We chat with debut author Melanie Sweeney about Take Me Home, which is a spicy, swoony frenemies-to-lovers romance, whilst full of heart, humour, and heft – and offers a moving ode to the people and places we call home.
Hi, Melanie! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Sure! I write character-driven, trope-filled, contemporary romance in which ordinary people find extraordinary love! I live in Texas with my husband, three kids, and way too many cats but dream of being a person who summers in cooler climates. I read almost exclusively via audiobooks. Two years ago, I started taking figure skating lessons as a complete beginner to the sport, and aside from writing and reading romance, it’s my favorite thing to do. I also enjoy hand embroidery, playing Taylor Swift songs on my ukulele, and naming all the stray cats in my neighborhood.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
I received a Christmas gift when I was about four or five, a Sony recorder, which had a microphone, and you could record yourself talking or singing onto blank tapes. I used to carry it around and tell little stories into it. Pretty much from the time I could hold a pencil, though, I told stories on paper. I remember having to ask for an extension on an autobiography assignment in third grade because I hand-wrote eighteen pages instead of the two or three my classmates did. I wrote my first chapter-length manuscript at twelve. It’s been a lifelong affair!
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
- The first book you ever remember reading: Ramona Quimby, Age 8 by Beverly Cleary.
- The one that made you want to become an author: All of those Ramona books!
- The one that you can’t stop thinking about: Beach Read by Emily Henry
Your debut novel, Take Me Home, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Messy people who are trying.
What can readers expect?
Readers can expect a feel-good romance with a little angst and a little spice, some family drama, small town whimsy, forced proximity/only one bed, and a grumpy/sunshine pairing where she’s prickly but secretly soft, and he’s a patient, pining sweetheart.
Where did the inspiration for Take Me Home come from?
The origin of the book came from a pretty simple idea: a guy and a girl fight over the best chair in a coffeehouse. It’s still the opening situation of the book, even though Hazel and Ash pretty quickly leave the café behind and road-trip across Texas to their hometown.
Before that specific idea came to me, at the end of 2019, I had been watching a bunch of Hallmark holiday movies and felt desperate for a Christmassy romcom with more emotional depth, higher stakes, weirder and more specific characterization, and more heat. I don’t write screenplays, so it had to be a novel. The holiday aspects ultimately took a bit of a backseat to the more timeless themes in the book — one reviewer called it “not overly bedecked.” But it will still scratch that itch if readers are looking for a Christmas in July read or, like me, they’re simply yearning for a cool escape this time of year.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
First of all, before this book, I had been working on a different novel – not a romance – that was very depressing, so this was a total joy compared to that, pretty much the whole way through!
One scene I really enjoyed writing is in the first part of the book, when Ash and Hazel stop at a very quirky place for dinner. In my original manuscript, it was a Subway restaurant – nothing special. But my editor pushed me to make it more specific, and I remembered this diner from the town I grew up in as a kid in Kansas where you ordered your meal from a phone at the table. This was in the early 90s, before cell phones, so it was a more novel idea at the time! I changed the setting from a Subway to my own version of that diner and added in this wonderfully weird waitress, and the entire scene suddenly became very funny and fresh. It was such a joy to discover that kind of energy so late into the editorial process. Readers tell me it’s the funniest scene in the book, and I think that’s true!
This is your debut published novel! What was the road to becoming a published author like for you?
As I mentioned, before Take Me Home, I was writing a different kind of book. I went the MFA route, so there was a long stretch during my program and after when I was writing a more emotionally restrained kind of story. Even though I’ve read a lot of romance throughout my life, my program didn’t focus on genre fiction, so I wrote all these short stories about families and grief, but I’d slip in romance tropes and beats and hope people didn’t call me out for it! Marriage in trouble and second chance themes were a great compromise between romance and more typical workshop stories. I did write a pretty classic sibling’s best friend moment into my MFA thesis, and that did not quite fly under the radar!
Post-MFA, I wrote a lot of different things – nonfiction, poetry, a chunk of a novel. I was also starting my family at that time and had a colicky baby and then, a few years later, twins, so my writing process and my literary interests changed a lot. I started Take Me Home about seven years after my MFA. My kids were old enough by then that I could more fully commit to a big project, and I think all those years gave me time to find the right kind of story for me, which is romantic comedy that’s grounded in realism and has a strong emotional lean to it. That gap also gave me time to hone my craft and learn a lot about revision before I ever took a project that next step toward traditional publication. I spent about two and a half years writing and revising Take Me Home, and things happened pretty quickly after that.
What’s next for you?
I’ll be on tour for this book July 9th through the 17th, and then I’ll be right back to work on revising my next book, which is a romantic comedy set in Houston in the aftermath of a hurricane. It’s a story about resilience, recovery, and hope after disaster, told through the lens of a super-swoony romance.
Lastly, what books have you enjoyed so far this year and are there any that you can’t wait to get your hands on?
That would be way too long of a list, so let me mention some standout romance debuts I’ve read this year! Naina Kumar’s Say You’ll Be Mine, Laura Piper Lee’s Hannah Tate, Beyond Repair, Etta Easton’s The Kiss Countdown, Maggie North’s The Rules for Second Chances, and Ingrid Pierce’s Not You Again. I’ve also read early copies of Ellie Palmer’s Four Weekends and a Funeral and Jamie Harrow’s One on One, both of which blew me away and come out in August and September. I’m excited for Alexandra Vasti’s Ne’er Duke Well, out in just a couple of weeks.
You can find Melanie on Instagram and Facebook, along with at her website and her newsletter.
