We chat with author Emma Brodie about Into The Blue, which is an epic, decades-spanning love story that blazes through the worlds of acting and comedy and charts a connection unlike any other.
Hi, Emma! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
By day, I’m an Executive Editor at Clarkson Potter, where I publish a range of illustrated giftbooks, games, and stationery formats. By night, I am an author, and an aficionado of important media movements, like Doctor Quinn Medicine Woman, Mandy Moore’s album So Real, Reylo, and Halmark’s The Good Witch. After ten years in Brooklyn, I moved to Martha’s Vineyard during the pandemic with my husband and our dog, Freddie Mercury. I don’t like pasta or fish, and I’m a Pisces stellium (Why yes! Just like Bad Bunny!).
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
I’ve been inventing stories and peddling them to my younger siblings since before I could actually write. I got an award for a writing story in First Grade, so that was an early confidence booster. The School Story by Andrew Clements was my introduction to the book business; I think I knew I wanted to be in publishing when I read that (I was twelve). I wrote my first novella when I was sixteen, and I’ve been working on my long form fiction ever since.
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
- The first book you ever remember reading: Grandfather Twilight by Barbara Berger
- The one that made you want to become an author: Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling
- The one that you can’t stop thinking about: Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
Your latest novel, Into the Blue, is out April 7th! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Romantic, Fun, Hot, Sad, Hopeful
What can readers expect?
Into the Blue is an epic love story about AJ Graves and Noah Drew, two soulmates who meet in the summer of 2000 while working at a video store, and forge a deep, cosmic, artistic connection—until Noah leaves without a word. Over the next thirteen years, they collide across film sets, and comedy shows, and fan conventions, and Broadway stages, and through it all, they never stop yearning for each other…even as fate conspires to keep them apart. Ultimately it’s about the bond between two beautiful, flawed people who are trying to explore their lives and find out what lights up their souls.
Where did the inspiration for Into the Blue come from?
I really wanted to write a soul connection in the tradition of the epics that I love—Romeo & Juliet, Wuthering Heights, the force connection in Star Wars—but one that exists in a contemporary setting. As a result, AJ and Noah are a lot of different people to each other: they share a strong intellectual companionship, a profound level of artistic trust, and also a (delicious) primal physical bond. This story really grew out of their relationship—watching it evolve and deepen over time.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
SO MANY. AJ and Noah are my heart and soul, but I also love AJ’s family, particularly her twin, Emily. I loved writing Eudora, Noah’s great aunt, who is a grande dame of the stage and who teaches AJ and Noah how to improvise together (this is the life force of their bond). I love Dave, AJ’s roommate (Julia Whelan’s Dave is one of my favorite parts of the audiobook, I cannot help smiling whenever she Daves). I love Oona and Otto, two Into the Blue super fans who befriend AJ and Noah on the convention circuit. And I love Raven Mabon Fey—no spoilers, you’ll just have to meet her.
Did you face any challenges whilst writing? How did you overcome them?
Yes. This book came out—how shall we say?—long. 180k words, to be exact (an average commercial novel is 90k words, for context). This is why it’s so important to have a team you trust; it took my agent, my editor, and my publisher, but we eventually cut it down by 50k words, and I’m really pleased with the final result. A lot of the emotional power comes from the first quarter of the book, so figuring out how to preserve those elements was very important; in the “remix,” we found a way to keep all the steps that ground AJ and Noah’s connection while making it even pacier.
What’s next for you?
I’m idea dating at the moment. And in the meantime, I have a lot of incredible books coming out this year for work that I’m excited to cheerlead. The next one is ‘Tis Thee Not Me by Clarice Tudor, which publishes on May 5—it’s a guide to modern dating…that Clarice illustrated like an illuminated manuscript. So…getting ghosted, but there’s a moat. It’s actually the funniest thing I’ve ever read, and I cannot wait to force it into the hands of everyone I know.
Lastly, what books are you looking forward to picking up this year?
OMG SO MANY. I just got my copy of Beneath by Ariel Sullivan. I’ve heard incredible things about YESTERYEAR, which shares my pub day on April 7. I cannot wait for Mikki Brammer’s second book, Good Joy, Bad Joy, which also publishes May 5. THE BALLAD OF THE FALLING DRAGONS, Book 2 in the Moonfall series, is coming May 19 and I am *pumped.* And as someone with two eyes and a beating heart, I have obviously pre-odered both of the new ACOTAR books, CANNOT FLIPPING WAIT for #6 in October.
