Gahhh I am over the actual moon today and just oh so grateful!!! Look who’s here today,,, yep scream with me.

Before we dive right in, I got a bunch of Poston reviews for you to go check out:

• Heart of Iron duology
• The Dead Romantics
• The Seven Year Slip

INTERVIEW WITH ASHLEY POSTON

Hi hello Ashley! Thank you oh so much for being here today, I am absolutely ecstatic to have you! Before we get started, I wanted to wish you a big congratulations on your sophomore romance release aka The Seven Year Slip! I absolutely adored this one to bits, as I do all of your books, so without any further ado, let’s get into my nosy questions!

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Thank you so much for having me!

First of all, can you tell us a little about yourself: hobbies, favourite foods, where are you currently, how are you doing? And of course, about your latest book!

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Of course! I am doing really well right now. I just got myself a new tattoo—Calcifer in a bouquet of flowers, from Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones—and I’m devouring books like it’s my business (which, well, technically I guess it is). When I’m drafting, I really don’t have a lot of time to read, so between projects I like to read as many books as I can before I have to hop into the next one. Speaking of which! My next novel is called A Novel Love Story, about an English professor who finds herself in the idyllic small town of her favourite romance series. It’s my ode to romance readers, and it comes out June 25^th in the US.

What has writing in the adult romance genre been like compared to YA? Especially with regards to the fantasy element you bring? What brought you to the genre? Where did the magical aspect come in?

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I’ve always written books with a bit of a magical romance spin to them—even my YA had elements of magic (the fandom in the Geekerella series is incredibly magical). In 2020, I decided that I wanted to try something new, and the story I had in mind—The Dead Romantics—was better suited for the adult market than a YA one.

I’m also curious about your writing experience compared to The Dead Romantics? Was it easier the second time around? Did anything change?

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Each book is a little different, I find. Some come easy, some are a bit more difficult to put onto paper. The Seven Year Slip was very, very difficult—but I think I’m a better writer now because of that book. Like Kelly Clarkson taught us, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

How did you get into writing? Are there any specific books that inspired you to start writing?

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I’ve always loved telling stories. It sounds cliché, I know! But sometimes when you’re a kid you just know what you love to do, and you chase it as far and as fast as you can. I didn’t always want to be a writer—at one point I wanted to be a comic artist, at another point a playwright, a game designer—but I’ve always wanted to spin a good yarn.

All of your characters have such fun names, where does that inspiration come from? Does anyone in your life inspire them? What is your character development process like?

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I have a really boring name, so I think I’m just living vicariously through my characters! (Also, a creative writing professor once told me to never have two names that sound similar in the same book, so I just took that to heart.)

If you could transport Clementine and James into any rom com (book and/or movie), where would they go?

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I would absolutely put Clementine and James into any Nora Ephron film—but most specifically When Harry Met Sally. I don’t think they’d be Harry and Sally (those spots would be for the two characters in my new rom-com coming out next year, Elsy and Anders) but they would absolutely be the best friends.

And if you could transport yourself into any city with a time travel-ly apartment, in which city would you be?

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Ooh, that’s a tough one…. I think I would love to be in any old city with a lot of history. Can you imagine the stories you could hear from the people you share the apartment with? It would be so interesting.

What have you been reading lately? Anything to recommend? A favourite romance we need to read?

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Speaking of When Harry Met Sally, I really loved You, Again by Kate Goldbeck!

Clementine finds her love of painting in this book, and I know you are a graphic designer, can you tell us a bit about that? And while we’re on the topic, as James is a chef, do you do any cooking? What is your specialty?

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I fell into graphic design as a weird sort of necessity. After all, as a kid of the early 00s, I had to deck my three-ring binders out with the best Sailor Moon collages. I actually didn’t try watercolour painting until I started writing Clementine, and I spoke with a few friends who have careers in art about the specifics to get it right.

I went about the research for cooking in a similar way, since I’m a very bad cook and a very good eater.

And finally, do you have anything to tease about your next release A Novel Love Story? Maybe tease a trope or give us a clue as to when a cover will be coming?

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The cover will be dropping very early in December… and it’s a good one!

(Pssst it got announced today and she was right)

Title: A Novel Love Story
Author: Ashley Poston
Page count: 384
Date published: 25 June 2024
Genre: Adult contemporary romance

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Synopsis:

Eileen Merriweather knows a thing or two about romance.
As a professor of literature, she teaches prestigious courses on history’s greatest romantics, but one week out of the year she abandons her dusty textbooks and makes a pilgrimage to the Hudson Valley with her best friend Pru to meet their Super Smutty Book Club in person, and celebrate the romance series that brought them together—Quixotic Falls. It’s a week of wine and happily-ever-afters.

Or it’s supposed to be.

Pru bails at the last minute, and Elsy winds up lost in Hudson Valley—alone. In a thunderstorm. When she takes shelter in a bookstore, she immediately gets on the bad side of its grumpy (and infuriatingly sexy) owner, and finds herself in a quaint town that feels like it’s right out of a book…

Because it is.

Eloraton can’t be real, and yet… she’s here. The town is everything she imagined from her favorite series, where the candy store’s honey taffy is always sweet, and the local bar’s burgers are always a little burnt, and rain always comes in the afternoon. It’s perfect. A place built on meet-cutes and storybook endings.

Except, there’s something off in Eloraton. Because nothing changes, nothing moves, trapped in the last place the late author of Quixotic Falls left them. Which must be why Elsy is to find an ending to this last story, the one the author never finished.

The only problem? The bookstore owner never wants the story to end, and he might be the one person who can help her imagine this final happily-ever-after.

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And that’s it for today. Thank you so much for answering all of my dying, burning questions and for taking the time to answer these! You are the absolute bestest for being here today, it as an absolute pleasure and a big congratulations on the release of The Seven Year Slip which is OUT NOW xoxoxo

Ashley Poston is a New York Times best-selling novelist who writes about friendship, love, and Ever Afters. She graduated from the University of South Carolina and pursued a career in the publishing industry before she decided to become a full-time author. Her adult debut, The Dead Romantics was named one of the 100 Notable Books of 2022 by the New York Times.

When not writing, she likes to take long walks as an excuse to listen to Dungeons & Dragons podcasts. She lives in a small grey house in South Carolina with too many pothos plants and never enough coffee.

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Website // Instagram // TikTok // Twitter

ARE YOU A FAN OF THIS AUTHOR? WHICH IS YOUR FAVOURITE OF HER BOOKS? WHICH ARE STILL ON YOUR TBR? LET ME KNOW!