International bestseller Mhairi McFarlane delivers a sharp, emotional new novel about a woman who calls off her engagement to “the perfect man” and moves in with a charming stranger who makes her question everything about her life, her past, and the secrets she’s kept for far too long…
We chat with Mhairi all about her new novel Mad About You, along with writing, book recommendations, and more!
Hi, Mhairi! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Oh God! Do I have to? My favourite thing about my job is never having to write a CV again. (Well, I hope). I’m a British romantic comedy author, I live in Nottingham and I have a fluffy cat. Think Joan Wilder in Romancing The Stone but less glamorous, and less likely to have a man in cowboy boots roll up to her window in a sail boat on a trailer.
When did you first discover your love for writing?
Probably like a lot of writers, I don’t recall a time I wasn’t writing, really. I loved making up stories as a kid and I had a natural impulse to fill A4 lined books with my rambling nonsense. Many survive, written in felt tip, with capital letters EWAN DO NOT READ THIS!!! printed on cover. (Ewan is my little brother, and I don’t doubt these warnings were highly effective).
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!
Ooof. First I read myself, I guess: this wasn’t my first ever, so don’t call the police, but I used to hoover up the titles on my mum’s bookshelves (I was that kind of precocious kid, who always suspected the party was going on elsewhere). So I read feminist memoir like Gloria Steinem, non fiction books on assertiveness training, (!! Didn’t work) and the one that really sticks in my head: White Palace by Glenn Savan. (It got made into a film with Susan Sarandon and James Spader). I would be about 10 years old, and totally unable to grasp a lot of it – thankfully! – but lines in it stick in my head to this day. ‘It was important not to mistake part of the truth for the whole of the truth.’
Author inspo? Let’s go with Pride & Prejudice. Jane Austen’s humour, her social observation, her sheer calm ability to simply story tell in that authoritative voice. It made me realise that romance can be society, in a box. With added hope and redemption.
One I can’t stop thinking about: Kate Atkinson ‘Behind The Scenes At The Museum.’ She has this incredible way of describing patterns and echoes down generations, and it must be getting on for 25 years since I read it, yet it was in my mind writing my current novel.
Your new novel, Mad About You, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Acerbic. Funny. Warm. Heartbreaking. Hopeful.
What can readers expect?
A humorous novel about a wedding photographer in Leeds, northern England, which spins off into deeper, darker territory about the insidious nature of abusive relationships. But humorous! And there’s hotness and flirting.
Where did the inspiration for Mad About You come from?
I don’t want to spoiler but there is a serious issue it covers which I’d wanted to write about for a while. I couldn’t figure out how it fitted into the tone and essential joy of romantic comedy. Once I realised my protagonist had experienced this in her past, not her present, the puzzle pieces all started fitting together. The theme of the novel throughout – which I only realised with hindsight! Often the way – is control, and the varying forms control can take. Hopefully the book is fun though. J Light and shade!
Can you tell us a bit about the challenges you faced while writing and how you were able to overcome them?
Again, hard to do this without spoilering but the plot involves the heroine making a stand, and there being a blowback for that, and the heroine working out how she’ll up the ante. That effectively meant stakes going higher and higher, and that took some thinking about. I spent a lot of time talking to my editor and playing the What If? game, which is how all fiction works, I think. By the way, never let anyone tell you there’s anything harder than plot. I think building a surprising yet satisfying narrative is honestly the toughest part of a novel. Your readers are a sophisticated audience. Who can easily choose Netflix instead if you’re not delivering the goods, haha.
Were there any favourite moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
Hah, I LOVE writing monsters who don’t know they’re monsters, so fiancé Jon and mother in law from hell, Jacqueline, were a real pleasure. Jon is the part of the book I’m proudest of: a man completely trapped inside his own interests and selfish rationales, yet convinced he’s the perfect gentleman. There’s a few of him out there.
What do you love about the romance genre?
There is so much to love: principally, how you get to describe the ways people treat each other, and like the Godmother of the genre, Jane Austen, that’s not confined to how people treat each other romantically. In Mad About You there’s a passage about how 21st C ‘social media Gatsbys’ behave, essentially what the popular kids at school are like in their moneyed thirties. I loved writing it, as social commentary: they’re a type! They exist! Also I’d love a reader to take all the British references in that section and swap them for the American ones. Like ‘They arrive in work on a Monday, straight from a hedonistic weekend away on the Eurostar….’ Is that a Greyhound bus for you?! OK, maybe not…this is why I need your help.
What’s the best and the worst writing advice you have received?
This is a brilliant question that I don’t think I’ve ever been asked before. Best. Hmmm. ‘Lie about anything except emotions.’ This is very true, I think. Or if it isn’t, I’ve never found the contradiction. Absolutely everything is up for grabs for reinvention, but human nature springs eternal. If it didn’t, we’d not still get so much from Shakespeare.
Worst, easy! When I was unpublished, I hoovered up tons of online advice, couldn’t get enough of it. My debut novel You Had Me At Hello was in first draft stage. About a quarter of the book is flashback because the protagonists met at university, so I run a ‘Did They Didn’t They?’ in past tense timeline, alongside the present tense ‘Will They Won’t They.’ I read this piece by an incredibly stern woman in horn rim specs saying NEVER EVER INCLUDE FLASHBACKS THEY SLOW THE NARRATIVE! Thinking I’d stumbled across immutable law instead of a clumsy arbitrary opinion, I wailed to a friend I’d best take all the university flashbacks out of my book. He replied “VS Naipaul uses flashbacks. However, I’ve never heard of this woman.” That cured me.
What’s next for you?
My ninth rom com for HarperCollins! You’ve caught me in a good day when I absolutely love the WIP. Ask me next week and I’ll probably be begging to bin it J
Lastly, do you have any 2022 book recommendations for our readers? Any you’re looking forward to in 2023?
Sally Thorne, the genius behind The Hating Game, has written a brilliant Gothic historical romance called Angelika Frankenstein Makes Her Match. It once again proves there is no one out there quite like Sally. Her mind is a wonder.
