Elena Bowes

Elena: Today I’m speaking to Annabel Monaghan about her lates novel, It’s a Love Story, which hits newsstands May 27th. I love Annabel’s smart, funny romcoms. This one had me teary eyed on my second read. I mean, I already knew exactly what was going to happen.

I don’t know how she does it-  her timing, wit, knack for creating lovable, flawed characters and slowly building sexy romance is just perfect. This particular story centers around a somewhat unhinged Jane Jackson, who was a child TV star and now 20 years later or so, is still in Hollywood and trying to get a movie produced.

Jane is not having much luck and whenever Jane gets nervous, she hides in her closet or her under her desk at work and eats candy. Enter Dan Finnegan, an arrogant cinematographer who almost immediately becomes Jane’s nemesis when he trashes her latest film idea to her boss, Nathan. I should add that Dan is somewhat handsome, a cross between a fireman and a swimsuit model.

I first interviewed Annabel about Nora Goes Off Script a few years ago and have not stopped devouring her comedic love stories ever since. I feel about Annabel’s writing a bit the way I feel about my pug Josephine, who I remind daily that she’s not allowed to die ever, and Annabel is not allowed to stop writing ever.

Below are edited highlights from our Q&A. You can listen to the full episode here on Elena Meets the Author. Annabel, welcome to the show.

Annabel: Oh my goodness. That is honestly the best thing I’ve ever heard. I don’t think anyone’s ever likened me to their dog before and I have a dog. I know what a compliment that is.  Thank you for having me back.

Elena: My pleasure. Is there anything else you’d like to add about your book without giving the whole plot away?

Well, they’re going to do a little bit of traveling. The story itself is really about coming to terms with all the stories you’ve told yourself your entire life growing up, all the beliefs that we hold really tightly about ourselves and taking a second to let some of them go so that we can move on with our lives.

Elena: So your inspiration for this book, I saw in your acknowledgements that you mentioned a book called I’m Glad My Mom Died. Can you tell us about that?

 It is such a hard title to say, isn’t it? Every time I say it, I almost wish I never brought it up.  I picked that book up two years ago, and I read it straight through and when I finished, I turned back to the first page, and I read it again. I don’t think I’ve ever done that in my life.

It’s by Jennette McCurdy. She was a teen star. I was so taken by the writing. I don’t know that I’ve ever read writing quite that crisp and unusual. I also really got into the mind of teen stars and all of these teens like Jennette that I watched growing up.

So, while I was watching them, they were going through puberty on tv. And when I think about that time in my life, it was all about trying things on, maybe I’m going to dress like Madonna now, or maybe I’m going try to have this personality. What was it like to grow up on TV where you’re actually being dressed and given a script every day?

Is there part of your life where you missed your personal development as a person because you were always told where to stand. So that’s where Jane Jackson came from. She is the most unhinged character I’ve ever written. She is an adult. She’s trying to make it in the movie business. She is so unself-aware, has no clue really of who she is. So that was my starting point. I just wanted to see what she would be like all grown up.

Elena: Was it easy to write the whole unhinged part?

 Oddly, I’m embarrassed to say it was so much easier for me than trying to write somebody who has their act together. I mean, just the thrill of having her rip open candy bars on the floor of her closet and shove them in her mouth, the actual release that I felt. She’s a person who always knows what she’s going to say in advance, but then if she gets really mad, she just lets loose and says something totally different.

Elena: The film The Notebook comes up an awful lot. Jane professes to hate that film, but I don’t believe her. Does she really hate The Notebook?

 No, she does not. But as it’s revealed throughout the book, it’s a touch point for the moment in her life when she stopped believing in love. I happen to be a Notebook lover because I’m a normal human being. Everybody loves that movie. But there are a lot of holes that you can poke, and it was really fun to play the devil’s advocate and find those holes.

Elena: Each of your novels comes out just before the summer and they make me yearn for summer, like no other book. Where is this fictional seaside place based on, because it’s not quite the Hamptons.

 No, it is a made-up Long Island town called Oak Shore, same town as in my book Same Time Next Summer. It is so fictional that ordinary people have homes on the beach. I like a good fantasy.

Elena: You make it so people want to go there, like me, now.

 I don’t know how to get you to Oak Shore. Don’t bring your realtor to Oak Shore looking for waterfront property.

Elena: And so is it pretty much the deal with your publisher, where they say, every May, we’d like a book

 Yes. I’m in contract to write a book for summer 2026 and summer 2027. Don’t tell them, but I would do this for free and until I die. I honestly don’t know what else I’d be doing. It’s really what I love to do. And then the culmination of it, in a few weeks I’m going on book tour and that’s super fun. And then I’ll start another book.

Elena: Do you not panic a teeny bit with these deadlines? Or do you have enough ideas percolating that you’re okay?

 I don’t panic. When I was finishing this book,  I was having ideas about the book that I’m writing now, the next book. I’m not a good multitasker. Having children was really challenging for me. Like, why are we doing so many different things? So, I was terrified by how much I was thinking about that next book while I was finishing this book. So, I have to shut the door on any ideas. I don’t even write them down in a notebook. I’m like, it is not time. I’m not entertaining this idea yet. And then I start when I’m done.

Elena: I have to say I got uncomfortable because things were going quite smoothly and I was getting far along in the book and I knew there had to be a looming crisis. I just knew it. And then the crisis came, and I had to speed read past it. It was so uncomfortable. I wanted to get back to the love part.

 Oh, I love that it made you uncomfortable.

Elena: Very.. and Jack Quinlan is such a bad person. You need to do a sequel where something bad happens to him.

 Yes, he gets lice. Is there something worse than that? That was the first thing I could think of.

Elena: That’s really bad. Dan, the quiet, thoughtful cinematographer who is not exactly what Jane thought he was. Did he come to you quite naturally?

 I just started writing Dan.  I was probably two drafts in before I understood who he was. One thing I’ll tell you is that I am married to a quiet man. I really like a quiet man.  Leo Vance from Nora Goes Off Script may be the sexiest man alive. But he’s not my type. I adored him while I was writing him, but that’s not for me. I loved writing a man who just knows who he is and doesn’t have to justify it to everybody.  I find that very, very attractive. So, you know, maybe my own household sort of snuck in there on this one.

Elena: Nice,  I like a quiet man too. Your love scenes, do you read them aloud? What’s your secret to writing them so convincingly without being in any way pornographic or corny?

 It’s getting easier just because I’ve been doing it more. I draft those scenes over and over again, and then I put them away and then reread them. Sometimes somebody’s got three arms. I have to imagine them.

There are two approaches to writing a love scene. One has body parts in it, and one doesn’t have body parts in it, like we’re not naming body parts. So, my approach is we’re together and you can see how they are together and how it’s going, but you’re not saying all the things.

Elena: It’s very suggestive. You barely mentioned a breast. I think that was it.

 I’ve gone wild. I’ve gone totally off the rails. But you know, the truth about all that kind of stuff is the moments before the kiss are more exciting than the kiss. It’s the anticipation of the thing, the buildup that feels really great. So that’s fun to write.

Elena: What was the most difficult part to write?

The thing with her mother, it’s really complicated. Jane has a very close relationship with her mother. They do and say everything to make each other happy. But they don’t always say the honest thing. Towards the end of the book, there is more honesty and something kind of blows up. And it was important to me to get that right. And that was very difficult.  I wrote that a lot of times and in a lot of different ways. Opening up the hard conversation and how that would actually look.

Elena: Right. And it was very interesting too that the mother had such a different attitude towards love than her daughter, than Jane. She was willing to get hurt.

 Her mother would jump off any cliff, like, oh, this is going to be great. He’s the one, let’s go. But you know, as often happens, if you have a parent who maybe spends money to their own peril, you become very frugal. We are often a reaction to our parents and Jane saw her mother get her heart broken and put her back together enough times to know that love is not safe.

Elena: I thought this could make a great film. You’ve got that magical setting, those handsome Finnegans, the steamy scenes, Jane in her Eleanor Roosevelt bathing suit. Do you ever try to make your books into films?

I have book to film agents in Los Angeles, this very cool duo of young women, and they are sending this out.  Nora Goes Off Script has been optioned, and that’s something that’s going to happen in the next year if it happens. I’ll give you news as it comes.

Elena: Okay good because I can help with the casting. So, tell us about what you’re working on now.

 Okay, so I am on the second draft of this. I’m not going to write 13 drafts on this book. This one’s going to come together, in case my editor’s listening to this, I swear to God, this is not going to break your heart. So, this is about a woman. She’s a single mother, she’s 39, about to turn 40, and she is a part-time kindergarten teacher. She also works for her dad at this fish store that he owns, and she strikes up a fake dating relationship with a man, who is kind of like a Vanderbilt. The whole thing’s a little bit like Pretty Woman, but there are no hookers.

 Thank you!

May, 2025