A Conversation with Rom-Com Author Katelyn Doyle

 

I'm excited to host a Q&A from rom-com author Katelyn Doyle on my blog today that discusses her book Just Some Stupid Love Story, along with a little about her writing process, and what we can look forward to from her in future. The novel is Doyle's debut into contemporary romance. Here is a short synopsis for the book shared by MacMillan Publishers.

For fans of Emily Henry, a debut about a rom-com screenwriter who doesn't believe in love and a divorce attorney who does, forced together at their high school reunion fifteen years after their breakup

Molly Marks writes Hollywood rom-coms for a living—which is how she knows “romance” is a racket. The one and only time she was naive enough to fall in love was with her high school boyfriend, Seth—who she ghosted on the eve of graduation and hasn’t seen in fifteen years.

Seth Rubinstein believes in love, the grand, fated kind, despite his job as, well…one of Chicago’s most successful divorce attorneys. Over the last decade, he’s sought “the one” in countless bad dates and rushed relationships. He knows his soulmate is out there. But so far, no one can compare to Molly Marks, the first girl who broke his heart.

When Molly’s friends drag her to Florida for their fifteenth high school reunion, it is poetic justice that she’s forced to sit with Seth. Too many martinis and a drunken hookup later, they decide to make a bet: whoever can predict the fate of five couples before the next reunion must declare that the other is right about true love. The catch? The fifth couple is the two of them.

Molly assures Seth they are a tale of timeless heartbreak. Seth promises she’ll end up hopelessly in love with him. She thinks he’s delusional. He has five years to prove her wrong.

Wickedly funny, sexy, and brimming with laughs and heart like the best romantic comedies, Just Some Stupid Love Story is for everyone who believes in soulmates—even if they would never admit it.

Photo credit Shannon M. West

A Conversation with Katelyn Doyle

 

Author of Just Some Stupid Love Story

 

Q: Just Some Stupid Love Story is a second chance romance that sees former flames Molly and Seth cross paths at their 15-year high school reunion. What makes high school reunions such great backdrops for interpersonal drama, and did you always know you wanted the book to open with a reunion?

A: The beauty of a high school reunion is that you are surrounded by people who knew you right at the time you are defining yourself and beginning to become who you are going to grow up to be. So much of who we are is coming into focus when we’re in high school, and while we (hopefully) evolve past that, going through the adolescent trenches with your classmates gives you very useful context into their personalities. Especially if one of those classmates happens to be your first love.

 

A high school reunion is therefore a very heightened setting, because you want to see all your old pals and learn how they’re doing…and you also very likely want to show everyone you’ve conquered the world and met your potential. Part of the fun of going is to reconnect with people who know who you were, while also introducing them to who you’ve become. And that is such a delicious dynamic to kick things off with in a second-chance romance.

 

This is so important for Seth and Molly because he’s not just seeing her as the hotshot too-cool-for-love woman she presents herself as when they meet as adults. He still knows the funny, brilliant, vulnerable, girl she was when they first fell in love at fifteen. He already knows she’s capable of great ardor—he’s experienced it—and that gives him the ability to see through her adult emotional defenses and believe in the possibility of their romance even when her instinct is to push him away.

 

And for Molly, she fell for Seth when she was younger and softer and not yet so terrified to let herself love someone. She can’t fully safeguard her heart against the truth of all those big unresolved feelings they had for each other, no matter how badly she wants to.

 

High school reunions are also legendary vehicles for drunken hookups—cough cough, Seth and Molly—and a great place to party and bond with old buds. That was also fun to write, because it gives us an opportunity to meet Seth and Molly’s friend group, who we get to know and love over the course of the story.

 

Q: This is a dual POV contemporary romance! Which feels increasingly hard to find these days—what made you want to write this story from both Molly’s and Seth’s perspectives, and was that always the plan when you started writing?

A: I adore dual POV stories because I love seeing a relationship evolve from both sides of the story. I think it gives you a very intimate lens into the two protagonists’ personalities. (I like to think that romance novels are thrillers of intimacy.) So yes, that was definitely the plan!

 

Q: You’ve previously written bestselling historical romance novels under the name Scarlett Peckham. When did you decide to try writing a contemporary romance, and what are the biggest differences between writing historical and contemporary?

A: I was feeling creatively frustrated after the pandemic and had some trouble with a historical book I was working on. So, while waiting for edits back from that book, I decided to try something new to see if it would kickstart my creativity. I adore rom-coms and had been kicking around the idea to pair a romance-averse rom-com writer with a hopelessly romantic divorce attorney for a long time, so that was the idea I wanted to pursue. And the book just poured out of me. It worked for reinvigorating my brain too—my subsequent historical book was a dream to write.

 

My historical books are very different in mood from this book—they are written in third person, they are very steamy, they’re all set in 18^th-century England, and while they have a lot of humor and swoonery, they’re more politically pointed. (The vibe shift is why I decided to publish under a different name.)

 

From a writing perspective, historicals require a lot more research and I find that in writing them, I’m more focused on subverting tropes and being in conversation with the long history of the sub-genre, which is evolving very quickly and in an exciting way. I’m also very focused on reflecting the political moment of the time in those books—spotlighting people who were challenging cultural mores, fighting for expanded rights and pushing forward progressive values.

 

In contrast, I like my rom-coms to be more bubbly and hilarious with big fun set pieces and splashy locales, and to write them in first-person so we feel very close to the characters’ brains and emotions as they are falling in love.

 

Q: Can you tell us a little about your writing routine? Where and when do you most like to write?

A: I usually write from about noon to five or six, always on my tattered living room couch, and always with my cat and a selection of about five beverages nearby. But I’m not a “MUST WRITE EVERY DAY” type of writer…I tend to follow my creative impulses. If there’s a day I don’t feel like writing I don’t stress about it (unless I’m on deadline) because I feel like my brain probably needs a break to do background work. (Rebecca Solnit once wrote “writing is not typing” and I firmly believe this to be gospel.) And if I feel like holing up for an entire weekend and downloading my whole brain into my laptop, I jump on the opportunity to follow the muse.

 

Q: Lastly, we have to ask – what are you working on next?

A: I’m working on my next rom-com! Without saying too much, it’s about two people who absolutely despise cruises who are dragged aboard a luxury Caribbean cruise catering to a “mature” clientele for two weeks. I went on a similar cruise to research it, so it’s filled with true-to-life set pieces—swimming with pigs, Sinatra impersonators, “cruise ambassadors” paid to ballroom dance with the single ladies, copious buffets—not to mention lots of steamy forced proximity from our two characters and a big plot twist. It’s been a blast to write.