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Nina Kenwood on life stability, 30s anxieties, and wedding drama | Author interview
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In this interview, we welcome author Nina Kenwood back to the show, where we will be discussing her new book - and her first book for adults - The Wedding Forecast. Topics include starting over after a long-term relationship, anxieties around parenthood and aging, and stability versus taking a leap.
Content notes for the episode: anxiety and overthinking; situationships; grief over loss of a parent
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Our podcast was recorded on Wurundjeri Land, which is home to both of us in Naarm/Melbourne. Always was, always will be Aboriginal Land.
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Transcript
Introduction and Interview Preview
00:00:04
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Novel Feelings, where two psychologists take a deep dive into your favourite books. I'm Priscilla. And I'm Elise. Today we have an interview with Nina Kenwood, who joined us on the podcast a couple of years ago. So welcome back, Nina. Today we're going to be discussing her latest release, The Wedding Forecast.
Themes of Relationships and Life Changes
00:00:22
Speaker
Topics include starting over after a long-term relationship ends, anxieties around parenthood and ageing, and stability versus life disruption.
00:00:31
Speaker
Yeah, well, I think we were still a fangirl this time around, but not as much as a fangirl after I admitted to stalking her from across the room. but but Talking in a socially acceptable way. That's right, debating whether to say hello or not. Starstruck, maybe. Yes. Remember to follow us on Instagram or subscribe to our blog on novelfeelings.com to keep up to date with the show, including our plans for season four.
00:00:59
Speaker
As a quick little announcement, if you do want to support the show, we have just set up a Buy Me a Coffee page. So if you want to, you know, if you've gotten something out of Novel Feelings, if you've enjoyed our work, if you want to support us as independent creators, go to buymeacoffee.com slash novel underscore feelings. We'll put the link in the show notes. We really appreciate it.
Author Nina Kenwood's Background
00:01:20
Speaker
And another quick note that we've also moved our disclaimers to our show notes, including all of our content notes, um in an attempt to streamline our introductions and get to the exciting stuff quicker. So check out our show notes if you want more information about those topics. And if you don't know who Nina Kenwood it is, let us tell you a little bit about her. So Nina won the text prize for her debut YA novel. It sounded better in my head.
00:01:44
Speaker
which went on to be published in six languages. Her second book, Unnecessary Drama, which we talked about when it came out. Yes, I tried to remember that. is well Yeah, yeah. um Unnecessary Drama continued her success both in Australia and overseas. The wedding forecast is Nina's first novel for adults.
Book Introduction: 'The Wedding Forecast'
00:02:08
Speaker
So we're actually like the perfect target audience for the wedding forecast.
00:02:13
Speaker
It's like this book was written for us. I know. OK, so a little bit about the book. Anna was never going to have an easy time at her best friend's wedding. She's the bridesmaid. Her ex, Joel, is a groomsman. But she's determined to get through the festivities with a smile on her face. Despite the fact that Joel is bringing his new partner Bianca, and despite the fact she's stuck sharing a house with a newly in-love couple, and despite the fact Anna has just turned 30 and her life is not exactly where she thought it would be by now.
00:02:41
Speaker
Anna has all her feelings completely under control, right up until the moment Joel drops a bombshell that rocks her to her core. The audacity of this man. The audacity.
00:02:54
Speaker
ah ah Anyway, let's get started with our interview with Nina, starting with our non-spoiler questions first.
00:03:04
Speaker
Congratulations on the release of your third book, The Wedding Forecast. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Yeah, it's always a pleasure. Your main characters have grown up across your books, from finishing high school to being in university and now to being in their 30s. What's this on purpose?
00:03:20
Speaker
Yeah, it was. i After my first book came out, it sounded better in my head. I was talking with my editor about um what I wanted to do next, and I knew I wanted to do a another YA set in university, which was um my second book, Unnecessary a Drama.
00:03:37
Speaker
And then after that, I thought I was going to do a book um with a character set in like their mid 20s. So sort of really following the age group along. But then I realized when I started sort of thinking about it that I actually found the 30s and turning 30 a much more interesting time to write about.
Discussing the Transition into 30s
00:03:57
Speaker
um And it kind of is it's got like a nice sort of parallel or symmetry to um to writing about YA books and that you know in in my YA books they were just they were turning 18 they were on the cusp of adulthood they were trying to figure out what they wanted their life to look like and I think well for me anyway that kind of happens again when you turn 30 a little bit you start thinking about what is my career doing uh for me it was yeah do I want kids um when should I have kids what what do I want my life to look like going forward and I was the kind of person who had a
00:04:34
Speaker
things I want to achieve a before I'm 30 list. And i ah I don't think I ticked a single thing off that list. um So I was just sort of reflecting back on that moment of turning 30, being 30, you're early 30s. And that felt like a really kind of interesting time to delve into. So yeah, sort of the thinking behind the age range there. It's another big transition point isn't it for a lot of people it's not like anything you know it's not like there's suddenly a massive biological tick whenever you you turn 30 but there's something about the way that society or our society at least um you know shapes our expectations of the 30s that it's almost like another coming of age time point which i think is really interesting to explore yeah
00:05:19
Speaker
And some people, I mean some people have everything together in their 20s but I didn't and so yet that that turning 30 was when I was really contemplating like what do I want to do and children and all of that.
00:05:32
Speaker
Yeah. Judging by the, uh, the mathematical progression of your character's ages, I assume the next book will be in like fifties and then we'll probably be in hundreds. So I'll be curious to see the exponential growth of your character's ages.
Character Development in Nina's Books
00:05:48
Speaker
In more seriousness though, um, how would you say that your writing and your characters have evolved across the three books?
00:05:55
Speaker
um Well, in terms of my writing a um craft from a craft perspective, I have learned a lot you know from the first book. I think I'm getting better at like plot and structure and the structure of this book, although the structure of this book was very challenging um for me. I initially envisioned it as it was going to be a novel set just over one weekend at a wedding. it was going to be really short, tight timeframe, all happening at the wedding. And but then as I got into the book and figuring out the characters, I realized, well, there's no, that's not giving them enough space for a real emotional journey that I wanted them to go on. And for the proper, you know, the kind of relationship I wanted to develop between the characters to happen and for the main character, Anna, to actually deal with all the things I wanted her to deal with. It was all too compressed. It wasn't going to work. So then I had to sort of deal with structure.
00:06:49
Speaker
and setting it over a much longer timeframe than I had anticipated and that either of my other books were. So that was quite challenging to figure out. And so I think definitely extended me as a writer to figure out the structure of the book in that sense.
00:07:03
Speaker
in terms of character like I think there's a similarity in voice between all three of my characters but this I definitely feel like you know as we were just discussing she's 30 she's got a lot of issues going on that that you don't really to you deal with in my YA books so it was fun to really delve into all of that, like how, especially in you know today's world, how, how do you buy a house and when do you want to have kids and marriage and all of those issues are sort of hanging over her and her career and who she wants to be.
00:07:37
Speaker
And yeah Anna, of course, is another anxious protagonist, um you know a little bit of a trademark of yours by this time point. We say we say with love, we we you know really appreciate that. um But of course, we're in adult territory, so the the anxieties that Anna's facing are a little different to the other characters, as you've said. um So can you introduce us a little bit more to Anna, including her breakup with Joel, which precedes the story?
00:08:03
Speaker
So I kind of think of her, I i mean, she is sort of, she I think she's the least anxious of all my characters. I kind of consider her more of an overthinker rather than someone sort of, um you know, overcome with anxiety or anything like that. She's more, is she overthinks things. She's a little bit neurotic, but her she yeah her anxieties are more sort of, I guess, outward facing around what's happening in her life. So,
00:08:28
Speaker
Anna is, she's, when we meet her at the start of the book, she's broken up with her partner of eight years, who she spent, you know, the majority of her twenties with, Joel. They're six months out from the breakup, but it still is feeling quite fresh to her. And she's still quite, quite um ah thrown by everything that's happened. She grew up um with her best friend,
00:08:50
Speaker
her mum and her mum's best friend have both had daughters and she her best friend is the daughter of her mum's best friend so she's in this tight-knit um sort of little group with where she's been surrounded by women by strong women and she and her best friend Hailey have always been they were both sort of going along in life at about the same speed and they were both in these long-term relationships and when we start the book all of a sudden Anna realizes you know Hayley, she owns a house, she's getting married and she's possibly going to be having kids and then and Anna feels like she's gone back to the beginning in a lot of ways in life she feels like she's restarted. I posted this on Instagram but when I saw
00:09:34
Speaker
that first line in chapter four, where we found out why Anna and Jill broke up. And we'd found out that, you know, what's happening in Jill's new relationship. I was like, oh the pain of that sort of. yeah That's kind of the big initial reveal of what so that the book is starting. um And they're Anna is at the wedding and Joel is in the wedding as well. He's a groomsman she's the bridesmaid and they are because they're all in the same wedding party they're all sharing an Airbnb and he's bringing his new girlfriend which Anna is trying to be completely relaxed and cool about um and then she finds out that um because she and Joel broke up
00:10:16
Speaker
because she won and I wanted kids and Joel didn't and when she gets to the Airbnb she finds out that Joel's new very fresh new girlfriend is actually pregnant and so he's having a baby with his new girlfriend and that obviously throws her into a complete state of having to question everything about their relationship, why they broke up and sort of why he wants kids with someone else and not her.
Anna's Personal Struggles and Relationship Dynamics
00:10:43
Speaker
As soon as I realised, well, as soon as Bianca was sick and, you know, the first signs and the clues, I went, oh God, is she pregnant?
00:10:55
Speaker
And I was correct and I felt, you know, validated for picking up on the clue, but, ah, that I felt Anna's betrayal at that moment of, you know, once she realized what was happening as well. but For her, it's like a loss all over again, a kind of a fresh wound to the a reopening of the breakup in conflict perspective. So that was, that was, and I always knew that going in that this was sort of going to be the starting point. She was going to get to a wedding, have this bombshell dropped about the ex having a baby with someone else.
00:11:26
Speaker
We haven't mentioned Mac yet, but he's another member of the wedding party and you um is it too much of a spoiler to say a love interest?
00:11:38
Speaker
It's pretty early. I think it's at least hinted on the back of the book that there is a there is a Mac and he is a love interest. yeah Both Anna and Mac experiences grief in the story, so Anna has been a grieving a future, I suppose, that he she's pictured with Joel, whereas Mac has been grieving the loss of his mother. Would you mind talking about how their individual experiences in that sense impact how they approach being together, I suppose, or their journey together?
00:12:13
Speaker
So I guess Anna is coming out of everything that happened with Joel. She is determined to not get involved with another man who is going to disappoint her or hurt her in the same way. And, you know, Mac and from the get go seems to be someone who like he he lives in another country. He is interested in the life that she kind of wants and he doesn't seem like he's interested in having kids so all of those things are sort of of big red flags and so that means as much as they connect um she is always sort of she's always holding herself back or or trying to not let herself feel things for him because
00:12:55
Speaker
she knows that he's wrong for her in a way that you know her great fear is to get into another relationship or uh situationship with someone who is and spend you know years caught up in that after she sort of feels like have I wasted eight years with someone who ah you know ultimately didn't want the same things as me so she and she has this big wound of that you know Joel didn't want kids with her but he wanted them with someone else so what what does that say about her and um is is there something wrong with her in that sense and she's really
00:13:30
Speaker
fearful of being made to feel like that again. And then Mac is just, you know, not quite dealing with his grief or he has been overseas in the US when his mother died, he came back for the funeral, and but then sort of ran from all of those feelings. And so he has kind of been living in avoidance of coming back to Australia because it dredges everything up for him. And he has this sort of belief that his mum wanted him to go off and become a successful actor and follow his dreams and so he's like honoring her by doing that but also kind of
00:14:06
Speaker
avoiding all the ways, like every every positive feeling he has about home was all tangled up in his mother. So he he doesn't want to come back. And so in the same way, he's very aware of what he can and can't give or what he thinks he can and can't give in a relationship. So they've both got these sort of internal battles that they are struggling um while at the same time feeling connected to one another.
00:14:33
Speaker
It's such a complex way to be approaching you know this this issue of like being in your 30s and settling down and having a long-term relationship. What does that mean when neither party, at least on the surface, seems to be at that right point to be doing that right despite their their wishes and feelings that they're having for each other? you know to to people that have different life stages in different countries. They have the chemistry, but do they have the circumstances for things to work out? I think that's such an ongoing tension throughout the book.
00:15:04
Speaker
I mean, coming back to a craft sort of perspective, when you're writing a rom-com or a romance, it's like, that's the big question. Why can't these people be together? And in contemporary sort of, in a contemporary romance of, you know, in historical romance, there's all kinds of um lovely barriers that you can put in place. But in, you know, today's time, you really got to think through, well, why can't they be together? And I wondered,
00:15:28
Speaker
to make sure that there were internal and external barriers. So like, they live in different countries, but they also have all this sort of emotional stuff going on that's also providing a barrier to them. um ah And so they want different things and all of that and the journey that they both need to go on to be together and all the different obstacles. Yeah.
00:15:53
Speaker
What I really enjoyed about that as well is that it avoids Elise's pet peeve about romance, which is the act three breakup that is always around miscommunication or them not saying something to each other. Which is definitely the key reason why I'm not a big romance reader because that trope annoys me so much. I'm much more attracted to stories that have a romance that deviates from that template a little bit.
00:16:17
Speaker
Yeah, but that wasn't an issue here because they're actually communicating and they tell each other, well, eventually, you know, they tell each other what's going on and, and the the miscommunication isn't, isn't the problem. It is what everything that you've just talked about that on the service there after different things. And that was really enjoyable to read.
00:16:38
Speaker
Oh, I'm glad.
Inspiration and Recommendations
00:16:39
Speaker
Yeah, bro I mean, it's hard. It is hard to. Yeah, it's hard to write a romance without falling into um traps, I guess, that can aggravate readers. But oh, look, there's still plenty of readers that don't mind the tropes, that don't mind the structure.
00:16:57
Speaker
I mean, I think this miscommunication is a real thing. in the lot You know what I mean? people People don't say what they mean all the time in life. and That does happen. It's just how it's written and and how you can get it across, I guess.
00:17:12
Speaker
awesome um So we wanted to talk a bit about the wedding as the setup for the story as well. So the first part of the book, of course, centres around the wedding of Anna's best friend Hayley, which is a very dramatic opener, as you've mentioned with Anna in the bridal party with her ex Joel. As two people who've both had weddings this year, we've read our fair share of mind-boggling, real-life horror wedding stories of things going wrong and so on.
00:17:40
Speaker
um What was behind the decision to centre the story around a wedding in the first half of the book? Well that was actually my first sort of where I began the book. I thought I'd really want to write a book with a wedding as the setting because you know it's the most fun um setting for a writer. you You have a reason to bring everyone together for a start which is always good.
00:18:04
Speaker
You know, it's ah it's a juicy setting. Things happen. Families, their friends are there. You're bringing different groups together. It was after a time where I'd been to a lot of weddings. I think I've been to like twenty five weddings or something over a period of number of years. And you do see a lot of um wild things happening at weddings. I've been to weddings where the groomsmen fainted um during the vows, one where um a cat brought the rings up the aisle.
00:18:32
Speaker
on a little leash like meowing his head off um you know and various bad speeches from family members family drama all of that kind of stuff so wedding has always stood out to me as a and i've obviously been to beautiful wonderful weddings in fact there's A few of my close friend's weddings were the inspiration behind the setting where I went to, you know, lovely weddings in a winery. And then I went for a friend's wedding in New York at Christmas time, which actually was the inspiration for the New York kind of part of the book. So weddings were on my mind and I knew it was the setting that I wanted to have. I love a book with a wedding in it. Always has a bit of you feel like, oh, something juicy might be happening or this is this is going to be fun.
00:19:19
Speaker
I'm glad that um nobody on either of our wedding parties fainted. I will just say that much. that could have It was a high risk at my wedding because I got married on a heat wave day in Melbourne, um which was just the worst timing possible. Yeah. Let's just say that I booked a wedding in March thinking that we would have nice autumn weather and instead we got the hottest weekend in 80 years. um So that was very bad timing for us. The thing that stood out to me that made me laugh was the 45 buttons.
00:19:46
Speaker
That is a lot of responsibility on a bridesmaid. Yes, that actually came from when I was a bridesmaid um to my ah dear friend who did have buttons that needed to be done up on the back of her dress. But luckily, the other bridesmaids handled that because Yeah, it was a stressful moment. I can imagine. ah Before we dive into spoilers, a question that we ask all of our interviewees, do you have any book or author recommendations to share with our listeners?
00:20:18
Speaker
Yes, ah so if they're list if they're wanting another Australian rom-com, I would recommend Jodie McAllister's Marry Me Juliet series, which is three three books in the series. um It's all set over a bachelor style um reality TV show, and each of the books has a different relationship happening. And it's just not only are they great,
00:20:41
Speaker
romances but they're really clever world building, um really clever structurally and really interesting stuff to say about TV, representation, how reality TV works, all of that. So really great books. I also read Nova Wheatman's memoir Love, Death and Other Scenes about her partner who passed away from cancer during the COVID lockdowns and that was a really just the most beautiful memoir um and also a really interesting, so Nerv is a writer and her partner was a playwright, so it was also a really interesting reflection on two people in a relationship when they're both creatives and how that sort of
00:21:27
Speaker
impacts your life and how to make a life financially as a creative and all kinds of really fascinating sort of stuff in that book. So I highly recommend that as well. Great. Well, thank you. And we'll, of course, post links to those books on the ah the show notes for listeners to check them out. I think it's time for us to dive into some spoiler questions. So if you haven't read the wedding forecast, please go out and pick up a copy, read it and come back and tune in as we're going to dive into some of the things that happened in the second half of the novel.
00:21:58
Speaker
We wanted to dive a little bit more into the relationship between Anna and Mac, who we loved together, by the way. So they find themselves in a long distance situation relationship with Anna in Australia and Mac in New York. Can you tell us about how you approach writing their relationship and how it evolved over time?
00:22:18
Speaker
Well, yes, so it started. I was was going to be just this shortened thing at the wedding. That didn't work out. So then when I was thinking about it, I realized um this was a great opportunity to you know write a section of the book in New York and have Anna go um overseas and and have them reconnect. And so that was that was that whole section was just a joy to write. It was so enjoyable and and have them that building sort of chemistry. And then I guess the tricky part structurally is yet figuring out how how they stay connected, that all of that long distance
00:22:54
Speaker
yearning and um how to keep the momentum of and the pace of the book going through this long distance relationship and how they are in each other's lives but not in each other's lives and um how to build the the obstacles between them while they're just having phone calls so um there was a lot I wrote a lot of phone calls between them a lot of which was cut out of the book but um it helped me really get to know them as people and a couple and it was really, I just found all of their scenes really enjoyable to write.
New York Influences and Writing as a Career
00:23:28
Speaker
They have very strong chemistry from the start. Absolutely. um And you mentioned earlier that your trip your experiences in New York ah informed some of the experiences that Anna and Mac have. Were there any particular ah settings or things that were woven into the story? I've been to New York a couple of times, um once with my sister actually on my 30th birthday. um So that was really nice. and Then I went, I have a friend who lives in New York and she was, got married at Christmas time and so I went there for that wedding and it was just seeing New York at Christmas time. It was so amazing that that's why I decided I'm going to throw in
00:24:08
Speaker
just that feeling of being a tourist um and it you know it snowed and it snowed in Central Park and so I wanted to capture all the little magical moments that I had was lucky enough to experience and sort of sprinkle them into the book because I just thought you know why not it's it's a it's such a beautiful city and um I love Christmas time so I thought I'd just sort of add add that in as a fun setting because you can get carried, I really love writing dialogue and you can kind of get carried away with writing your characters in dialogue and then think, well, wait, they need to be somewhere and doing something. So it's handy to have that sort of, that's another reason the wedding is great. So it's like, okay, they they're all here and they've got something to do.
00:24:59
Speaker
If you ever decide to release some of those edited out phone calls as bonus material, I will be reading them. So let's talk about Addis's career a little bit. So she's actually a writer. What was it like writing a character who is also a writer?
00:25:17
Speaker
I wanted to make sure that she, I mean, it's a bit, it's a bit of a cliche and a lot of people say, oh, I hate when writers write characters through a role. It's like, have some imagination. And I agree with that. And I still did it. um I wanted to make it a realistic version of a writer in Australia, which is she has a full-time office job and then she's written a book around that, um which is how I wrote my first book. I was working time and I wrote um a book around that.
00:25:46
Speaker
uh and then she's kind of her book's done reasonably well her first book so when the when when the wedding forecast starts her book has been out for um i think six weeks and so you know she's just coming off the the high of being a debut writer and you've released your first book and then it's kind of like, oh, okay, well, that's done. um And my life is back to how it was before. And and so this there's a there's some emotional sort of grappling that has to be done with that, you know, the expectation of releasing your first book and then the fields that come with that. And so that's in there a little bit. um And she's trying to write her second book.
00:26:27
Speaker
which sort of is happening throughout the book. um And I didn't want to, again, i i wrote I wrote a lot of stuff that I kind of pulled back. I didn't want it to become a book about writing and writers too much. It's more, it's just trying to sort of weave that in there. But I did want to make that part of her sort of her journey And which is something I think anyone who is a creative or has a creative sort of side hustle or um and an extra thing they do on top of their full-time job, it's that that idea of, well, how much time do I devote to this? When do I when do i change my work situation?
00:27:07
Speaker
and you know, take a risk and give more time over to my creative um my creative career or hobby or whatever it is and how do I how do i find the balance that I want in my life and how do I do what I want to do or find something I love doing while also being able to live in you know a time where it's very hard to high cost of living and getting a house in Melbourne is really tough. So I wanted to capture all of those feelings and have her sort of and have it tied to the relationship story. So she's kind of inspired by to make the decision to leave her office job. She finds a part time job as a bookseller.
00:27:52
Speaker
and which gives her a bit more time and space for her writing as well. Which I feel it you know that decision to decide um to resign from the stability of the marketing job and and take that risk, it comes back to that this sort of theme that we have in the book of you know choosing something that your heart is set on, even if it might not seem like the best idea on the surface and getting that pushback from friends and family that don't understand why you've made that decision.
00:28:21
Speaker
yeah i just I love to see it, though. I love i love to see Anna pursuing things that make her happy. But I'm curious, you know, considering, of course, your own career in in marketing in the book industry, were any of Anna's experiences ah reflective of your own? but Not directly. Not directly. I mean, yeah, I have worked in marketing. I've worked in marketing for a bookstore and publishing company, so I found those very, like, very rewarding marketing jobs for Anna's in a marketing role that she does not love as much, that's a much drier kind of role.
00:28:57
Speaker
But I guess the experience I drew from was how to manage my life with the writing and working full time. And then I had my daughter. So it was like how to balance a life in a way that's going to make you the most happy while still being able to survive and and grappling with that of part time work and when to quit a job. And so I've definitely quit a job to write a book. And then I've done that several times now, actually. um yeah taking leaps how when to know when to take a ah leap of faith and when to not do it and you know no one can tell you this is the right decision you just have to
00:29:38
Speaker
ah fumble through it I guess um which is part of being in your 30s and so that's that's definitely what I was I was drawing on those feelings that I'd had of make a decision oh and that what have I done and this is scary and yeah and I wanted to give her you know I'm i'm always happiest when I'm working in some way with books whether it's selling them or in a bookstore or writing them or reading them so I wanted to give her that that part of my life I did have um a bit of a giggle at the moments where the customer came in and said the horrible things about Anna's book directly to her face, not realizing she was speaking to the author. um I am curious if that's something that has happened to any authors previously. I'm sure it has.
00:30:25
Speaker
ah Yeah, there's a lot of authors who work in bookshops, so i would say most definitely. yeah It's a good lesson in like, be careful what you say to people. and Another thing that I did, I wrote in there that was actually direct from my experience is the um it's just an offhand little moment in the book, which is when she tells her boss that she's written a book and he immediately like is tells her all about like the book he's going to write one without asking
Themes of Growth and Self-Realization
00:30:53
Speaker
her any questions. And that has happened.
00:30:56
Speaker
five, six times. ah wow it's It is always a man that does that. um i'mp surprised it is yeah um I like that parallel of Anna in her 20s was in all the stable positions or stable job, a stable curry sorry stable career, stable relationship.
00:31:22
Speaker
and then becomes more of herself in her 30s by taking those leaps and or having a leap kind of force on her, I suppose. And I like, yeah, I like that growth, I suppose, because I think once, yeah, you know, I think for women as well, like a lot of time you turn 30 and there's a, that feeling that you talked about at the beginning is like, oh my God, you know, what am I doing with my life? I'm behind on the timeline.
00:31:48
Speaker
But I think since I've entered my 30s, I'm like, this is actually better than my 20s. I feel more like myself. And, you know, it's just, you just feel less like your help up to a certain expectation, I suppose. or yeah yeah Yeah, you're more able to, in some ways, yet know who you are and take the risk or say, okay, well, I spent that time doing that and that was the wrong path, but there's still plenty of time to get on a new path or figure out who I am. or Yeah, I think the 30s is just, you're you're a more interesting person in some ways.
00:32:24
Speaker
and And I also, you might not be surprised that I'm the bringer of tangents in this conversation. I love tangents. What's a podcast called A Place for Tangents? um I love the relationship between Hailey and Anna. like I think there's something about female relationships, but particularly that sort of relationship. And she said they've been on the same speed their whole life. We get Anna's perspective where she feels left behind.
00:32:51
Speaker
But then later in the book they have this big fight and you we kind of get a glimpse of how Hayley feels being a hit as well, how scary that is. As I wondered why you chose to have them be best friends instead of sisters because the dynamic is almost quite similar. So I was wondering what your thoughts were when you were writing the two of them.
00:33:12
Speaker
I didn't want them to be sisters but at one point I was going to have them be cousins and for some reason I dumped that I can't remember why and then it became I liked the idea of the two mums being best friends and then their daughters being best friends and then so highly thinking we're gonna have kids that are going to, we're both gonna magically have daughters that are, they're gonna be third generation best friends. And so like, and that's kind of what Haley's holding onto as like, then suddenly when Anna is no longer in her relationship and Haley's having to face the idea of, oh, I'm just gonna have a kid on my own and no one's gonna be like, it's not gonna be this fun thing we're doing together. That's really scary. And so she's kind of reacting to that um as well. So yeah, it's, it's the,
00:34:00
Speaker
It's the idea of, yeah, you can't always, obviously, life does not go as planned. And as I've gone through my 30s, obviously, the decision to have kids is a big one. But then once you make that, there's still, you know, um fertility struggles and watching other people once you decide, I'm going to have a baby, I'm going to try and have a baby.
00:34:20
Speaker
and then you have to watch other people have the baby that you want and you can't have so that's and then you know once you have a kid then there's the am I going to have another kid so it's like these kind of questions for some people they have it all figured out but for a lot of women as they move through their 30s the questions are just and the experience around that whole process of do I want children can I have children is just it's it's kind of a it's a long process and it's ah it's a big thing and it's often something you really do go through with your closest girlfriends and um it can have this big effect on friendships and that's sort of what i I guess I was trying to get a little bit of my experience of that in there.
00:35:03
Speaker
Yeah, I love that. I think um it is a rom-com, but, you know, the focus on female friendship is always something I enjoy in books as well. I just love the the mother's friendship as well. I thought it was so sweet, this idea of intergenerational friendships and that happening, you know, organically, I think is really lovely to see. And how Bobby sort of takes on Anna under her wing and supports her with the bookshop, I thought was just, you know, it it takes a village to raise children and it sometimes it takes a village to raise adult children and children in their 30s. as well. We all need that those older female ah mentors. Yes. And I love sort of, yes, writing. Yeah, the older women characters who I mean, that they're they're kind of a little bit as comic relief, but also, yeah, as mentor and as to show yet that Anna is getting so much from um Haley's mother as much as she is from her own mum. And yeah, that that village feeling is exactly what I was going for. And
Conclusion and Future Content
00:35:58
Speaker
yeah And I love that scene where Hailey told them off for being mean to Mac and said, please mother him as well.
00:36:08
Speaker
And I love how much that worked as well. they just They just flipped a switch and went, okay, you know what? We are being unfair. Let's let's give him the benefit of the doubt. Very satisfying. But speaking of Mac, it is a rom-com and we do get a happy ending for Anna and Mac, or at least happily for now. So Mac deciding to move back to Australia and pursuing Anna rather than acting as his dream, um which I loved. And this is a bit of a departure from many stereotypical rom-coms where women are often the ones who give up the career to be with a man, you know, thinking of the whole Mac movie of the
00:36:42
Speaker
you know, career-warming woman moving to a small town and then giving up her career and her long-term relationship to be with, you know, the man that she's met for two weeks, that sort of thing. um So, love that difference. um What do you imagine the future holds for Anna in Mac?
00:36:59
Speaker
Um, well, yeah, I mean, just to go back to your first point, that was something that was really important to me that because I felt like the obvious feeling was all she should go to New York because, you know, he's got the big career and New York is New York and she can write a book over there. But I wanted her to be to have something she's excited about here and to be grounded here and just to be like, I don't want that life. um And for him to have to give up everything. And because it sort of came back to the fact that what she went through with her first partner Joel and that he didn't want to have kids with her, she needed to kind of to be, to heal that. She needed someone to be like, I do want to have kids with you and I want to give up everything to come back and have this life together. For her to be the priority, I think is so important.
00:37:45
Speaker
Yes, so that was that was really the key. And just because her life is smaller than his is in some way, or you wouldn't mean it's not as glamorous, doesn't mean it's worth any less. That was always set in my mind that he needed to be the one giving things up, not her. But in terms of their future, you know, I see them happy. I actually do think maybe they do go back overseas at some point. um I can see that for sure happening. and But I also see them, you know, settled, having fun with um the moms and Hailey and all of that um in Melbourne as well. But yeah, I think they work it out. i'm not you know Max struggles to find his feet for a while in terms of what he's going to do for work.
00:38:34
Speaker
He finds it, he figures it out. Yeah, he can be a non-singing type of Rob Mills, you know. He is from Mills, Korea, exactly. Yeah, yeah i I did have a little giggle and and I was like, but you want to be an actor? And he went, well, Australia makes movies too. Do we?
00:38:56
Speaker
Well there's a few opportunities maybe yeah and I see him as like starting maybe he starts his own something totally different business doing something else yeah um and he reconnects with his family and I think that's a big part of also what I want you to sort of get the feel for in the ending is like he is coming home and healing by being with his family and and rebuilding that relationship.
00:39:20
Speaker
Big Mac needs and deserves some grounding time as well, rather than, you know, being alone and pursuing something that's not so stable either. You know, overseas for three months, film a movie and then come back. Yeah. Maybe you come in with the Hemsworths in Byron Bay. Oh, that's right. Of course. They all get off of some movie. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, what I did love as well is that he mentioned he's been to therapy and I was like, yes, Anna, be with a man who's been in therapy. I mean he still kind of has a lot to work through, but he dealt with some of his issues. Yes, that's important. At least he started. He's on the trajectory, right? Yeah, to get through the initial grief kind of phases.
00:40:04
Speaker
Good. Well, we'd love to see a happy ending and a realistic happy ending for the situation that they've got them in. But yeah, we see the situationship turn into a relationship, which is lovely to see. So I think that wraps up our questions for today. Thank you so much for having me. Absolutely. Pleasure to have you on the podcast again. Nina, thank you so much. We both legitimately love the book, so everybody go out and read it.
00:40:30
Speaker
And that wraps up our interview. As usual, our detailed show notes are available on novelfeelings.com, including Nina's social media handles and her book recommendations. And the wedding forecast is out now through text publishing. Please remember to subscribe and follow us to keep up to date with us and to know when our new episodes are posted. Our website, as we said at the start, is novelfeelings.com. If you like us, please leave us a review on Noble Podcasts Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:41:00
Speaker
The best places to find us online at the moment are instagram and youtube at novel underscore feelings. We have a challenge going on on the storygraph and you're welcome to buy us a coffee as well. Links in the show notes. Thank you so much everybody for listening. Bye! Our podcast was recorded on Wurundjeri land which is home to both of us in Naam, Melbourne. We also acknowledge the role of storytelling in First Nations communities. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land.