We chat with author Becky Hunter about You Make My Heart Stop, which follows a young woman with a life-threatening medical condition who must decide between her life on earth and her soulmate—who she can only be with in the afterlife—in this magical exploration of loss, love, and fate.
Hi, Becky! Welcome back! How has the past year been since we last spoke?
Hello! Thanks for having me back. I’ve been doing a lot of writing – and rewriting! – in the last year, plus I bought my own house for the very first time, which was exciting though full of moving-stress.
Your latest novel, You Make My Heart Stop, is out April 22nd! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Speculative, romantic, family, loss, hope
What can readers expect?
You Make My Heart Stop is a story about Emery, who is born with a heart condition that means her heart could quite literally stop at any moment. The people around her know what to do – if they act quickly enough there will be no lasting damage, and Emery’s heart can be restarted. But when this happens, she is briefly technically dead.
Each time Emery’s heart stops, she meets Nick. His purpose is to help people adjust to the fact that they are dead, to help them say goodbye, before they move on entirely. He does not usually meet people more than once – but with Emery, he is able to make a connection, and he finds himself drawn to her.
As Emery’s life progresses, and she goes through ups and downs, she finds that a part of her is longing for those moments when her heart will stop – so that she can see Nick again.
This is the story of two fated lovers who long for each other, but are destined never to share more than a few fleeting moments – because if they were to be together, it would mean the end of Emery’s life.
Where did the inspiration for You Make My Heart Stop come from?
The idea had been playing around my mind for a while. I wanted to write a book about two people who fell in love, but who were fated never to be together – an impossible love story. I had the idea of an ‘angel of death’ of sorts falling in love with someone he was supposed to guide, and I wanted to tell the story over the course of a lifetime. But it took a while for everything to come together. A turning point came when my niece, Lily, was diagnosed with Reflex Anoxic Syndrome (RAS). It means that she stops breathing when she experiences a shock – and it was really scary when it first happened. It hasn’t happened in a while now, thankfully, and apparently it is something most children grow out of – but it was a way into the story, thinking about a physical condition that could make a character experience ‘death’ multiple times. From there, it was about working out the characters and what they had to go through!
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
I loved writing Emery, the main character. It took me a while, in the beginning, to figure her out. I had to try and imagine what someone in her position would do – would you be careful, trying to control something medical? Would you be cautious? Would rebel against your condition, and the boxes people put you in? And how might that affect those around you – and the relationships you formed? For me, getting to grips with all these questions was the best part of writing the novel.
Did you face any challenges whilst writing? How did you overcome them?
Something I hadn’t realised would be difficult was the fact that the two main characters only ever see each other when it is just the two of them. That means the love story takes place in isolation – there are no other characters to bounce off of. This was something I didn’t realise would be difficult, until I started to write it! I think overcoming this was about realising this is a different kind of love story, and that that’s ok!
What do you hope readers take away from You Make My Heart Stop?
Mainly, I hope readers enjoy it! It would be great if readers took something away from the novel – the value of taking risks and living in the moment versus planning for the future and putting down routes, for instance – but really, I would love if people were able to escape for a few hours or days and get lost in the story!
This is your second novel! What are some of the key lessons you learned between working on the two?
I think I learned to keep going – a lesson I’m having to take into my third novel, which has been more difficult to write than the first two! And I was reminded to put the characters first – for me, I need to understand the character in order to make the book work. Ultimatley, though, I hope I never stop trying to learn to be a better writing – and I find reading is the best way to do this! I keep a ‘notes’ page on my phone, and use that to write down phrases in books I love that make me feel inspired – sometimes I’ll go back to this if I’m feeling stuck.
What’s next for you?
My third novel, tentatively titled Over and Over is coming out next year – it’s about two soulmates who keep meeting and falling in love over the course of many lifetimes, only for it to end in tragedy each time. I’ve also got my first fantasy novel coming out next year, which I wrote with my co-author, Katie Ellis-Brown. It’s called Blood Bound and it’s under the name Ellis Hunter.
Lastly, what books are you looking forward to picking up this year?
I’ve heard great things about Sunrise on the Reaping and I’m a big Hunger Games fan, so I’m saving that as a treat. I’m really looking forward to reading The Last Days of Summer by Sarra Manning – though I’m told it may make me cry! I’ve also heard The Names by Florence Knapp is brilliant, so that’s on my list!
