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Gilmore To Read: Jasmine Guillory Has Her Own Flirting Lessons · Gilmore To Say: A Gilmore Girls Podcast

• 0:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Five, six, seven, eight, flirt
• 0:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Hi all, welcome, and welcome back to Gilmour to Read.
• 0:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm your host Haley, and I am so excited to have you here today on this Thursday.
• 0:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Or whatever a day it is that you come across this episode, because I had the best time with today's guests, the Divine Jasmine Gillery, who I absolutely loved chatting with.
• 0:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: She is such a vibrant and fun person.
• 0:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: And of course, we discussed her latest book, Flirting Lessons.
• 0:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: which was our book club pick for reading a sexy.
• 0:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: For April, which is our romance specific, Gilmour inspired book club.
• 0:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: But before I dive into the episode with Jasmine, I wanted to mention one more time that if you will be in or near Atlanta, if you're a Georgia Peach, on August fifth, Tuesday, August fifth, please come to Atlanta's romance bookstore, all the tropes, where I will be in conversation with Ashley Jordan, the author of Once Upon a Time in Dolleywood.
• 0:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: which releases when August fifth of course is the release event.
• 1:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: There will of course be a conversation between me and Ashley where I'm going to make her answer to Jamie who is the love interest in this book and honestly maybe one of my top favorite bookboyfriends ever.
• 1:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe one of the most supportive men to ever exist.
• 1:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: And after we do that, there will be a Q&A with the audience assigning and also a room full of romance book lovers in a romance bookstore.
• 1:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: What could be better?
• 1:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: The only thing that I could think of is having you there.
• 1:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Take it's available at the link in our show notes, and I really hope to see you there.
• 1:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now for the book club for August, we're going to take a quick break from reading selections so that we can get caught up on a backlog of episodes, get ready for fall, and give them what you read a little bit of a makeover, but I am so excited that for September we are going to be reading a witches guide to magical in-keeping.
• 1:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: by the queen of cozy fantasy romance sangumendana which last year if you were part of the club we read her book the very secret society of a regular witch is so if you loved that vibe then you are one hundred percent going to love this one and if you want to read a book that just feels so cozy with this magical element
• 2:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's an innkeeper, and a cozy small town.
• 2:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: We have to.
• 2:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: We have to.
• 2:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: But back to today's episode with Jasmine Gilaria.
• 2:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm talking about her book, Flirting Lessons, as I mentioned.
• 2:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Here is a little bit about Flirting Lessons.
• 2:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Avery Jensen is almost thirty, fresh off her breakup, and she's tired of always being so uptight and well behaved.
• 2:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: She wants to get a hobby, date around, especially women, flirt with everyone she sees, where something not from the business casual section of her closet, all the fun, normal stuff people do in their twenties.
• 2:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: One problem, Avery doesn't know where to start.
• 2:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: She doesn't have a lot of dating experience with men or women and despite being self assured at work.
• 2:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: She doesn't have a lot of confidence when it comes to romance.
• 2:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Enter Taylor Cameron, Napa Valley's biggest flare and champion heartbreaker.
• 2:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Taylor just broke up with her most recent girlfriend and her best friend but her that she can't make it until Labor Day without sleeping with someone.
• 2:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Two whole months without sex, Taylor, so she offers to give Avery flirting lessons.
• 2:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: It should keep her busy and stop her from texting people she shouldn't.
• 3:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it might take her mind off how inadequate she feels compared to her friends, who all seem so much more settled and adult than Taylor.
• 3:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: At first, Avery is stiff and nervous, but Taylor is patient and encouraging and soon Avery looks forward to their weekly lessons.
• 3:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: With Taylor's help, Avery finally has a life she always wanted.
• 3:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: The only issue is now she wants Taylor.
• 3:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Their attraction becomes impossible to ignore, despite them both insisting to themselves and everyone else that it isn't serious.
• 3:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: When Taylor is forced to confront her feelings for Avery, she doesn't know what to do.
• 3:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: And most importantly, if she's already ruined the best thing she's ever had.
• 3:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I loved this book so much.
• 3:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I mentioned this in the episode, but I picked this book for the book club before I even finished it because I immediately got the vibe that Avery and Taylor are sapphic warriors in Logan.
• 3:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: As you heard from the description, Avery has that reserved, studious perfect student nature who is now older and missed out on the adventure of life.
• 3:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Whereas Taylor is a bit more of a fler and thinks she's the perfect person to show Avery that adventure.
• 4:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's feeling like that you jump by jump jack.
• 4:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's your choice a survive, but Taylor is a lot more emotionally well adjusted than Logan is.
• 4:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: I will get for that.
• 4:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I just love the dynamic that played up between the two of them.
• 4:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: And one of my favorite things in romance is when someone's like, I'm not going to fall in love.
• 4:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm just going to do these flirting lessons with this beautiful woman who I'm like absolutely fine to attractive and like nothing's going to happen.
• 4:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: We're going to be totally fine.
• 4:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love that.
• 4:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: not exactly what happened here.
• 4:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think the Jasmine just does such a fantastic job of navigating the complexities of not only like a situation like that or you're kind of falling in love with someone that you meant to have a friendship with.
• 4:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I think more so navigating complexities in friendships as you get older as everyone is entering into their own life stages and really how you confront those feelings and confront those friends about those feelings.
• 4:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: because it's, it's no one's fault really.
• 4:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's just, it's just life happening and I think that that's really just such a hallmark of how Jasmine writes.
• 5:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Which of course, I will talk about more in the episode with Jasmine.
• 5:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: By a bit about Jasmine, Jasmine Gillary is a New York Times by selling author of nine novels including The Wedding Day, the Reese's Book Club Selection, The Proposal, which was my first book that I read of Jasmine's, and flirting lessons.
• 5:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Her work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Cosmopolitan, Bon Appetit, and time, and she is a frequent book contributor on the today show.
• 5:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: She lives in Oakland, California, and I highly recommend following her in Instagram because you get to see her cute, cutie, cutie, cutie dog Rosie.
• 5:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, there is nothing I love more than getting to talk about.
• 5:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Books and Gilmore Girls with my favorite author is like what a dream scenario and Jasmine is absolutely no different, and in keeping with our Gilmore Girls conversation, she talks about her relationship with her own mother, which feels so lower-line worry.
• 5:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: But before I spoil it, let's get into it.
• 5:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, without further ado, here is Jasmine Gillory.
• 5:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: So Jasmine, flirting lessons has been in the world for almost two months and you've been on a book tour all over the country.
• 5:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: How do you enjoy a book tour?
• 6:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're Beyonce Air.
• 6:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: I love book tours.
• 6:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: They're totally exhausting.
• 6:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's mostly all the fights and the different hotels and stuff.
• 6:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: But getting to meet readers is so wonderful.
• 6:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: I feel like this job is so solitary and as a rare kind of author who is an extrovert, really miss getting to talk to people.
• 6:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: During the day I talked to my dog a lot and it's so great to like get to have conversation like I love having conversations with other authors as part of the book tour and I love getting to meet readers like you sort of you're writing this book kind of in in a vacuum you know and you don't know what is gonna resonate with people what people will care about what
• 6:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: jokes people get and so it's always so wonderful to me to get to like go in you know to other places across the country get to meet readers get to see like what they have liked about my books and get to talk to them about and like I'm just a book nerd and so we always get to like talk about other books and I got to rave about other books I liked and get to hear from readers about other books they liked I get to visit other bookstores you know that kind of stuff is so wonderful and I just really love it so much
• 7:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, did you have a favorite place that you went while you were in this book tour?
• 7:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: I feel like every single location is a little different.
• 7:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: I loved my events in New York.
• 7:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I had like such a huge great crowd at the rip bodice, but I went to Indianapolis this year, which was the first time I'd ever done a book event there, and I had no real idea like
• 7:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: If people would come out for me, what would happen?
• 7:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like who would be there?
• 7:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it was to a bookstore, Leah Johnson, who is another author.
• 7:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: She writes young adult books, young adult in middle grade books.
• 7:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: And she opened a bookstore in Indianapolis called Love Bounce Books.
• 7:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I got to like do an event with her at her bookstore.
• 7:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it was just so wonderful, like so warm and happy.
• 8:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I feel like particularly in this
• 8:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: terrible political climate it is wonderful to like go to like red states right like I am from California from a very blue area and to go to a place where everyone is saying like oh people don't like people like you and to have like such a big crowd and for the crowd to be so warm and excited for like you to come there and to like embrace everything in my book and I think it really
• 8:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: it really is like there are so many people out there in this country like we are more unified than we think and it was just a like really wonderful experience.
• 8:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm so glad we're speaking of red states you're coming to Atlanta this week, which is where I live.
• 8:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I will see you on Friday, which I'm so excited for that event, because it's you, teobaliums, and celebration of Kennedy Williams release.
• 8:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: So like, I just feel like this is going to be like the most absolute fun.
• 8:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm so excited about it.
• 8:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm so excited.
• 9:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I cannot wait to see that.
• 9:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 9:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: No, that was the, that was the event where Kennedy texted me.
• 9:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, and was like, okay,
• 9:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're all going to be at the Black Romance Book Festival in Atlanta.
• 9:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, what is this?
• 9:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, like what if we did an event together like the day before it started.
• 9:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: And like immediately we were both like, yes, absolutely.
• 9:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 9:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: So yes, I had Kennedy on the podcast earlier this year.
• 9:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then Tio, she was our first ever author on the podcast.
• 9:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so when I saw that like the three of y'all were going to be there.
• 9:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm so excited.
• 9:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: And one night, it's going to be so fun.
• 9:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: I can't wait for it.
• 9:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: But speaking of your books and my enjoyment of your books, your books are so important to me because it was one of the books that led me back into the romance genre.
• 9:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because I was one of those people who I read like for Cariously, Rome, teen romance when I was a teenager, of course.
• 9:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: But when I went to college, I was like, I have to be grown up.
• 9:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: I have to be smart now.
• 9:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, like I can't go.
• 9:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: I can't read romance, but I read B-tree by Emily Henry, of course, and then immediately needed more.
• 9:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: And my mom let me a book called The Proposal by an author named Jasmine Gailary, which you can see sitting behind me so you know that I never gave it back to her.
• 10:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: I read it in a day.
• 10:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks mom.
• 10:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was also like, thanks mom.
• 10:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm kind of concerned that we're both reading this book.
• 10:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: I read it in a day and I absolutely adore it.
• 10:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I know if I want to read a romance that feels thoughtful, I need your books.
• 10:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thoughtful women and men who approach each other with an earnestness and an intentionality that leaves their lovers feeling safe and seen.
• 10:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: You create a world so carefully crafted and so real that I feel like I could step into your world and feel myself at home.
• 10:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it feels so full circle to be so deeply in love with the romance genre now and be talking to you who helped me get back into it and reignite my love for it.
• 10:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: So sweet.
• 10:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much.
• 10:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: I appreciate that so much.
• 10:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I also feel like that is a very common thing, right?
• 10:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: The people are reading a lot during high school and then in college kind of stop reading, partly because you sort of think, oh, I have to read important books now and you're worried about like what other people will think of your reading and then you start reading stuff that you don't like and so you think you don't like reading anymore and it takes a while for people to get back into it.
• 11:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: That was absolutely me.
• 11:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I was reading maybe like two books a year.
• 11:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like I still really love to read, but it was taking me a while to get through these books.
• 11:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I really, I really loved and I thought that they were fantastic, but it just wasn't, it compared in no way to like how I read now.
• 11:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like I read a hundred books a year because I love them so much because I burned through them because it just, I found my genre.
• 11:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love finding people who like have kind of hit that place too, where it's like, no, I have to be serious.
• 11:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: If it wasn't a Pulitzer finalist, it's not for me.
• 11:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: But like looking back on that now, I don't know.
• 11:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: What is your issue with romance books?
• 11:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, what are some of your favorite ones?
• 11:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Or how did you get into the genre?
• 11:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: I wrote romance for a little while when I was a teenager.
• 11:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: I went to summer camp and my roommate brought the huge crate of romance novel.
• 11:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh my god.
• 11:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so, and I, like, I have always been a big reader, but never really read romance.
• 11:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Partly because I, like, read a lot of stuff that, like, I got from a library, or that my mom was reading, and my mom didn't really read romance.
• 12:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so,
• 12:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: Then I was like reading all these books that my roommate had and they were very fun and easy to tear through but then I went home from camp and like was still kind of reading what I had access to and to never really went back until like I was in my thirties and was going through like a really difficult time and started reading a bunch of romance and realized like oh wow romance is amazing
• 12:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: when you're going through a hard time in your life.
• 12:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: Because you know, it's absorbing, it's easy to get into.
• 12:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: And you also know, this is not going to kill me.
• 12:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is not going to crush me.
• 12:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, yeah, it's going to be a happy ending.
• 12:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, or if it does.
• 12:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, it's going to be a happy ending.
• 12:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, and that's exactly what I needed.
• 12:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's that time.
• 12:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I had started writing before that.
• 12:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I was actually like when I started writing, I was mostly writing young adult, like young adult romance.
• 12:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: back to that teenage camp.
• 13:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then, and when I first started reading a lot of romance, I was reading a lot of historical, and I loved and still love historical romance, but.
• 13:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: Do you have a favorite historical?
• 13:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh my gosh, I have so many.
• 13:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I love Lisa Claypass.
• 13:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think that she was like my gateway into historical.
• 13:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: I feel like she's a lot of people get ways, because I keep asking people for like Rex to get into the genre, and they always say Lisa Claypass.
• 13:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: And those were really my gateway.
• 13:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I loved them.
• 13:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I just didn't really think I could write one.
• 13:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like I felt like my voice wouldn't translate.
• 13:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I just, like, it just didn't, I never really thought about it.
• 13:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then I started reading some contemporaries and was like, oh, wait, I might, this might be fun.
• 13:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: Let me try this.
• 13:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so that was really my romance gateway.
• 13:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: One of the things that I love about being a romance author is that I reading is work.
• 13:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: I get to read so many books and I love reading since I was a kid, but also it's hard that reading is work, right?
• 14:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I feel like because
• 14:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't, I don't want, like, reading historical nuances does not feel like work because it's not my genre.
• 14:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I kind of want to keep that as like my just separate little happy thing.
• 14:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: I feel that way about Gilmore Girls because there's aspects of the show that it took me because we didn't doing this podcast for in our fourth season.
• 14:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: took me like two or three seasons to talk about some of my favorite parts because I was like, oh, I don't know how much I want to like pull this into all of this and so I've had to create like a real split mind about it.
• 14:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like sometimes I don't want to talk about my favorite things because like I want to keep them just for me.
• 14:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: So that makes total sense.
• 14:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: But it was actually on read with Jenna on Jenna Butch's podcast that I heard that you were a lawyer before you started writing, how did that switch come about?
• 14:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I've, you know, always been a huge reader, like since I was little.
• 14:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: I didn't start writing until I was like in my thirties.
• 14:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think it was really because I was working a lot as a lawyer and realized I missed having some sort of creative outlet.
• 15:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like I didn't, there was, you know, I was just sort of working and coming home and like watching TV.
• 15:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: But there was no, like I wasn't really learning new things like separately in my like non-work life.
• 15:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I had, because I always loved reading, I kind of thought, well, what I like writing?
• 15:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, maybe, could that be a thing that I would just have fun with?
• 15:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I had some friends who are writers, and I had some kind of very tentative conversations with them about, how did you get started?
• 15:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: What do you think about writing?
• 15:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: Do you think I could do this?
• 15:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: And they were really encouraging.
• 15:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I just sort of like,
• 15:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: had an idea for a book and I made a little outline and I just started writing.
• 15:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: And this was really just to see do I like this, right?
• 15:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then I loved it.
• 15:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I was so excited to come home and get on my couch and write for a little while every night.
• 15:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so that's really how it started.
• 16:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: I didn't start publishing for a while after that.
• 16:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: But it was really just like exploration and seeing is this fun for me.
• 16:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: Do I like this?
• 16:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Is like coming up with a story and then telling it and then
• 16:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: Figuring out the best ways to tell it, like, does that all work for me?
• 16:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Was developing your voice pretty easy?
• 16:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Was that, like, did that come to you pretty quickly?
• 16:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think, like, with everything, right, it just took a lot of practice.
• 16:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, it just took a lot of writing.
• 16:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: And also, I think at the beginning, you're always kind of mimicking someone else, a little bit.
• 16:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: And just, I think, not really fighting that and then just kind of,
• 16:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: Keep writing and then figuring out what worked for me and what felt right and what felt like me.
• 16:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I think it's just like, like with everything, it's just keep doing it and then it kind of comes.
• 16:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, which I love hearing that because so many authors have said that they kind of like it kind of sounds like someone else because a lot of authors are talking of come from fan fiction and that like
• 16:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's almost like the further that you get away from like the voice of the art that you are inspired by the closer you get to your voice and it just takes time and practice which I think a lot of the people in our book club are writers or aspiring writers so I think hearing that like you just gotta keep you just gotta keep doing it and you'll find it.
• 17:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I think sometimes your voice ends up kind of close to what you're making, right?
• 17:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: Because like, that's why you started.
• 17:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's why you're thinking about it because someone inspired you who feels right to you, but the more you work on your own thing, the more it feels like you.
• 17:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, exactly.
• 17:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that your voice feels so like you like and even just talking to you for just a few minutes that we've been on like I can just so deeply feel you in the books.
• 17:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think sometimes it's also not like I do this kind of every time I'm working on a book like sometimes it's just not fighting it like sometimes I kind of think something in my head and then as I'm writing it I kind of overcomplicated at first and then I stop but I'm like that's not right.
• 17:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like what is it?
• 17:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: Let me just jot down exactly what's in my head, which is obviously not right, but then it'll like inspire something for me.
• 18:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then I jot down what's in my head and I'm like, Oh, no, that was actually the right thing.
• 18:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you know, like I think you just have to like keep working on it every time.
• 18:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, definitely.
• 18:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I also Emily Henry just released a book, and during her pub week, she was in conversation with Julie Whalen, and they were talking about a writing retreat that was with you and Julia and Emily and Taylor Jenkins Reed at Julia's house.
• 18:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I was so fastening to me.
• 18:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Was that for fleeting lessons?
• 18:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: We have done this twice actually.
• 18:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: It is funny to call it a writing retreat.
• 18:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: We call it a writing retreat.
• 18:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: We always call it a writing retreat with rotation mark.
• 18:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 18:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that is always like in our emails, but it's always like a writing retreat because we do very little writing and just don't like a whole lot of talking.
• 18:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: But it's writing in itself.
• 18:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
• 18:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like I always come out of those weekends so inspired to like get work done and like you know we're always like kind of think about what we talked about and and I know like we have all come out of those weekends like jumping into what we're getting done or we like talk about like oh I'm trying to figure this out and then someone else will be like oh I have an idea and then it really just like kind of gets you going but yeah
• 19:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: All of us do very little writing.
• 19:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I guess the idea that you were kind of like percolating was that.
• 19:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 19:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Clirting lessons that you were trying to get to.
• 19:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: Our first one, I was kind of, I was like in midst of a rough draft of it.
• 19:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I was like, I was struggling with a bunch of stuff.
• 19:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then our last one, I had kind of just finished.
• 19:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
• 19:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so yeah.
• 19:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, like I was sort of struggling with a bunch of stuff.
• 19:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then came home and like figured a bunch out.
• 19:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, it's always very helpful.
• 19:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: I honestly feel like that's even like maybe a better way to do a writing retreat, especially with like the four of you who like, you or career writers.
• 19:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I imagine like you said earlier that like you just spend so much time by yourself.
• 19:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: But sometimes you just need to like put the computer away, talk to a person who like has these same problems that you do and like shake it out of use that when you go home, you're like super inspired.
• 20:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love that.
• 20:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: When I heard that, I was like, my gosh, I want to know more about this.
• 20:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: I need to see the reality TV show of these round for writing retreats.
• 20:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: It would all be with like no audio.
• 20:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Just like all of you sitting together, just laughing.
• 20:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes exactly.
• 20:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love that.
• 20:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love that.
• 20:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love that so much.
• 20:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: So before we get into talking about flirting lessons, I came up with some true or false of things that I like based on some things I picked up in the book that may or may not be true about you.
• 20:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
• 20:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
• 20:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, true or false, you're a yoga with Adrienne fan.
• 20:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: I am lover.
• 20:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: Do you love what they drink almost every single day?
• 20:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because I saw in your stories that you do yoga every single day.
• 20:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
• 20:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
• 20:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I, because I started actually seven or so years ago maybe.
• 20:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, because you're like in like two thousand.
• 20:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 20:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: And yeah.
• 21:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: because I went to New York actually this was shortly before my first book came out and I came home and realized like when I'm in New York I do so much more walking and I was so much more active and I needed to like find a way to keep that going in my regular life.
• 21:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 21:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I was kind of like, what can I do?
• 21:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is before I had a dog.
• 21:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like now, like, walk my dog pretty.
• 21:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 21:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, maybe I'll try to do yoga.
• 21:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then I was looking on mine for like a yoga video to do and yoga with each other and had a bunch of thirty days of yoga.
• 21:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: I love thirty days of yoga.
• 21:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 21:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I was like, well, I don't know if I can make it thirty days, but like I will try.
• 21:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I posted it on my Instagram story as like a accountability, right?
• 21:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I started and then just sort of finished thirty days and then kept going and then and we have realized, and sometimes it's really only five or ten minutes a day and sometimes it's a lot longer, but it's just like a kind of ritual that helps me and also helps me like sort of
• 22:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: Pay attention to myself and think about my body and in a nice way.
• 22:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: My dog finds it hilarious.
• 22:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: She's always like trying to look my face when I do yoga.
• 22:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's her job.
• 22:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's her role in that.
• 22:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
• 22:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: The moment I saw you with Adriana, I was like, I know she's like, yeah, I know she's a yoga girl.
• 22:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Sure folks, you don't believe in guilty pleasures.
• 22:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Very true.
• 22:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
• 22:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: I feel like unless your guilty pleasure is like your murdering people Yeah, that you should feel guilty about.
• 22:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, but I remember she's she's murdering Yeah, but my moment anything else.
• 22:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: I feel like enjoy enjoy the things that you're the judge.
• 22:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I completely agree.
• 22:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, the pandemic changed some of your friendships
• 22:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: It did, but I think in, you know, I wrote about it in Forting Usons for Avery and it's sort of she kind of disconnected from a lot.
• 22:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: For me it was kind of the opposite like the the friends who I was close to we kind of
• 23:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: attached to each other even more like two of my closest friends from college and I started we have always had like a very active group text and we started doing weekly FaceTime calls because we all live in different places and we'd never really done that before and after a while we were like why have we never done this before and now we still do them like they're no longer weekly because we leave our homes now sometimes hard to schedule but it's such a great and and also like people would be like
• 23:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: You talk how well and we're like we know three to four hours and people like what do you have to say for them?
• 23:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know a lot of things.
• 23:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think a lot of stuff that I have to tell them.
• 23:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so it's a really I think I think we all feel even more connected to each other than we did before.
• 23:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's so cool and I of course took that from Avery who felt disconnected but I love that you like when the opposite but judging from like you're very extroverted nature I feel like you immediately would like would need something like that as you're going.
• 24:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Sure folks, you don't adhere to astrology.
• 24:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: True.
• 24:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, okay, true to a certain extent.
• 24:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but I always read my horse go.
• 24:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but you're sorry.
• 24:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was just checking.
• 24:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm a Libra.
• 24:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
• 24:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but I don't know.
• 24:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: I had to consult with friends because every Taylor's like big three are in the book and I had to consult with friends about like what they thought that they would be.
• 24:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, because I don't know.
• 24:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: Charles, you well, and after a few years.
• 24:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 24:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Consult the experts for sure.
• 24:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, exactly.
• 24:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: You love a colorful life.
• 24:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: I do love a colorful life.
• 24:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I have a lot of color in my wardrobe.
• 24:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: And in my home, actually.
• 24:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, judging just from your bookshelf with all of those very colorful, but also from your tour outfits, like that was like nothing, but like the most bright, beautiful colors, because you were doing near selfies.
• 24:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: You were trying to get it right, which is, you do them great.
• 25:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're perfect.
• 25:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I just love seeing your outfits as you went along, because that one was like, I'm gonna write this down, but I know it's true.
• 25:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: You prefer white wine over red wine.
• 25:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Not really true, but it really depends on the season.
• 25:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I feel like, you know, the warmer it is outside, I want a white or a rosé, but in the wintertime, I do love a red wine.
• 25:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it depends on what I'm eating, like with a nice steak.
• 25:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 25:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah.
• 25:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: It just depends what's going on for sure.
• 25:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 25:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: You were fantastic to bring to a trivia night.
• 25:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: That is not so true.
• 25:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: And there are certain things that I know very well.
• 25:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then there are lots of things that I have absolutely no information about.
• 25:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: One hundred percent.
• 25:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: It has it for me.
• 25:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: It has to be like a themed night.
• 25:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
• 25:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like if I'm, it's like Gilmargo's trivia.
• 25:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Bring me a lot.
• 25:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Sure.
• 25:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: You need to give me a team mate.
• 25:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
• 25:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm your girl.
• 25:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Tales of trivia, totally.
• 25:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: And like regular trivia, I'm like too much science and thanks.
• 25:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
• 25:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: The last one is your team Logan when it comes to Roy Gomez, boyfriends.
• 26:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so, so I would say false.
• 26:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, but my thing is I'm mostly team no one.
• 26:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's so fair.
• 26:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's so fair.
• 26:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think I'm really team.
• 26:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: What's his name, Dave?
• 26:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think I had to leave after the first time to go beyond the opportunity.
• 26:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then Lane ended up marrying that.
• 26:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: I know.
• 26:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: We're doing a rewatch on Patreon and we're in season seven and they're having a baby and we're like, oh, how did you end up here?
• 26:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: How is this happened to you?
• 26:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but I mentioned team Logan because I have to admit I did not even finish this book like reading it before I was like, oh my goodness, this has to be a book club book because Avery and Taylor are sapphic worry Logan.
• 26:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: And like my team Logan heart was like, I'm so like, let's get Jasmine on your staff.
• 26:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: because it just really felt like that dynamic of that they have of kind of someone who's a little bit more flirty, really self-assured, really charming, but we have someone else who's very bookish, who's very introverted, who does want to try something new, but doesn't know how to do it, and so she turns to this other person who's gonna guide her and kind of help her do that.
• 27:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: That is true, that is that technique.
• 27:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 27:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I felt that Taylor is far in above.
• 27:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: Loving on Sprite Girl.
• 27:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: And every way a communication, like as someone who is team Logan, I'm like, Taylor is far in above.
• 27:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it was just the, the empatious, the catalyst.
• 27:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was like, because that's what we do in the book club.
• 27:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: As I try to find those connections.
• 27:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, oh.
• 27:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, this one, here's the one.
• 27:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I did ask if you were a Gilmore Girls fan before you came on.
• 27:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's not a requirement.
• 27:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Kennedy Ryan had never seen it before, which I was, she was the first author who had never seen it in the only sense, but they did say that you were a fan.
• 27:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I would love to hear what your history is with Gilmore Girls.
• 27:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I actually started watching Elmer Girls at the very beginning.
• 28:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
• 28:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 28:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: October fifth, two thousand.
• 28:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: You were there.
• 28:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 28:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: And like so much so that actually, I mean, this was in, you know, this dates me, right?
• 28:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: This was in the like no DDR time.
• 28:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: And there was an episode I missed.
• 28:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: And like a friend of mine sent me a VCR tape of the episode so that I could get.
• 28:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: get up to feed on the first season you remember what episode it was you remember what was going on it was like I think maybe the third or fourth episode there was some drama with one of the neighbors was it that the cat died yes cinnamon's wake we're
• 28:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh my gosh, that's so cool.
• 28:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love that sort of friendship.
• 28:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: You were not going to miss this.
• 28:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's so cool.
• 28:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: As you've gone on, have you ever rewatched it?
• 28:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Did you watch it all in real time?
• 28:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Or is that the only time you've watched it?
• 28:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: I watched it was a bit of real time.
• 28:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then I kind of, there were some, there was like one season that I didn't really watch a lot of after, where he was in college, I kind of fell away and came back for the finale.
• 29:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: So then I have come back and rewatched.
• 29:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I mostly when I re-watched, I re-watched like the first two or three seasons.
• 29:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, because the core, the fall and cause me.
• 29:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, exactly.
• 29:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Do you have a favorite part of the show?
• 29:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: I just, like, I really love the Emily Lourry relationship.
• 29:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, because I feel like it's so, it's so challenging, but also there's so much love there.
• 29:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 29:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: And Emily, like,
• 29:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: reminds me in many ways of my grandmother who was not like Emily in any like actual sense but like the ways she had very very firm rules for herself and for what you should be doing like you know was always like you're leaving the house where's your lipstick you know like the things like that like what you should be wearing all of that stuff
• 30:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: and could be very difficult at times but like you knew that it was because she loved you like all of that stuff I just find really interesting and I also like as you see from most of my books like I love family drama I love like thinking about the ways in which
• 30:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Family drives each other up a wall, but we all really love each other and you like know your family so well and kind of poke at your family, but you're always there for each other.
• 30:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I find that theme so interesting in the more girls and I really love it.
• 30:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I definitely see that in your books and that crossover of that voice of like, it gets very dramatic, but I think what your books do so well that we like don't always get in Gilmore Girls is like, there's just such good resolution that I feel like in both spaces, like in both versions in your books and in Gilmore Girls, there's so much space to be a messy person that like your people are still going to love you and like maybe everything on Gilmore Girls isn't tied up with the bow, but like it's like you're still getting that space to
• 31:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Make mistakes and come back and still have so much love for that person.
• 31:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: I feel like, yeah, really to both of them.
• 31:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Do you have a Gilmore girl Emily Lawler or the you relate to the most or you resonate with the most?
• 31:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think, you know, I feel like she gets a lot of flack, especially now, but I feel like Laura is really who I relate to the most.
• 31:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, partly just generationally, right, but also just like trying to juggle all the things and be kind of the, even when I feel like there's sometimes when Laura liked did the wrong thing and kind of knew what was the wrong thing, but did it anyway and I feel like we have all, we've had that.
• 31:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 31:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: And more like I was just kind of like doing the best she could with the information she had and really like loved and invested in her community, which is something that I love about her.
• 31:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, no.
• 31:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I love that.
• 31:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think that like there's so like the conversation surrounding her is like you can find one side of the internet that's like, oh my gosh, we're a terrible mom, what a crazy person.
• 32:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then you come back to the other side and you're like, they're like, oh my mom, I love her so much.
• 32:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 32:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so like we experience the full spectrum of that, but we always call her the main character because we feel like so much of the show and like what's best about the show is so centered around her, especially as it relates to the community.
• 32:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: I feel like she's just so fantastic about loving stars hollow as much as it loves her in response.
• 32:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: And like she built that on her own.
• 32:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: No, she that's not where she grew up.
• 32:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's not like she moved there and like made friends with people and we're to help them and like did all of this work in her community to like make it her community.
• 32:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, no.
• 32:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: I guess I really never, like, of course, I thought about that, but never like that.
• 32:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: She had to be the one to go in and create all these relationships and be that good person in order to have this community surrounding her.
• 32:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: I've never really, I guess I really never thought back to like the Lord, like, go more walking up to someone and shaking their hand and be like, hi, I'm glad.
• 33:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: like moving into this house as a I mean probably when worry was to be the shoot into that house but yeah moving into this community as like a teenager with the baby and like figuring out how to how to live and how to grow up and yeah and how to like raise her child there by herself and like have the community come around to support her.
• 33:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I immediately wanted to associate you with worry because like bookish writing, that sort of thing.
• 33:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: But the more I've talked to you, I'm like so much more lore-wise.
• 33:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: So much more like outgoing and like funny, and I just feel like that relates so well.
• 33:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: So of course, we go more girls came out twenty-five years ago.
• 33:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's a twenty-fifth anniversary and something we've been talking about.
• 33:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh my god, wow.
• 33:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: I know.
• 33:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: I feel very...
• 33:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and like it's it's a show that you've been watching since it started.
• 33:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: I've watched it like from I guess like a couple years later because I was eight at the time it came out.
• 33:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: But here we are talking about it all these years later.
• 33:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: We're talking a lot this year about the legacy of Gilmore girls just because it has just only gotten more and more popular since then.
• 34:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Is there anything that you would think is the legacy of Gilmore girls?
• 34:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because that's something we are asking all of our guests this year is what they think the legacy of Gilmore girls is.
• 34:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think like like we're talking about like this connection with family.
• 34:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think especially the mother daughter relationship, right?
• 34:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think you know, I am really close to my mom and that like my mom and I watch Gamma Girls together, you know, I love that.
• 34:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I feel like that connection, you know, we, I feel like we have a very lural library.
• 34:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: Really, yeah.
• 34:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I feel like that connection even when sometimes it's difficult and you're like, oh my god, come on, or whatever.
• 34:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's like a beautiful thing about it and it's a show like warm, happy relationship and I know I can always depend on her and I think that is, you know, that's something that I've kind of written into some books to with that, like that kind of mother-daughter relationship and I think that is a real legacy of the show.
• 35:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 35:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: Is that love between a mother and daughter?
• 35:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: And you see it in Laurelite and Emily too, like they have so much love for one another, even though neither of them knows how to express it.
• 35:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, exactly.
• 35:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I love that so much.
• 35:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: I've a lot of people have been talking about the community aspect, but I really feel like that core relationship between Laurelite, just really.
• 35:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's something that we've all come back to.
• 35:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Speaking of you and your mom, though, what does your mom think of your romance?
• 35:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I was, do you let her read the entire book?
• 35:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, she she has always been like she gets one of my very first galley's I became a big reader because of my mom right she has always been a huge reader She reads faster than I do like sometimes we'll be on a flight together And you know will fly like four hours somewhere for vacation and we got and get off and she's like well, okay, I read two books and I'm like two
• 36:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so yeah, she reads all of my books and it's always like one of my biggest supporters like she'll like buy ten copies of every book and like have like make me sign them all and have them in the truck of her card and like can't doubt people I love that yes
• 36:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love a hype of my mom, like the original cheerleader.
• 36:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's so much fun.
• 36:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: No, because I'm in the middle of editing my first book and there was like an intimate scene and I was like, if I let my family read this, I just think I have to, I just rip it out.
• 36:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: I just like forget, try to forget.
• 36:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like that part wasn't written by me.
• 36:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: That was by someone else.
• 36:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: They came in and wrote that.
• 36:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: That was it.
• 36:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: So my last Gilmore girl's question is, this was a question from someone in our book club.
• 36:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: If Taylor and Avery from thirding lessons, we're going to have a flirting lesson in Star's Hollow, where would Taylor take them?
• 36:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, definitely to the dance studio.
• 37:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 37:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh my gosh.
• 37:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 37:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: So right.
• 37:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's exactly where they would go.
• 37:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 37:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: They go have a little dance and then maybe go to Luke's for a little bit faster.
• 37:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: Go to Luke's.
• 37:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 37:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: For either or maybe something like for ice cream some days and then I thought, yeah.
• 37:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
• 37:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 37:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: When I read that question, I was like, I wonder what she's going to say?
• 37:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Of course she's going to spend.
• 37:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 37:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Perfect.
• 37:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I love that so much.
• 37:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: So now I would love to talk about flirting lessons, which was our book club pick for April.
• 37:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: I told you I literally started reading it read the back like description and I was like, Oh, actually, we don't even have to finish reading this.
• 37:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is going to be a book club pick.
• 37:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: because as a team Logan girly I was like we have to we have to bring them in but we're gonna chat some spoilers for flirting lines before we do for anyone who hasn't read flirting lessons can you give them a little bit of an elevator pitch to entice them to pick up this beautiful bright pink book
• 37:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: For the lessons is about Avery and Taylor.
• 37:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: Avery has always been kind of the person who did everything right and is very kind of buttoned up.
• 38:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: She has a lot of spreadsheet.
• 38:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: She has her own business.
• 38:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: Everything goes right for her, but she doesn't quite know how to be social.
• 38:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: She just broke up with a kind of her terrible boyfriend.
• 38:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: She's living on her own.
• 38:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: She is living back in her hometown.
• 38:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: and doesn't really know how to like make friends as an adult and she wants to like learn how to flirt with people especially women because she's always kind of wanted to date women but doesn't know how and she confesses all of this Taylor after she's had a few glasses of wine at a winery party and Taylor says like oh I mean I could just you had to do all that I know that flirt and so they embark on a series of flirting lessons and then there's a little romance
• 38:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's part of it.
• 38:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: How could romance not see from two people who were like having flirting lessons?
• 38:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
• 38:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: What did she think was going to happen that together?
• 38:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 38:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: So the proposal is definitely sentimental favorite because that was the first one I read of yours.
• 39:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: But this one moved easily into the favorite category.
• 39:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: I feel like this is the best of you.
• 39:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: I know that you were talking about like it takes practice to get to that perfect voice.
• 39:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: I feel like given how many books you've written, that getting to this one, I just feel like it was the best.
• 39:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: In and hot pink.
• 39:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: So how'd Pink Perfect?
• 39:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Perfect in every way.
• 39:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: So something we always ask our authors is what was the first idea you had for this book and then what did you do with that idea after you had it?
• 39:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: The first idea I had for this book which came quite a while before I started writing it was I was on a writing retreat with two other of my author friends and we were all in a car together I was in the backseat and they were both in the front seat and they were talking about a mutual friend of theirs who I don't know.
• 39:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: and like sort of her dating history and stuff.
• 39:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then one person said like, oh well, she breaks a lot of hearts.
• 39:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I immediately pulled up my phone and wrote that down, because I was like, that is a fascinating character.
• 40:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: Who is the person that breaks a lot of hearts that someone would just casually say that about?
• 40:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then what happens when they fall in love?
• 40:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: How would that happen?
• 40:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: Who would be the person they would fall in love with?
• 40:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: How would that all go for them?
• 40:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I kind of wrote that down and then held onto it, because I didn't quite know
• 40:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: who that would be, what story that would be, you know, I can't even thought about it for a while.
• 40:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, Avery and Taylor are both characters in my book right before this one, Drunk on Love.
• 40:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I remember when I wrote, and Taylor's a relatively small character in that book, but when I wrote Taylor on the page, I was like, well, she's the one.
• 40:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: She's the one who breaks out of heart.
• 40:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so then I then from then I was kind of that idea was percolating like how do I tell her story?
• 40:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: What is how is that gonna be?
• 40:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I think it's gonna be with Avery.
• 40:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, and so I was thinking about that for a while.
• 41:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, oh, I feel like that like feeling of like, oh my gosh, it's them like it's you like you've revealed this to me.
• 41:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's just like such an exciting.
• 41:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's so fun.
• 41:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: So before I respond and full to that, I do want to give our listeners a spoiler warning.
• 41:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you have not yet read floating lessons, we are going to go in some book club questions.
• 41:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: So pause read the book if you haven't come back.
• 41:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: We'll welcome you back or if you are just continue on because you have read it.
• 41:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for continuing on.
• 41:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: the idea that you had of like someone who like their friends describe them as a heartbreaker.
• 41:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: The way that that affected Taylor.
• 41:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: I like because I was annotating my book because I went through that.
• 41:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think like so many of them were like I hate y'all like stopping me into my friend.
• 41:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like because it just like knowing how that affected her was so it was heartbreaking.
• 41:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like it was like this heartbreaking feeling to know that people describe you as a heartbreaker.
• 41:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: How did you like I guess from that idea of like being a heartbreaker take that emotional journey to that character?
• 41:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you know, I kind of thought about and this was this is also I feel like a lot of this comes out just in a very messy first draft, right?
• 42:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: as I'm writing a first draft I'm kind of playing with a bunch of stuff and so I you know had a number of scenes with Taylor's friends in there and Taylor's friends like kind of talking to her and then talking about her and when I was kind of writing that I was thinking like at first like what would Taylor think if she overheard some of this stuff that they were saying to everybody right yeah and then like
• 42:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then what would they say without without Taylor, even at nearby?
• 42:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like the day thought that she couldn't over here.
• 42:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then how would that make her feel, right?
• 42:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: And did it over here.
• 42:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: And did it over here.
• 42:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so in her reaction to it is a little
• 42:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: complicated right because she she like she feels bad about it but she also kind of knows like well but I got some about my friends too.
• 43:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's a bit I say about my friends that like I wouldn't necessarily want them to hear and that's not because I'm being mean because they aren't really being mean about her.
• 43:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: No, but they're just saying like
• 43:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: kind of their ideas of her what they think and and some of that like I really thought about the kind of the way that friends who have known you for a very long time think of you right and sometimes their ideas of you are kind of set and family right like times their ideas of you are kind of set
• 43:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: the way you used to be and while they know who you are now and they're not they're not like saying that you're not that person they'll still be like oh well but you know she's messy like that or whatever and you're like but I've learned
• 43:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: grown since that you know and and so sometimes that hurts your feelings and sometimes you want to defend yourself sometimes you're like well I did used to be that person and I guess there is some part of me that is that person and so it's a it's a kind of a hard kind of way to think about it and it's not that it makes you dislike your friends but it just gives you like is that what they really think of me kind of
• 44:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that that's what I love so much about all of your books in general is it approaches like your friendships and your relationships with just like a very messy complicated nature of like yeah I do talk about my friends sometimes and I'm not necessarily
• 44:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Being mean about them or criticizing them, it's just like we all think about the people around us.
• 44:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's not always going to be like, oh my gosh, I love this person so much, though greatest person I've ever met.
• 44:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Every single time you talk about them, see that self-awareness that comes with getting your feelings hurt in that way, that I really, I just really loved how that whole drama sort of fleshed out.
• 44:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I just loved the sort of flip of she breaks hearts.
• 44:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, oh, well, that kind of breaks her heart to hear that from her friends in a very realistic way, which I quite love.
• 44:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: And she, she would also be like, I mean, I guess I do break hurts, but it's not that I'm being mean about it.
• 45:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 45:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, and because they think sometimes when you, you just make a statement like that about someone and you're not giving all the context and she's like, but there's a lot more context there.
• 45:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 45:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: And her friends would agree with her like, oh, yes, okay, there's more context there.
• 45:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: But also, yeah, but also, yeah.
• 45:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I think that there it is such a layered kind of thing.
• 45:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's a beautiful layered dessert.
• 45:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: I've been watching a lot of great British makeup.
• 45:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: So like, oh my god.
• 45:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: I live as if I stayed up to like three and last night.
• 45:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: I woke up and I was like, what did I do to myself?
• 45:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was just watching people bake.
• 45:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: This weekend I baked two cakes.
• 45:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, partly because I've been watching so much.
• 45:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: Me too.
• 45:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's literally all I did this weekend.
• 45:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: I literally bought ingredients to make sausage rolls because it's amazing.
• 45:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love that fresh Jasmine.
• 45:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: But going back to the flirting lessons, what sort of research did you do for the flirting lessons?
• 45:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, did you attend them?
• 46:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: We're all of these things that you did for the book.
• 46:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: Most of them were things that I did, either for the book or have done before.
• 46:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 46:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like the book event you didn't have to.
• 46:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's your job.
• 46:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
• 46:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: And also, you know, that was like, but that was inspired.
• 46:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like I put a book event in there because it does like I see that happen at book events all the time.
• 46:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's like people making friends in line and like people like
• 46:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: having kind of shy conversations or like and like lots of like people who come to book events are kind are like introverts in their little shy but they want to make new friends and so I do feel like a book event is a perfect way to like you know make new friends and like have those kind of very tentative because you know in really thinking about how
• 46:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: how to make friends as an adult, which I feel like is a, it's so hard.
• 46:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Conversation that I've had was so many women.
• 46:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think one core piece of advice that I always have is like do things that you're interested in because then other people like you all have a common interest.
• 46:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so you have like a built-in thing to talk about at first.
• 47:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 47:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: And there are always like other interests that you have.
• 47:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: So if you're going to a book event with like people on author that you like, they're probably other authors that you like.
• 47:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: And there's probably other things that you haven't common.
• 47:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it's a way to like, you know, it built an icebreaker kind of thing.
• 47:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Definitely.
• 47:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I did some of the other things just kind of like to test them out to see, you know, because there's other, there's other things I did that I was like,
• 47:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not sure if this would make a good one.
• 47:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, it was it was a lot of fun.
• 47:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: It made me want to go and like do all these activities like the salsa dancing seemed so much fun.
• 47:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I was like, are you a dancer?
• 47:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Is that something that you're interested in?
• 47:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: I do love I don't I actually should dance more often and I don't But I right kind of that kind of stuff is so much fun
• 47:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but I really want to go paint pottery.
• 47:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it was like the one that I was like, okay, or or have sort of garden like that one was so cute that I was I think it's so true though that finding that common interest especially like at time at my co-host was on TikTok because we were both talking about Gilmore girls and then we both found out we had so much other stuff in common.
• 48:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: but also making friends like like you talked about a book event like it's the same like on bookstagram it's like oh this person posted about this book I like that book too and then like you follow each other and you're like oh I like all these other things that you like and then so you start talking about your life as well and how it impacts it
• 48:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think it kind of feels like this like making friends as an adult is like such a, like a buddy thing to say because it's hard.
• 48:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I think like what you were saying, it feels like going back to being at the playground and being like, yeah, you like the slide, me too.
• 48:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let's go on the slide together.
• 48:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: We'll do the same thing tomorrow and that like kind of like whittling down that like pressure that comes with it, that like, you don't have to be exactly like me, but yeah, let's like all the same things.
• 48:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: right and like thinking about like little kids are much more like we'll say like you want to be my friend okay and then just like run off together and now you're my friend yeah and I feel like I feel like as adults we need to be more willing to put ourselves out there in that same way yeah like oh do you want me my friend let's go get coffee tomorrow or you know things like that and people are and sometimes
• 49:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes you won't want that, and it'll hurt your feelings, and it's okay, you couldn't just like... There's also more?
• 49:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's always more?
• 49:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it wasn't meant for you, one hundred percent.
• 49:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: One of the questions I had is like when you were writing junk on love, did Ryu writing towards these characters, and it seems like the answer is yes.
• 49:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but it sort of like, not at first, right?
• 49:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, I, like, just sort of wrote the characters and then was like, wait a minute.
• 49:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so yeah, they slowly made their end to it.
• 49:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: How did these characters come about for you?
• 49:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, did you know that when they first popped up that like that three we're headed was for towards your first Southic romance?
• 49:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: I knew by the time I got into the end of Drunk on Love, I didn't really, I hadn't really planned.
• 50:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I kind of know that I'd always wanted to write one, but I never really had, either the right characters or the right story.
• 50:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so as I was writing it and like wrote both Avery and Taylor, I was sort of like, maybe, and then I had the idea for just the right story.
• 50:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: So by like the first scene of floating lessons is one of the last scenes
• 50:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: of drunk on the other side of the winery party and so by the time I got to that part in drunk on love like I knew that's where a retailer story would start so you can kind of see that with if you read drunk on love having read putting lessons you'll see that like a retailer often according to them together and and nobody is only paying in the main attention and so that by that point I knew but it took a little while to get there
• 50:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I love when books do that, that there's just this little thing happening over here.
• 50:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's like, oh, next book.
• 50:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Got it.
• 50:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love that too much.
• 50:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Did you have a strong sense of who they were in Drunk on Love or would did that come out in the flirting lesson, straffting process?
• 51:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: I knew about Avery.
• 51:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: I actually had a strong sense of, it's funny because Taylor's like Taylor, the idea for her came to me first.
• 51:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: But when I was writing, drunk I love a new who everyone's a lot more than New Taylor was.
• 51:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: She comes up and she comes up.
• 51:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and she and Taylor works with Luke, but it's a less important relationship.
• 51:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: And she's like barely a side character.
• 51:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I kind of knew a little bit about who she was, but it took a lot more kind of thinking about her.
• 51:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: in flirting lessons to kind of really figure out her character.
• 51:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: And sort of why, because I knew that Avery had grown up in Nappa Valley, and that's why I came back, and that's why she was there.
• 51:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: But with Taylor, it took a little bit more thinking about like, what would she do?
• 51:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: And you know, I knew she works at the winery now, but how'd she get there?
• 51:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: What was she doing there?
• 51:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, what was her backstory too?
• 51:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, something you were saying earlier about like the idea of like yeah, maybe I am a little bit of heartbreaker.
• 52:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think that's something about that that like I don't know what it says about me that I was really accepting of it being Taylor like of her being a woman and being a heartbreaker because like I think there's something about if that character was a man and he was like, yeah, I'm a heartbreaker.
• 52:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'd be like, I hate you.
• 52:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you're going to achieve that.
• 52:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, like, but in asshole.
• 52:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I think that like Taylor doing yeah.
• 52:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, I don't know there's just something like there's an intention there that like I'm like, you didn't need to do that.
• 52:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 52:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Just great.
• 52:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: And like you don't want to be with them.
• 52:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's okay.
• 52:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 52:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Her hands love you.
• 52:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 52:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: People just fall in love with you.
• 52:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's not your fault.
• 52:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's not your fault.
• 52:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're so great.
• 52:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: But like if it was like if Taylor was like a man, like a male character, I'd be like, hmm, this is the love interest.
• 52:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 52:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know Jasmine.
• 52:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're gonna have to convince me.
• 52:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I was like immediately like I love her.
• 52:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Are you more of an Avery or a Taylor?
• 52:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I feel like there's a lot of me in both of them.
• 52:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: I feel like I am definitely an extrovert in the way that Taylor is and I'm good at chatting with people and I'm good at making friends, but I'm also like kind of
• 53:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: a little shy in the way that, like, I'm an overthinker in the way that we breathe.
• 53:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I'm always like, did I say something stupid?
• 53:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: That was stupid, right?
• 53:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: Should I say hello?
• 53:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: I shouldn't say hello.
• 53:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: Why am I?
• 53:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think partly it's just like my natural extroversion just makes me say hello anyway.
• 53:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, I'm like, wait, why did I?
• 53:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I kind of understand a little bit of both of them.
• 53:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, no, definitely.
• 53:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's something I love about this book in general is the anxiety representation because it's like so clear in Avery because she has that like that thing of like should I say hello?
• 53:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: No, I shouldn't talk to this person.
• 53:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: I shouldn't offer say hello to anyone ever again, but Taylor also has it because she has that anxiety surrounding her friends that like comes about from like the nature where she's at in her life.
• 53:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: But how did you go about including that?
• 53:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Which is just naturally there or did you set out to be like, I'm
• 53:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to make this work.
• 53:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think partly it is naturally there because I am an anxious person.
• 53:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 54:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I also think that it was important for me to have them, like have those feelings about totally different things.
• 54:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 54:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: Because I feel like there are a lot of introverts who think of extraverts as like they're not anxious about anything.
• 54:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: They're totally confident about everything all the time.
• 54:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's not how it is.
• 54:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 54:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: Avery is like very anxious about certain things, but she's like totally fine and confident about others.
• 54:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: And Taylor has kind of the opposite of those feelings.
• 54:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so Avery is kind of a little bit more open about being anxious about things where as Taylor is like, I'm fine, everything's fine.
• 54:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't mean talking about that's how people really are, right?
• 54:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: I feel like people hide their feelings about certain things and show their feelings about others and are totally confident about certain things so everyone thinks they're confident about everything in life and that's and like that's just not how it is.
• 54:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so that was really important to me to kind of show kind of how people can be very similar in ways that they don't either expect or see in one another.
• 55:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, no I that was one actually one of my favorite parts of the book is like it almost felt like this midpoint switcheru where it was like we had Avery who was just kind of anxious about this whole process all of the flirting lessons and then it's flips and she's like so certain about how where she is with Taylor because of who she thinks Taylor is and
• 55:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: She's so certain with her friendship with Luke that they allow each other to have their romantic relationship, sometimes take center stage, but then we get Taylor, who seems very confident and very self-assured, then switch towards the end of the book and she's the one who is feeling all this anxiety that I think that that was such a good little like switch, but to see how similar they are as like a device to like almost like turn the flirting lessons on their head.
• 55:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's like confident Taylor
• 55:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Not so much anymore.
• 55:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I'm so glad you're like that.
• 55:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm so glad that that resonated because I feel like that was something that was important to me as I was writing.
• 56:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I'm glad that it came out for people.
• 56:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it landed so well for me.
• 56:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: I have to say like I was I do a lot of reading blogs for the book club books.
• 56:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'll like as I'm reading it.
• 56:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'll record myself and talk about it.
• 56:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: I have like certain like updates that I do like when I get to this chapter.
• 56:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'll do an update.
• 56:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: I got to like think like page like two ten and forgot to do updates because it was completely fun to do the book.
• 56:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was like, sorry, y'all loved it.
• 56:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because it was just so good.
• 56:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because the other part of it, as I feel like your book is a scapeysome for people who are not very good with conflict resolution.
• 56:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's like this perfect world that you can be a friend.
• 56:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: You have like sort of like an infinite relationship with this person that like your mistakes are allowed in this fear.
• 56:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: How did you, I guess, approach that with Taylor and her friends as she was?
• 56:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: heading down that direction of needing to have this big conversation.
• 56:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you know, I kind of thought about, because I feel like one thing that kind of irritates me in the way that people talk about romance novels sometimes is when people say like, you know, if they just have like one conversation like adults, they could resolve all of this.
• 57:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I feel like adults
• 57:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: Don't have conversations like that.
• 57:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 57:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: Have you like even talk to yourself like what happens when you're mad at someone.
• 57:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: Do you immediately go to them and say that you're upset or like that you resent this like most people don't and so I wanted to really think about
• 57:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: how people feel about difficult situations that they have with like friends or partners, and how those conflicts can be resolved constructively, but also realistically, right?
• 57:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes it does take you kind of blowing up at one another and then both scrying and then sitting down and having conversation down like actually resolve it and so I wanted to have that and not just the blowing up and then never speaking to each other again but like actually letting it come out because sometimes you have these like small little resentments that you that don't feel
• 58:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: worthy of a conversation and you're like, oh well, maybe she was just, but it just builds up and sometimes it just explodes.
• 58:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I wanted to kind of explore how that would work, but then also have them really talk about it.
• 58:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, because I think that the conflict that Erica and Taylor were having
• 58:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: is so like completely realistic to female friendship too.
• 58:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's just like I'm having a baby and so naturally I have other people who are sympathizing with my situation and it's not that I'm mad at you.
• 58:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's just you have such a different life than I do and also feeling on the other end like you're
• 58:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: being replaced.
• 58:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that the way that they blew up at each other, I was like, oh my gosh, what is about to happen here at the end of this book?
• 59:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then like they almost didn't surrender to the other persons, acceptance until they both felt okay with it, like making sure that the other person understood.
• 59:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: I just like, being the whole thing, just I think that the explosion, like it started almost with trust, that like I trust that I'm going to
• 59:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: explode with you and that when we get to the end of this we are going to still be friends and I feel like that's something that's kind of a hallmark of most of your books is like you allow friendships to be messy and relationships to be messy and not be these perfect places where no one makes any mistakes and everyone's great and if you do never gonna talk to you again not you're not worth them the effort to fix it and I think that's what I love.
• 59:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love that they both see that they're both worth it.
• 59:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're both valuable.
• 59:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so much to me so but I like I started crying with them like when they were having these explosions I was like oh my gosh I've been mad at America in the same way that you have I've been like step by step with you so I I completely and I also really wanted you to be able to see or cause point of view
• 1:00:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, once they kind of had the explosion, I wanted people to be like, oh, well, okay, and I love her friend that like Taylor had like hated the whole time and then she meets her and she's like, oh my god, you're actually super super nice.
• 1:00:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're the only one on my team.
• 1:00:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: How do I make this shift?
• 1:00:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's like so realistic.
• 1:00:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: I feel like we've opened there that like we've met a friend of a friend and you're like, I don't know.
• 1:00:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then you were like, why do you have to be the most charming wonderful person?
• 1:00:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: I guess you're my friend now.
• 1:00:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Which is wonderful.
• 1:00:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: One of my favorite questions that people always ask in the book club is, what is something a moment, a scene, a character that you're most proud of from the book?
• 1:00:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Whether it was like really hard to get right or it just came perfectly formed, anything that like really sticks out to you that you feel pretty
• 1:00:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: out of.
• 1:00:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: I really loved the midterm scene because that was one that I was really working up to for a while and there were a few times when I almost started writing it and then I was like no I'm not ready yet they're not ready yet for it because like I know people who like writers who write scenes totally out of order but I can't do that like I almost always kind of write everything in order and so there were a few times when I was almost there and I was like
• 1:01:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: No, I need them to have gone through this or that or the other before that.
• 1:01:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I think when I sat down to write it, it just felt really right for the two of them.
• 1:01:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: And both of them kind of felt like I wanted it to feel like they were sort of in a bubble and kind of reluctantly drawn into this together because it was something that they've both been feeling and had been
• 1:01:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: fighting against and I wanted them to just both let it happen.
• 1:01:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so that that scene, I'm really proud of and I had really good time writing it.
• 1:01:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that was like, that was honestly like such a surprise to me because like from the, I guess the onset, you're like, oh, flirting lessons.
• 1:02:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, they're going to be flirting the whole book.
• 1:02:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then we get to the end and then they're going to get together.
• 1:02:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I was like, oh my god, wait.
• 1:02:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is happening right now.
• 1:02:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Is it really happening?
• 1:02:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because you're building that tension.
• 1:02:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think it's so interesting that you wouldn't let yourself write out of chronological order.
• 1:02:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's almost like you were building that tension yourself and it's like you had to be built up and then you got to release the tension with the both of them.
• 1:02:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's really fascinating.
• 1:02:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think I have enough self-control to have that scene in me that I'm buzzing to write.
• 1:02:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think I'll just go for it.
• 1:02:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: And for me, honestly, it keeps me going because it's sort of like, I'm excited to write it.
• 1:02:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so it is like my dessert that's coming.
• 1:02:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you're like, okay, we're going to get through this.
• 1:02:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, there is.
• 1:02:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's so great.
• 1:02:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that was just such a surprising element of it to have.
• 1:02:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: that connection right in the middle and then be like, oh, okay.
• 1:03:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, now we're going to keep flirting.
• 1:03:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 1:03:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: But one of them is like super invested.
• 1:03:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: The other one is like, oh, well, I can't be invested because she's not invested.
• 1:03:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 1:03:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I just loved the kind of switch of that conflict into it that I just thought it was like the perfect midpoint that was honestly unexpected because like you go into a book, you have like an assumption of how this is going to go.
• 1:03:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then when we got to that midpoint, I was like, oh my gosh, Jasmine.
• 1:03:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: What are we doing today?
• 1:03:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Where are we going?
• 1:03:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it just made it that much more yummy to get to the end, which I loved so much.
• 1:03:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I loved that they were both making friends along the way.
• 1:03:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: And there was more for Avery than just love in the story.
• 1:03:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: She had these beautiful beautiful friendships, which, like, honestly, some of the side characters' best.
• 1:03:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Love, best.
• 1:03:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, how did Beth come about?
• 1:03:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I was really thinking about what else is changing in Avery's life during this.
• 1:03:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: Because that right, I didn't want it to just be, she is following a love of Taylor.
• 1:04:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: I wanted to know how else was she learning and growing?
• 1:04:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then I was like, I want her to make other friends.
• 1:04:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: I want her to have friends in her life who are not connected to Taylor, who are who she's kind of learning and growing with and figuring out how to make friends with, right?
• 1:04:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: Part of the relationship with Beth is that she's sort of very tentative early on and is like, I mean, maybe we just, I don't know, gardening together.
• 1:04:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I kind of wanted her to like tiptoe into that friendship and open herself up in that way.
• 1:04:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: like, kind of learn how to put herself out there and kind of, you know, she doesn't quite say, but it's kind of like, are we friends out?
• 1:04:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 1:04:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, and so, and I really wanted her to have that relationship and then kind of Beth kind of came through that.
• 1:04:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I love when Beth is like, you know, you're invited to my wedding wedding.
• 1:04:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I did it.
• 1:04:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I think that my favorite interaction between Beth and Avery is when Avery is just like buzzing because she's falling in love.
• 1:05:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: And there's she's like, oh my God, can I reconnect with my old friends and be like, hey, how you doing?
• 1:05:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm in love.
• 1:05:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like falling in love for you.
• 1:05:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm having a great time.
• 1:05:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like I had great sex, like, please talk to me.
• 1:05:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: And she's like, Beth kind of just like, appears.
• 1:05:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: And she's like, oh my God, you were the person I can do this with.
• 1:05:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: And actually, one of the big reasons that I wanted Avery to make new friends is that I wanted her to be able to have that moment.
• 1:05:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, I wanted her to be able to be like, I got to tell somebody about me.
• 1:05:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I didn't feel like, and like, I love her French with Luke, but I didn't feel like Luke was the right person for that.
• 1:05:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I was like, I need her to make a new friend so that she can like explode with joy about this.
• 1:05:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, which I feel like is so important.
• 1:05:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: As much as like falling in love and having that romance is important.
• 1:05:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's like having your girlfriend so you can just be like, I'm in love.
• 1:05:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think sex.
• 1:05:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let me tell you about it.
• 1:05:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Which I just, I felt like that was just like such a perfect, Beth was just such a little perfect side character in this one.
• 1:06:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: But as we continue, like as you were talking about, Luke and Noble Veneards, can we expect in your next work that we will continue in Noble Veneards or are we moving on to someplace different?
• 1:06:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: The thing that I'm currently working on is not related to normal family vineyards, but I do have at least one story.
• 1:06:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
• 1:06:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: About them coming.
• 1:06:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah.
• 1:06:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
• 1:06:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: So there's there is going to be more.
• 1:06:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
• 1:06:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Is there anything you can say about your new project or is this
• 1:06:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's still just I tend to not really like to talk about books and tell I am there at least done with the first draft.
• 1:06:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, I am still in them in the early stages of it, but hopefully I'll have more things to talk about soon.
• 1:06:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I can't wait because I love your books so much.
• 1:06:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: I feel like you have been with me on this entire romance journey from the beginning as you release books throughout and now here we are with
• 1:06:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: having lessons and I get to talk to you which is just so fantastic.
• 1:06:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well also this was so fun because I feel like I haven't gotten to have a lot of like spoilery conversations about the book so it's great to be able to like talk about like those moments towards the end of the book that I really love.
• 1:07:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I love doing that so much because it's like sometimes it's not like two squarely, some of these things were, but it's just like taking like the, it's almost like bowling without the gut, like without the gut bumpers.
• 1:07:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's like everything goes.
• 1:07:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's like this, it's just like this freedom that comes from talking about it, which I always really love our book club really loves.
• 1:07:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm so glad that you've enjoyed it.
• 1:07:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: But speaking of our book club, I've won last question for you.
• 1:07:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that is, do you have a book recommendation for chemical observers?
• 1:07:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: I do.
• 1:07:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: I, the book came out just this week.
• 1:07:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's called, along came a more by Alexis Doria.
• 1:07:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: It is a great romance.
• 1:07:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I also feel like it has the, because it's, you know, as we're talking about like the family stuff about Gilmore Girls.
• 1:07:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 1:07:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: It is the third in a series about three cousins.
• 1:07:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: And this is about the oldest cousin.
• 1:08:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: And she has a lot of like,
• 1:08:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: namely connection and like family guilt and like is you know feels like she has to do specific things to please or family and also like her family is going to be gossiping about her and and but her relationship is like sort of her free extra time where she doesn't worry about it in that and then it's kind of how both things clash oh we're familiar with that yes
• 1:08:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it's so fun and like so sexy and just like really thoughtful and I loved it a lot
• 1:08:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: So funny you say that cuz I literally ordered that book last night Yeah, yes, there was Tuesday it was literally last night that I ordered that so I thought I was like my gosh She and my email and my order for me So I'm so glad that you recommended that one I cannot wait to read it I cannot wait to meet you on Friday.
• 1:08:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm so excited to see you give you a big hug maybe I'll be wearing pink I actually don't own any pink I wanted to wear pink today, so maybe I'll acquire some before I've actually always had a lot of pink now I have even more because I bought a lot of pink
• 1:09:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's your pink hair.
• 1:09:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love that so much.
• 1:09:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: But Jasmine, thank you so much for chatting with me.
• 1:09:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much for giving me your time to our club.
• 1:09:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much for having me on.
• 1:09:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: My book loving besties, thank you so much for joining me today for another episode of Gilmour to Read.
• 1:09:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you would like to join the book club conversation head over to Patreon where you can join for free.
• 1:09:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: We are taking you break from the reading selection for August to prepare for Gilmour girls' fall, but that doesn't mean there will be a break from episodes.
• 1:09:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: People club itself will return in September with a richest guy to magical in Kingpink by Sangu Mandana.
• 1:09:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: But until then, happy reading friends.