We chat with author Timothy Janovsky about his latest book The Merriest Misters, which is a delightful holiday novel that’s The Santa Clause meets Husband Material!
Hi, Timothy! Welcome back! How has the past year been since we last spoke?
Hello! Thanks for having me back. It’s been a whirlwind since we last spoke. This past January I helped launch Harlequin’s new, inclusive, spicy romance line Afterglow books with my game-show set rom-com The Fake Dating Game and my summer, grumpy/sunshine followup You Had Me at Happy Hour. I visited the west coast for the first time and attended my first romance convention as an author this summer. Lots of reading, writing, and iced coffee in between!
Your latest novel, The Merriest Misters, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
The North Pole gets gay!
What can readers expect?
Readers can expect a campy, queer joyride. There’s a plucky elf sidekick, an enchanted chalet, and plenty of Santa-based dirty talk. It’s a marriage-in-crisis story that reminds us love is magic, and magic is love. Come for the hijinks, stay for the underlying themes of reconnection!
Where did the inspiration for The Merriest Misters come from?
This might come as a surprise, but I was inspired by the 2020 United States Presidential Election. Vice President Kamala Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff, grew up in Matawan, New Jersey where I’m from, so I felt this immediate connection to him. I’d see photos of him as the first Second Gentleman and wonder, “What must it be like to inhabit a role that has been historically held by a person of a different gender?”
After You’re a Mean One, Matthew Prince, I knew I wanted to write another queer, Christmas romance but this time with a dash of magic. I went down the rabbit hole of Santa mythology, and I was shocked to see how much similarity it had to world leaders and politics. In all the mythology, Santa always has or needs to find a Mrs. Claus. I got excited by the prospect of writing a story from the perspective of the first gay male “Mrs. Claus.” What if he walks into his new closet for the first time and finds a wardrobe of stodgy red velvet dresses and bonnets tailored for a picture-book Grandma-type? That thought made me laugh. Thus, The Merriest Misters was born!
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
Since the idea originated with the idea of exploring the first “Merriest Mister,” I had a lot of fun exploring Quinn’s character and how he brushes up against tradition. He’s a burnt-out second-grade teacher who feels stifled by the administration at his school, and that frustration is bleeding into his marriage which is starting to feel “very 1950s” to him. Moving to the North Pole allows him to explore his gender-expression through fashion. He starts shucking domestic roles and seeing masculine and feminine as less of a binary and more of a spectrum. That growth arc was new for me and very healing in a way.
Did you face any challenges whilst writing The Merriest Misters?
The Merriest Misters is my first dual point-of-view and dual timeline book. Since this is a marriage-in-crisis romance, it was important to me that readers see Quinn and Patrick now and also Quinn and Patrick when they were first falling in love. We meet them as undergrads in college and follow them up through the purchase of their first house. Striking the right balance between emotional flashbacks and present-timeline hijinks was a big part of the writing process.
What do you hope readers take away from Patrick and Quinn’s story?
My main hope for readers is that they come away from Patrick and Quinn’s story with this: Happily ever after looks and feels different for everyone. As a queer author, I strive to put out stories that feel authentic to the queer experience, and queer relationships don’t always chart the same course that the relationships of our straight peers do. At the beginning, Patrick and Quinn are struggling against the heteronormative mold they’ve built around themselves. By the end, they find a new paradigm to live and love within.
Since this is a marriage-in-crisis story, I also hope readers are reminded that falling in love is not a one-and-done experience. Love is active, and we have to choose it everyday with our partners.
With the holiday season drawing near, what are your top three holiday movies?
This is such a tough question since I have a ton of seasonal rewatches on rotation starting around Thanksgiving, but I’ll try my best to be judicious!
First and foremost, no holiday season is complete without The Muppet Christmas Carol. If you’ve read You’re a Mean One, Matthew Prince then you know it’s the greatest A Christmas Carol adaptation out there. Joyous songs, Muppet humor, and Fozziwig forever!
Next, you can’t go wrong with Christmas in Connecticut. It’s an old, black-and-white screwball comedy about a food writer who has fabricated a farmstead and a husband for her readers. When her boss wants a war hero to come and spend Christmas with her on this imagined, idyllic farm, she has to fake-it-til-she-makes-it, while fighting against falling for her hunky house guest. The scene where they accidentally steal a sleigh always makes me laugh!
I have a deep-seated love of made-for-TV Christmas movies. My favorite among the bunch is Holiday in Handcuffs starring Melissa Joan Hart and Mario Lopez. I’m a sucker for a zany premise, and this movie might just have the zaniest one of all! A down-on-her-luck diner waitress kidnaps a hot patron and forces him to come to her family’s Christmas celebration and pretend to be her boyfriend. It’s a ridiculously good time!
What’s next for you?
My next book is titled Once Upon You & Me. It a spicy, age-gap romance about an east-coast single dad, Ethan, and a west-coast surfer twink, Taylor, who fall for one another despite their shared connection: Taylor’s boss is Ethan’s ex-wife. It takes place at a fairytale-themed resort in the Catskills. I lovingly refer to this as my “sexy archery” book. It’ll be published by Afterglow Books by Harlequin in April 2025.
Lastly, what books have you enjoyed so far this year and are there any that you can’t wait to get your hands on?
I adored Adib Khorram’s adult debut I’ll Have What He’s Having which is a decadent romance between a sommelier and a new bistro owner. It has some of the most authentic male-male sex scenes I’ve read in a while! Fans of my You Had Me at Happy Hour should pick it up.
Two books that were superbly fun were Sara Raasch’s The Nightmare Before Kissmas, which is a romantasy between Santa’s son and the Halloween prince, and Haunted Ever After by Jen DeLuca, which takes the traditional small-town romance beats and adds a goofy supporting cast of literal ghosts.
There’s a ton on my TBR right now but two books I’m really looking forward to getting to are Whenever You’re Ready by Rachel Runya Katz, which is a sapphic former-friends-to-lovers romanace, and If I Stopped Haunting You by Colby Wilkens, because I love a haunted castle setting.
