We chat with debut author Andie Burke about Fly With Me, which is a sparkling and steamy opposites-attract romance filled with sharp banter and that sweet, swooping feeling of finding “the one” when and where you least expect it.
Hi, Andie! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Sure! Right now, I feel like I have three lives between my two very different jobs and parenthood. I work part-time as a pediatric sedation/radiology nurse at an outpatient center. I was an English Literature major, but after graduating college during a global recession, I pivoted. After a brief stint in secondary education that taught me standing in front of a room full of teenagers gives me actual panic attacks, I went for a master’s degree in nursing. I spent five years in a pediatric GI transplant unit in DC and then left to float through some other pediatric acute care specialties. During the pandemic, I worked in a community pediatric ER which gave me the inspiration behind Olive’s job in Fly with Me.
Because I’m an ADHD single mom of two similarly neurodivergent kids, my evenings are spent making dinners suited for picky eaters and my free hours for ignoring the ever-growing pile of laundry in favor of binge reading/internet rabbit-hole scrolling/bookstagramming/Taylor Swift fandoming. I’ve lived in Maryland almost all of my life. My other hobbies include naming my growing collection of houseplants, occasionally singing harmonies, and gardening (even though my neurological disease does not enjoy mid-Atlantic summer humidity).
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
Like many semi-feral, undiagnosed neurodivergent queer kids growing up in late nineteen hundreds purity culture, I spent hours sneaking off into the woods making up elaborate stories. I was drawn to protagonists who felt as ugly or clumsy or out-of-sync with the world as I did—Anne Shirley, Meg Murray, Jo March, and Bettina the Ballerina (that last one’s way more niche, but to any people who remember that classic Little Golden Book book, you win!!). My earliest experiences with writing involved penning cozy poetry with my grandmother and turning in double the assigned number of pages for any creative writing assignment in school.
Both my parents are avid readers, so I grew up surrounded by books. My parents consumed stories the way I did—ravenously devouring an entire series until it temporarily becomes one’s entire personality. The first series I remember picking out myself was the Animorphs. The parasitic ear aliens definitely gave me nightmares, but I could not stop reading. That somehow led into a major Lord of the Rings phase from which evolved hundreds of ideas for fantasy books that I never finished. My first finished full-length novel was a middle grade mystery novel I wrote when I was twenty-one. As far back as I can remember, I’ve been telling stories in my head.
Quick lightning round! Tell us the first book you ever remember reading, the one that made you want to become an author, and one that you can’t stop thinking about!
- First book remember reading: Berenstain Bears and the Messy Room
- Book that Made me Want to be an Author: Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L’Engle
- Book You Can’t Stop Thinking About: Right now? Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder and Quietly Hostile by Samantha Irby
Your debut novel, Fly with Me, is out September 5th! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Catastrophe, Chemistry, Pining, Heartbreak, and Passion
What can readers expect?
Fly with Me has laugh-out-loud worst-case scenarios; a sparkly, swoony sapphic meet cute involving a road trip; and a looping rollercoaster’s worth of feelings. The fun fake dating happens alongside both main characters’ heavier family and mental health stuff. Both MCs wrestle with feeling unworthy of finding their happy ending. You’ll get some nerdy text banter, pop culture references, beautiful queer found family, and open door sapphic steam.
Where did the inspiration for Fly with Me come from?
Most of my adult writing has been heavily influenced by my career in health care. Olive’s job in my book is based on my experiences working in the ER. The aviation industry part of the plot started with my mom. My mom began her career as a programmer, writing code for air traffic control systems. I remember growing up and on Take Your Child to Work Day I would watch the massive air traffic control screens with the tiny planes. Later, I ended up married to an aviation safety engineer. My dear friend and college roommate and her partner worked for an airline. I was always surrounded by plane people, and yet I was terrified of flying. While this has gotten better in recent years, but one of my previous low-key anxieties involves needing to help with a medical emergency on a flight—this has happened to several nurse friends. I’ve always loved finding potential humor in my worst-case-scenarios, and that’s how the opening scene was created.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
I love writing the texts between Olive and Stella and coming up with ideas for Stella’s fake dating binder. Stella’s character is inspired by TVs best type-A binder bad-asses Leslie Knope, Amy Santiago, and Paris Gellar. The opening few chapters were a joy to write, and basically every scene involving things hilariously and epically not going right for Olive was a blast because her inner monologue is so wry.
What led you to writing within the romance genre?
I’ve always been drawn to stories about people falling in love. While my parents never read much romance beyond loving Jane Austen, they enjoyed mystery novels. Anytime they suggested a series for me, I demanded to know if there was enough of a romance subplot to meet my standards for an acceptable read. Romance-heavy cozy mystery and fantasy became my gateway drug.
Romance is (and always has been) a smart and rich genre filled with so many different types of stories and tackling many heavy topics along as well as the lighter ones. (This next sentence might be controversial) What makes the genre unique isn’t the central love story, but it’s the specific promise romance authors make to the reader about the ending. As I nurse, I’ve seen many sad and devastating endings first-hand, and I often need to reach for a book that promises a happily ever after within its pages. Almost every book wrote before moving specifically into romance had a heavy love story plot and a happily ending. Once I dove into the genre as a reader and learned the rhythms, romance book ideas kept coming out when I sat down at my laptop. Since I was raised in a compulsory heteronormative purity culture environment, writing books with positive and empowering representations of both sex and queerness is incredibly important to me. Both the romance reading and romance writing communities I’ve found have been full of so many brilliant and talented people. It’s just a fabulous world to exist in, learn from, and enjoy.
This is your debut novel! Can you tell us a bit about what the road to becoming a published author was like for you?
The last couple years have been an incredible whirlwind adventure. I’ve been writing adult books for many years. I would write a book, revise and work it with a fabulous writer group and send it to beta readers, and then dutifully collect a bunch of query letter rejections from literary agents (I’ve amassed hundreds), and then move onto the next story in my brain if it didn’t seem like the last one was going to be “the one.” I wrote Fly with Me over a couple months in the Spring of 2021. I’d almost given up querying it, but I decided to send one more round. Right before Thanksgiving, I had my first and only ever querying YES. My fantastic agent Mariah Nichols (a human who might be made of actual sunshine) put it on submission in January 2022. A month(ish) later I had my first meeting with my amazing editor, and my book deal offer came in March.
What’s next?
I feel like every day right now is full of so many new experiences. Being a debut author means every step in publishing is something I’ve never done before and balancing the publishing demands with my writer’s brain compulsion to draft has been really interesting. I just started with some cover inspo boards for my second contracted book (hopefully coming in Fall 2024), and that’s been really fun! In the Spring, I wrote a draft of a novel featuring a side character I absolutely adore from that second book. This summer, I started working on a cozy-ish fiber arts focused murder mystery probably just for fun. So I guess what’s next is hoping I get to spend more and more time writing.
Lastly, do you have any book recommendations for our readers?
I’m currently reading and LOVING Regina Black’s debut The Art of Scandal. Some of my favorite other romance books are The Romance Recipe by Ruby Barrett, Lease on Love by Fallon Ballard, everything by Dahlia Adler, Talia Hibbert, Chloe Liese, and Rachel Lynn Solomon. This year I became obsessed with the audiobooks of The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells. All of Samantha Irby’s memoirs are phenomenal. Ilona Andrews is definitely my less often hyped romance-heavy fantasy recommendation right now. The Hidden Legacy and Kate Daniels and their ancillary books are my comfort reads right now—fantastically snarky banter and fast-paced plots with fascinating world-building.
