, they have sex, and some, I did a library at the statewide library event. I won't even say what state.

Yeah.

The first question I got, and this was when the little women books came out, the first question I got was, how do you reconcile having the daughters of a minister have premarital sex with the wonderful orig pure original? That was an I. Swallowed hard so that I would not break out into someone singing. The only guy who could ever reach me was the son of a preacher man. And I just talked about how when you're in a book, you are following the characters along on their journey, and you're in their shoes and you're seeing things through their eyes, and they make choices. Then that lets you agree or disagree with those choices, but you have more understanding and empathy with their choices because you're following them on their journey.

Yes, absolutely correct

but wow

but yes,

was, I had to think hard on that one. That was.

that's very diplomatic saying, yes,

They're gonna have sex. Just get over your old bad self and just not only sex, but good sex.

Yes. That was a major thing.

Oh, and that was, okay. So that's another like letter I get,

Yeah.

Which is, I think people are. Women, I get way more letters from young women than young men have, are really uncertain about relationships or even reluctant to enter into relationships. And I think that I wanted to sort of explore what it looks like to have choices. And what kinds of things can drive your choices?

Yeah. Yeah, and this book actually Dels with that because Ann is at a crossroad. She has a relationship, she's coming back home, and then she sees her childhood best friend who has settled in her aunt's mind too young and is already pregnant with multiple babies.

Well, she's actually only pregnant with one,

one baby. She has two babies. She's, she has, she's now two children under three and like in no time, but basically under two or three. So Ann is okay, but that's, you settle. Which is very common for. People like me who will be like, okay, well that's a settle. And her best friend telling her no this is the choice that I wanted. This is the life I wanted to have. And we can't, I think social media made it very easy for us to judge other people's stuff. We may have judged them in at our time, but. Social media makes it very easy to show like this reel of life, and you're like, okay, I'm gonna judge your choices. I'm gonna either like it or not and I'll have a opinion about it and then I'm gonna tell you the opinion because we may not, like in the past, we may not even tell you the opinion. We may just chat it with our group chat or our friends and stuff. But now we're just like, oh, we'll tell you,

hello Stranger whose life I'm about to judge. Yeah, I there's a, another character in the book who was not Anne's best friend growing up. But was a protege employee and later partner of her dad. And there are two, two places in the book where he talks about labels.

yeah. Oh, I love that conversation. Love that conversation so much.

So he has two conversations with her and one is when she's trying to figure out what kind of, animal are you. And then the other and he. Doesn't judge, and then it comes out later. And I don't think there are any spoilers here where the other side of him not judging others is he doesn't judge her.

Yeah.

That he takes things, people as he as w he, he take walks with them where he finds them.

Yeah.

How's that?

Yes. Like I think in some ways Joe reflects the more real aspect of it, of what we would like to see in a partner. We're, there's no judgment. They see you for what you see. You, they're still dealing with their own baggage, but they're handling it as best as they can and they're taking responsibility for their part, and they're not. to, he's doing the best he can. He's helping out, he's showing up to, he's showing through actions. Not a lot of words. And I think in some ways, or the words that he said in when she was growing up, it was like, a little bit that it was a bit playground thing. But at the same time, he was there for her, he was there for Maddie aunt's mom who is struggling, and he is fixing the things that were not fixed,

well, it's interesting. I will confess, I have been with my husband since we were 19.

Gosh.

And he is way more articulate than,

Yeah.

Than a lot of my heroes. But I and I have two now adult sons and so I, I know guys and I love guys and. I don't think that gender is a substitute for character or destiny or, I mean, I think I, I don't think you need to lock anybody into a stereotype, but when I was writing Joe, I was indeed writing from what I know.

Yeah.

And one of the things that, one of the tricky things for me to address. You talked about 54 people in your graduating class on the island. In Mackinac, the school is so small that pretty much the high school is in class together. So ninth through 12th grade, they're on the same athletic teams. They're in the same classroom, maybe doing different things.

Yeah.

Even prom is pretty much. Four years of students and then students from the other local high island high schools because you don't have a party with justice on the island. I wanted to there to be a difference between, I did not want to recreate the classroom rivalry that the original Ann Shirley has with Gilbert Bly.

Yeah.

So if I weren't going to. Disappear, the age difference between Anne and Joe. I actually had to make Joe older enough

Yeah.

not have been in her high school classes with her. And so rightly or wrongly, that was a thing that happened. And I think it, emphasizes the very different places they are at in their lives when they reconnect at different points in the book

Yeah.

until she goes home this final time at the age of 25.

Yeah.

So

Yeah.

yeah, he was a character. I enjoyed writing very much. And when I say that Gilbert Blythe was my first best book boyfriend,

Yeah.

I want to say that despite my temporary fascination with Edward Rochester and Jane Eyre

gosh.

I pretty much sort of went straight into Mr. Darcy and Frederick Wentworth.

Yeah.

So that kind of goes back to your, these are guys who have baggage, but they're dealing with it as best they can. As opposed to, for example, Heathcliff

yeah.

in Weathering Heights, who's like digging up dead bodies and generally misbehaving. Yeah. So no big fan of Gilbert.

I would likely be fan of Gilbert.

But when she first, so this is if you have a chance.

yes.

Either in conjunction with reading the books or, if you can rent the DVDs. There is a 1985 mini series from Canada

Yeah.

with and it's so swoon worthy.

Yeah.

it's just the best ever with Meghan follows you,

Who knows? Maybe I'll do a substack about like my experience trying to read the original text in the next couple weeks. I have a little bit of a break between podcast books, so maybe I'll do that. Maybe I'll go down that rabbit hole and just go for it

It's like watching that original, also from the 1980s. You remember the pride and prejudice, right? This is like that. This has got the, it's got the feels. It's really got the feels. And I think when you are tackling a, when you are reimagining a classic work, you want the feels,

Yeah,

you can't recreate the same characters because that book's been done. You can't recreate all the same situations because. They've already been done really well. If they hadn't been done really well, you wouldn't remember them,

yeah.

these years later. But you want something of the, you want a little bit of the soul, like I said the resilience, the imagination the sort of this irrepressible joy that I think Anne brings. And then you want some of the feels. You want some of the, like I said, the nostalgia. The romanticism. The determin. Yeah.

I'll be adding it. Don't worry. It's gonna be in the tv. In the TV watch, TBR list of basically we're just gonna bump it up and just have a usually Christmas time. I tend to pick a series that has nothing to do, not for work, not for. Podcast not for anything and just dive into it, no questions asked. And I think maybe this is a year of and a Green Gables. We've been in trying times, so we might as well just get a little respite and go to Prince Outdoor Island and get to live in Ansular World,

I think when I was writing this book, it made me happy

Yes.

and I want readers to read it and feel

Yeah.

and reassured,

Yes.

And.

I think because you dealt with some tough subjects that people would avoid, you did it with such care that allowed you to actually explore what happened on your own personal life. Because the readers who are reading this book have experienced the trauma. It may not look as acute as ants in her early twenties, but we all experienced some sort of trauma. With COVID and the experience, and I think you did it with such care that it didn't feel triggering. It didn't feel like, like I like going back to the world and content warning. It felt very like. A place to reflect and a place to see how far you have come, the resiliency that you have had as a reader, as a person who experienced this world life changing event and as experiences, a continuous experience. Life changing events are happening every month at this point. We're on unprecedented times. It's getting to a point where I'm like, I just wanna live in present times. I long for the eighties and nineties, where some of our scandals were. Sex candle. Like it's a, and they were, there were obviously sh should, that happened, but not to the level of quickness and five minutes of unprecedented times,

there is that sense sometimes where you are, afraid to look at your phone in the morning because you don't wanna see the what fresh hell is this, and I think that's what really great books can do for us generally is give us a chance to either escape from or understand the world or both.

Yeah.

but I think it's one of the joys of a romance. And even though what I'm writing now is often, it straddles that women's fiction romance line it's, so if somebody's looking for a straight, spicy,

yes.

book that's about a relationship between two people then they're gonna find something a little different in.

Yeah.

Anne, because yes her romantic relationships are really important, but so are her relationships with her mother, her relationship with her friend, her relationship with her pa, her teachers, her relationships at work. So you see the romantic relationship is part of her journey, but not as a substitute for her journey. But I still have a huge romantic element in my books because I love romance and I think one of the things that it delivers so well is that even when there is a dark moment, or even when bad things are happening, you ought to be able to trust the writer to bring you home. And so I really appreciate it when you say, okay, you did that for me.

Yes.

It was safe. I was not triggered. Because that's what you wanna do. I want you to feel seen. I want you to feel understood. I wanna make this connection with you, but I also don't want you to feel. Endangered. My job is to comfort and entertain, not to retraumatize you.

Yes. It wasn't retraumatizing. I think it was healing. And I, as I said before we start recording, don't cry often. Very little. But I did cry at the end of this book, and that sounds spoil. There's nothing, there's no, nothing bad happens. By the way, just wanna say there's nothing bad. It's happen. It's a romance and not sense is there's a happily r afterafter. But because there was that way, the happily rafter culminated it, it brought emotions that I haven't been allowed myself to experience. And those are happy emotions and there sometimes you kind of have to have those happy tears. And so the way it really was with care, but it also wrapped up in a way that just gave you hope. And moments like this. Moments, and we're June 25. And if I share the video, there's a Christmas tree behind me. And the reason why there's a Christmas tree is because I need hope. I need lights. I need beauty because the world's on fire, and we're just powering through and it's, gonna be a time to be alive,

I think that wow. I think again we have not yet put up our tree, but we started putting it up early in 2020. I do think that we need all the light we can get

Yeah.

I think that not labeling people and finding a place where we are seen and understood,

Yeah.

Freshing our souls with a good book from time to time. Are all ways that we can be our own little sparks, our own little lights, our own little like we can wrap ourselves in Christmas lights and be our own little glow. And I glow for others.

Yeah.

Yeah,

well, all right. So thank you for having like a. Book club discussion about Anna Thank you for engaging with me. I know it's, I'm very lucky to have an opportunity to talk to authors, but sometimes when I find a book to speak to me, it's it's, it was a wonderful experience to talk to the author and have that, conversation and have somebody to be like, Hey, this is what I love about this element, so thank you for allowing me to, gosh, but also to talk about the book in a engaging. Fashion, in the sense of feeling good about it.

Well, I, again I mentioned this before we started recording, but our first conversation was in the time of COVID.

yeah,

and you have always been so supportive of authors in generally in the bookish community

yeah.

you feel like a safe place

thank you.

So if you are thanking me for being engaging, it's only because you're so willing to be engaged and you share so much of yourself. So thank you.

Thank you. so for as a, as always, we wanna talk about book recommendations for readers. To what reader, what book do you recommend for readers to pick up next?

Well, right now, even though some of them are older, I am eating my way through Catherine's Center's backlist.

Mm-hmm.

some of that is because what we're talking about with comfort,

Yeah.

and I also think she's really good at doing what I said about sometimes being able to handle. Situations that people who are going through tough situations and like another author who's great at this is Annabel Monhegan. Did I don't even know if I said her name correct. Monagan, thank you. I just, but those are two authors who are really good at taking characters who are faced with difficult situations and. Not backing off of how difficult the situations are, but just still delivering a really satisfying experience that sounds so dry when I say it. And instead it's no, it's a cozy blanket to wrap yourself with at Christmas time, is what I should say. So I love those two books. A couple books I've read recently that sort of fall more on the women's fiction side are how to Read a book by Monica Wood. Which I absolutely, that may be the best book I read this year. It came out a couple years ago, I guess, and I'm just like the slowest of the slow in finding things that other people know about. I basically depend on Katie James hashtag and reading on Substack and Kristen Higgins who is. Has become a dear friend and whom I adore and has blurbed my books, which gives me enormous joy. But they both recommended Monica Woods how to read a book. It blew me away because of the, again. People in really dramatically difficult situations and there's a basic decency to the whole thing. And I loved the fact that her characters were of different ages and you were able to really walk in their shoes and see through their eyes and root for them. So that's just a brilliant and lovely book and nothing I recommend by the way is gonna make you feel bad when you're done reading it.

Which

I love Amy Popple. I think the Sweet spot's probably my favorite of hers, but she had a book come out this year called Far and Away which I read because I read everything Amy Popple writes

Yeah.

She is. She is super insightful and funny. The way Jane Austen is funny in the sense that, she really skewers people in all their flaws and weaknesses and they betray themselves in their dialogue all the time, and yet she does it with such humor and such compassion. You're rooting for them anyway. And she does an ensemble book better than just about anybody. So she has this, it's like this, if I try to describe the plot, it's all woven together. It's like making something out of Legos, but it's gonna run like a clock. I have no idea how she does it. I don't care. I'm along for the ride. It's just great. So Amy Popple far and away I loved the Barbara to O'Neill's the last letter of Rachel Allworth, which again does this great job of taking two women who are diametrically different. These are two women who. Are forced together by circumstance and immediately judge each other. And yet again, she takes you on this road of sort of compassion and understanding. And she's got this lush writing style. So if you're, like, if you're into smells and food and travel, and art Barbara's your girl she just, she delivers I'd probably out of, but I have to recommend something that's upcoming. That's because the last time I was here I was in conversation with Sonali Dev,

Mm-hmm.

whom I adore and is a friend. And we were actually on a little writer's chat and she has a new one out called How Simmy got her groom back. And again, characters with. Big, dramatic life changing problems, and she's talking about really important issues. But again, doing it in a way that is really insightful and compassionate and funny. Yeah, I need all these books to kind of hold my hand right now. And I think there's a range there, but if you don't follow Kristen Higgins on Substack or Katie James, who wrote The Chicken Sisters.

Yes.

Okay. And in her boots and playing, she wrote a lot of really good books. But follow writers should be following and writing. And everybody should be following hashtag and reading. She's got best book suggestions.

Oh my gosh. I am follow. I'm gonna follow them right away. So thank you for the recommendations. I'm always looking for new substack. I love this space 'cause it feels much more. Quiet and allows you to express yourself in a place that doesn't feel so like trigger, like you gotta follow, you gotta follow. Like it's more like a more warm comfort place to talk about books at any length of time or any way you want 'em to talk about it.

Well, it's interesting because I just moved. My newsletter, which I might send out three times a year, maybe more often when I'm clustering around a release. But I moved it over there because I was following other writers and also, frankly, as a platform, it was cheaper.

Yes.

What was interesting to me is that the format and the opportunity of people to respond.

Yeah.

felt way more conversational to me. So instead of doing a, here's my new cover by my book, it became a, would you like this recipe? Do you wanna know what I'm reading? So I'm like, okay, I guess I'm just digging into Substack now.

Yes. I just finished writing my and I was like, it's a little bit of everything. It's a hodgepodge of spending Thanksgiving

I do not. Have to follow you on substitute Act this.

but

is awesome.

For listeners, I do have a Substack. We're recording this the week before Thanksgiving. This is gonna air in January, but I was just writing my Thanksgiving listicle of like romance books read and it's all types of lists. And I was like, okay. Well also I wanted to talk about share my friends other recommendations and what if you're feeling this mood, there's this person who's writing this mood. If you want mysteries. Here's a couple my cozy mysteries. 'cause cozy mysteries are just as great as moments. And so I think it's a place for a last, for creativity and it doesn't feel like you're so constricted of this is the splashiest thing that's gonna last forever. This feels like sustainable. Like it's gonna be. For a couple years, you know the, it's evergreen content. It's not like this one time thing and it's gonna be going away.

I find it's sort of easier to curate what I read.

Yes.

Because I am. A writer, I have a presence. I on Facebook, I have a presence on Instagram. I have a teeny, tiny presence on threads because I quit Twitter.

I love that we still call Twitter. I'm sorry. That's the only acceptable dead naming company that we can do. It's it is Twitter. It is not, it's not the other name.

But what I find when I go onto other platforms

Yeah.

I'm just gonna get hit and if I feel like I'm being beaten to death by an algorithm

Yes.

and when I go on Substack, I feel that I can. Pick what I am reading and if I like what I see, I can do a deep dive.

Yes.

And so I feel much more in control of what I'm consuming. And I think right now, in addition to craving comfort, I crave control.

This is Laura, I'm editing. I just wanna let you know that the next piece is more of a recommendations. We just had a little bit of, trying to combine a couple episodes together. So just enjoy, we got more recommendations. We got a little bit more discussion, and then we are just gonna go with the flow, but. Sorry for just a quick little intersection of me telling you I'm trying to do my best of editing, all right. Enjoy.

Growing up on Puerto Rico,

Yes.

and if you are not familiar with Priscilla Oliveres a wonderful writer living in New York who has set fantastic romances In her hometown home island of Puerto Rico,

yes.

they're very full of the same kind of. Family dynamic that I like to write but of course in a very different cultural context, so well worth exploring.

Yes, I love Priscilla. Actually, she's been a friend of the show. I love when it. This is a true story. I actually go and I find an author to love and then I do everything I can just to be able to talk to them in a non sketchy way. I'm like, I have a podcast. I can talk about your books. And then I, try to like, I can sell more books from this. 'cause I really wanna be like, I see myself as a book evangelist, like someone who's a book recommender, not a reviewer, someone who's I really want you to find the right book for you. It may not be in the same taste for me, but I want you to find the right book because I find reading to be such a escape and a place where you can get to learn other cultures, other people, other ways of living, and it helps you. It's just like Annes issue with the book then.

That was funny. We never got into, I keep wanting to talk about the classroom library and

Yes.

censorship.

Which we could, we can talk about it now so we go back in and Ed has a book. She's a teacher, she has an underwear library because she finds that books are a way to escape. My parents did not care what I read, and they care what I read, and they'll be shocked of the stuff that I read. But in this, a and h people care whether children read and they have their own values, their own way. And a lot of times books may share different values, different ways of living, different identities and books allow you to figure out who you are. And Ann uses books like with Hailey, with Anna Green Goggles, and then actually this with, I think, what's the student's name? Just a student who was struggling, Colin.

Who

She shares the perks of being a wallflower as a book to read and understand, but because the book has alcohol and sex and drugs, she gets in

the

trouble.

or Shakespeare as, which is

Yes. She gets in trouble and they're, and this is the era of parents and administration trying to appease the parent, not the student. And book banning for. Moral issues that we have issues with book bending. I live in the county that is the second most bookend in county. I actually live in Hillsborough County. We're fighting, I a part of me long to, I need the time, but I want to be in the school board. And no, I don't have children and no, not my top children. But I feel if Moms of Liberty can be on the book board and the school board, I can be on the school board and. Give a different opinion on how things were run,

well, I, again, was trying to avoid labels I do think that parents and children should, parents should help their children understand the world.

yeah.

That can include a discussion of books that the children are reading.

Yeah.

But when I talk about the importance of being understood, of feeling seen which was so important to me growing up,

Yeah.

and is important to Ann.

Mm-hmm.

I think it's really important for young people now, especially as they're losing a sense of connection with their peers. The kids who were isolated from COVID, they're going to hear their parents' values, they're gonna absorb their parents' values, they're gonna understand what, their faith teaches whatever, if the parents are doing their job. What I don't want is for children to feel alone,

Yeah.

and part of Anne's character of course, is she's a little bit like Don Coyote. She is not gonna back down from a fight or a threat. She is gonna tilt a little bit at windmills and

Yeah.

there is an episode early in the book where she gets into trouble with the administration. I don't wanna give away too much, but there is an example of that a Sharpie,

Yeah.

which I got from a teacher friend of mine in Florida. So I think that honor teachers and

Mm-hmm.

And I really feel for students who are looking to see themselves in the books that they read,

Yeah.

feel less alone.

Yeah. Yeah it's an interesting time because we're getting books, especially in the YA space. We're getting books that are published, more diversely, different identities, different genders, different race culture, experience and stuff. The, people are afraid of books because what is it gonna tell you? What is it gonna teach you? I grew up in the literature of the teenage literature of the eighties and nineties, and it was pretty much homogenic white women, we got the Sweet Valley girls, we got Babysitters Club. But, having the time where there is actually text and how that threads the ecosystem of white supremacy, the patriarchy, like all the different capitalism, and it's because books actually allow you to see the world. It's like it's. Thinking of dystopian, of like reading, dystopian and thinking, oh, this is never gonna happen. And it's maybe it's giving you something. It's like looking at Wicked is a good example of a movie that has very political. Conversation. And you see it for you, don't you? If you get it and you're like, holy crap. It opens the world of like how you interact with the world, and that's what books do too. That's the place where it does it's a conversation.

Well, they're now doing studies where they talk about. Where they have demonstrated people who read fiction

Yeah.

empathy.

Yes.

And again, so it's not just that you don't feel alone in that moment as a reader, the idea that entering into how someone else sees things makes you more sensitive to other ways of thought. It doesn't remove your ability to think for yourself. think the fear comes you imagine that being exposed to another idea is going to make you somehow force your allegiance to that idea if that's the case, if the best idea you have to offer is so unattractive that being exposed to any other idea is gonna send you over the edge, then maybe you should look at the attraction of what you're pedaling.

Yeah.

I think it's more important as we're hoping for more conversation between people with different backgrounds, with different belief systems. We don't have to agree, but I think that the more we understand the better opportunities we have to work for solutions.

Yeah.

Yeah. If Ann Gallagher was ready to die on that

To us, and I appreciate teachers who are advocating for literacy, but also understanding and a sense of understanding the world, how you see it, and understanding your differences, I think experience of Hailey and experience of identifying with A DHD at a. Older level. Older age is. I want, but it's eyeopening for them. But you need to have those conversations. Talking about this experience, like I have this thing, and you can identify, and books allow you to do that too. Books allow you to be like, I worry a lot of women who read the love. The kiss quotient and they realized, I'm like, oh, maybe I'm moving the spectrum because I was reading an experience that was similar to my health C and I didn't have to mask it. I think books allow you to see that not just in, like I see everyth with anxiety, I see it with PTSD, things that I have myself and be, see my experience actually reflected on others and reflected and being able to see other options. Ami I had a belief that every relationship was toxic because I, that's where I grew up. I grew up with really toxic, really angsty stuff and really full of red flags and books, reading romances. I spent years like just reading romances and I realized, I was like, oh no, there's other relationship. There's other, there's healthy relationships, and here's what it looks like and here's what you can spot it and here's what healthy communication is. I know a lot of times Robins talks about. Miscommunication. But there's some books that actually allow you to have communication and allow you to look at a different place and to see that it doesn't have to be toxic and full of inciting incidents. Like it can just be like really warm comforting of seeing like your life can be, just be that, that's what books do to you.

It was interesting because at one time I wrote a book called Mad Dog and Annie,

Yeah.

books I do. For Harlequin back in the day, and they actually it out at a women's shelter

Oh

because it was about a woman leaving a

Yeah.

I wrote it back in. It was probably the early two thousands. I ought to go back. I rereleased it as a, as an indie. But I'm like, I'm gonna, I wanna go back and read it and go, did it do what I wanted? Would, is it what I would to say now? I do think that, communication are important, respect.

yeah.

And getting back to my first best book boyfriend, Gilbert Blo.

Yes.

One of the reasons you're going to love the Anne Series by Lucy Maude Montgomery that he constantly is making choices to support Anne's dreams

Yeah.

and Ann's needs.

Yeah,

And that's what it should be about.

yeah. Thank you.

Look at us. Go off on another

We

tangent. I could just do this all night.

Virginia, tell us where you can find online. Tell us all the places.

Oh, okay. Well, my website's Virginia tantra.com. I'm on Facebook as Virginia Tantra. I'm on Instagram as at Virginia Tantra and there you can sign up for my Substack

Thank you, Virginia, for being on the show.

It's always such a delight to chat with you,

thank you.

Thanks for listening to the What three next. For more book lists, cozy reads and library tips, visit the what three Next block.com. Your next great read might be waiting there.