What We're Writing: To Be Read by Jenn McKinlay

JENN McKINLAY: Most of you know by now that I tend to set my stories in places that I want to travel to, consequently, my current work in progress TO BE READ is located in Ireland. I am getting the nuts and bolts of it written right now and I'll leave for Ireland in a couple of weeks to do the boots on the ground research that will fill out the pages with more accuracy and flavor. First stop, the Guinness Storehouse. Will it be in the book? No. Do I care? Also, no. Then it's on to visit Trinity College and the Book of Kells. Will that make it to the page? Probably.

Now because it's a women's fiction romcom, the meet cute is the stepping off place in the story. My character Emily Allen has just ditched her career as a librarian on Martha's Vineyard -- yes, she's in the ensemble cast in SUMMER READING (May 2023) -- and has taken the position of an author's assistant/bookstore clerk to her favorite author of all time Siobhan Riordan. 

Siobhan went into seclusion after her eighth young adult novel, leaving the protagonist of a hugely popular series at a wicked cliff hanger. Siobhan now owns and operates a bookstore with her grown son Kieran Murphy in a small village in southern Ireland. Kieran would like to maintain their quiet life, fearing for his mother's health and well-being if she takes up writing again. But Emily is there to do a job -- help Siobhan finish writing the last novel in the series -- and nothing, not even a hot Irish bookseller, is going to stand in her way.

This book has been so much fun to write. Not only because I get to go to Ireland but because I'm also examining the relationship between the author and the reader and the toll writing a novel takes on an author -- it's not all glitter bombs and cupcakes, people!

So here's the first meeting between Emily, who is a bit of a hypochondriac, and Murphy, who does not want her there.

“You're not dying. I just think you might be freaking out a little because it’s your first day of work at your new job,” Samantha said. It felt so good to hear my best friend's voice, even if I had woken her up in my flagrant disregard of the time change.

“I’m not,” I protested. I was. I absolutely was. “I just think I need to get on the train back to Dublin and hop on the next flight home before they discover I have some highly contagious pox or plague and I’m quarantined to a thatched cottage to live out my days in a fairy-infested forest, talking to the trees and chipmunks while farming for potatoes.” 

“Have you ever considered that you read too much?” Sam asked. 

 “No!” I cried and I heard her partner Ben, also a librarian, protest in the background. Sam laughed. She did like to goad us. “Just think if I leave now, we can meet for coffee and pastries at the Grape tomorrow morning. Doesn’t that sound nice?” I asked. 

“While I’d love to see you, you know that, you have to stay in Ireland and see your journey through,” Sam said. “Besides, if you go home now your mother will guilt you into never leaving Martha's Vineyard again not to mention clobber you with the dreaded ‘I told you so.’” 

“Fair point.” I sighed. “I still think I might pass out and then I’ll likely lose the job and this entire conversation becomes moot.” 

“You’re not going to pass out,” Sam said. “Find a place to sit down. Can you do that?” 

“I think so.” I was standing in the stacks, okay, more accurately hiding in the fiction section. The shelves were dark wood, long and tall and stuffed with books. They comforted me. Scattered randomly amid the shelving units were step stools. I found one and sat down. 

“Are you sitting?” Sam asked. 

“Yes.” 

“Good, now put your head between your knees,” she ordered. 

“Um.” I was wearing a formfitting, gray wool pencil skirt. I tried to maneuver my head down. No luck. The skirt was too snug. The closest I could get was to look over my knees at my black ankle boots. “Sorry, Sam, nothing is getting between these knees not even a hot Irishman.” 

Sam chuckled, but over that I heard a strangled noise behind me and I straightened up and turned around to see a man in jeans and an Aran sweater, holding his fist to his mouth, looking as if he was choking. He had thick, wavy black hair and blue eyes so dark they were almost the same shade as his hair. Also, if I wasn’t mistaken from the picture I’d seen on the bookstore’s website, he was my new boss.

 

***

This is my first run at the heroine meeting the hero. We'll see it if sticks the landing. 

Readers and Reds, weigh in. How important is that first meeting?