Romance is my entire personality

[00:00:00] ANNE BOGEL: Hey readers, I'm Anne Bogel and this is What Should I Read Next?. Welcome to the show that's dedicated to answering the question that plagues every reader, what should I read next? We don't get bossy on this show. What we will do here is give you the information you need to choose your next read.

Real quick before we start the show today, I wanted to tell you about a transition we've recently undergone here with the podcast, and that is we have just moved off the Wondery Network and are now with Airwave Media.

There are a few reasons why we made this change, and much of it comes down to recent changes in the podcasting industry and how ads work for shows like ours. We are an independent podcast, and the main reason we partner with the network is for the simplicity of them handling our ads for us. Ad revenue doesn't cover the cost of producing our show, but it does help a lot.

[00:01:07] We were a longtime happy partner of our old network, and this was not a change that we initially thought out. It was one that was thrust upon us. But as the industry changes and we try to adapt to those changes, we found it best to make a switch.

We feel like we landed in a good place at Airwave, where the general vibe is shows that combine learning and entertainment. And we feel good about how we're moving forward as a show. In the near future, we hope to return most of our ads to the familiar format you will recognize, and that many of you have told us that you miss. That is ads in my voice.

Other than that, this change should not impact your ad listening experience, shouldn't change the audio quality, the content where you can find it. None of that.

Thank you so much for your ongoing support of the show. I'm so grateful for you and this community of readers. Y'all are amazing. Thank you for listening.

[00:01:57] Now, today I'm so happy to welcome Farrah Rochon to the show. Farrah is a prolific romance author with 45 books to her name. We will talk about that. And I was surprised to hear not only that she never intended to write in this genre in the first place, but that she used to be a romance snob who didn't read that genre at all.

Now, Farrah is a passionate reader and writer of romance, and today we get into it. We get to chat about what drew her to this particular genre, what she's learned over the years, and her current writing process as an obsessive plotter.

We also get into the state of the industry and what it means for her writing life these days. You'll hear us touch plenty on very specific passions that often make their way into her work, like Broadway, Disney, traveling, and the city of New Orleans.

Farrah has two books coming this spring. The new installment in Disney's Twisted Tales called Baby Changed, that's out April 2nd, and her new adult romcom, Pardon My Frenchie is out June 4th. You'll hear us touch on both of those books today.

Let's get to it.

Farrah, welcome to the show.

[00:03:00] FARRAH ROCHON: Hi, Anne. It's so great to be here.

ANNE: Oh, I'm so excited to talk. We've been talking on our team about how we'd love to have you on for actual years, unknown to you. So thank you so much for making that dream and plan come true.

FARRAH: So excited to be here and happy to make that dream come true.

ANNE: We are actually recording an auspicious day. Look, Farrah, I'm a Kentucky girl. I'm probably not doing this properly, but happy Mardi Gras.

FARRAH: Happy Mardi Gras, yes.

ANNE: Is that how you say it?

FARRAH: Yes, that's how I say it. Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday, whatever you want to call it. It's today.

ANNE: All right. King cake for breakfast.

FARRAH: I was just on Facebook asking, who has King cake? And I don't want the whole King cake. But I may have to go and buy myself a whole King cake because I do need some King cake today. Yeah, I will have some before the day is out, believe me.

[00:03:59] ANNE: I'm happy to hear it. Farrah, let's start with a little snapshot of who you are for our listeners, including where you are in the world and why we're talking about Mardi Gras.

FARRAH: Yes. Hi. Farrah Rochon here. I am from New Orleans, from New Orleans area, I should say. Little town on the Bayou near New Orleans. I am a romance and young adult author of more than 40 books now. Every time someone asks me how many books I've written, I always tell them, let me go to my website and see. I have to count them on my website.

But yeah, I'm an author and lover of my hometown of New Orleans, lover of Disney, Broadway, travel. That's basically my personality, I should say. That's the things that make me happy. So that's me.

[00:04:57] ANNE: Oh, I love that. Those are such happy things. Okay, Farrah, I've only been to New Orleans one time. It was for work. It was for the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance when they had their annual conventions or trade shows. And it was maybe like 2017, 2018. I got to go out to some restaurants in the French Quarter, but that's it.

My deepest regret is not just hopping in a taxi and zipping up to the Garden District to wander and go to Octavia Books. But what are you sorry that I missed?

FARRAH: That's one thing I'm sorry you missed. The French Quarter is great, but the city is so much more. One of my favorite things about New Orleans is going uptown, the Garden District. I remember when my niece was young, I would take her on a Saturday and we would catch the streetcar, the St. Charles Avenue streetcar at the beginning of the line and just spend the day on the streetcar looking at those gorgeous houses. You know, we'd stop and get beignets.

[00:05:59] It's just such a beautiful part of the city that I think a lot of people just miss out on because they're so fascinated by the French Quarter. But there's a lot more to New Orleans than that. Next time you come, make sure you do that, and yes, go to some of our great indie bookstores. We have a few now and I love them all.

ANNE: Well, the hotel was in the French Quarter, so that's where I was physically, but I did get to go to Faulkner House, which was just such an amazing little jewel box of a bookstore.

FARRAH: Yeah, yeah. I will peek in there every time. Every time I go there, I feel like I can't touch the books because they're so pretty and some of them are like, you know, vintage almost. I feel like I'm in a museum. But it is a very cool spot as well.

ANNE: It's gorgeous. The problem with Faulkner House, please hear my air quotes, is that the way they display their books, I always feel like I should leave with the whole set. They just display these gorgeous collections. I think that's actually where I started collecting the Everyman Pocket Poets, which are just, the spines are just so gorgeous. They make me happy on my bookshelf. But you see the books they have organized by collection in there and you just want to buy them all.

[00:07:10] FARRAH: Yeah. I need to take a trip out there and just go spend some time in that sort. The aesthetic is amazing.

ANNE: I'll get down there one day. Farrah, today we are especially leaning into the romance genre, which you are a writer and reader of. This has been on my mind of late, especially because... well, I want to share an experience that I bet is familiar to many readers, and that is that I needed to take a solo road trip last month, and it was a stressful one. I was going to see my mom, and she was sick, and we were going to do some hard things when I was there, like go visit doctors and take care of some business.

And in the car, I thought about listening to podcasts, and I thought about continuing the literary novel I was in the middle of, and I thought, "No, you know what I want? I want a good love story with a little bit of angst, a little bit of conflict that I know the character's going to work through and I know I'm going to get a happy ending and I can probably, if I time it right, begin it when I leave my driveway and finish it before I get to my destination so I can have that satisfaction as well."

[00:08:15] I went back to read the first book in a series that I read out of order. I listened to Sarah Adams' When in Rome on my drive out, and it was just the perfect thing for the drive. And there are many reasons to read romance, but also I have these really fond memories of reading certain authors or certain books, not just all the time, like, you know, the way you remember a great book, but inhaling whole series during times when I really wanted a satisfying, comfortable, just heartening escape. And I know it's not just me.

FARRAH: Oh, no. No, no.

ANNE: What drew you to writing in this particular genre?

FARRAH: You know, the funny thing is, I originally was not going to write romance. Believe it or not, I was a romance snob. I read like John Grisham. When Oprah's book club had all of the books that made you want to not be happy, but just sob, I thought those were the books I should've been reading.

[00:09:21] And then my sister gave me a LaVyrle Spencer book and changed my life. It introduced me to what the romance genre, you know, just... like you said, it's like that happy place. It's a little bit of an escape that you can have.

That's what really drew me to the genre. I still didn't think that it's what I would write. But I had a few friends, they found out I was writing a book. And that very first book I wrote was not a romance. It was more of a John Grisham-type book, even though I knew nothing about law.

I was in college, you know? I didn't think that I needed to know anything about writing it. I just needed to tell the story, so that's what I did. But those friends, they knew that I read romance and that I loved romance, and they just automatically assumed when they found out I was writing a book that I was writing a romance.

[00:10:21] I thought, "Well, why didn't I write a romance since that's what I love to read?" So, I decided, let's see if I can write a romance. And I can still remember the contrast in just the fun that I was having while writing that first romance. It never got sold. It never will be. It was awful.

ANNE: Every novelist who love to read, I think, has at least one novel in a drawer somewhere that never saw the light of day.

FARRAH: If they don't, I hate them. They were my practice books. But I just remember I was having fun writing that story where the other one I was so serious. It just showed me this is what you should be doing. You should actually have fun while you are creating these books. So that's when I realized, okay, romance is where you need to live if you're going to do this as a profession.

[00:11:26] ANNE: I wish we could go back in time and hear the pitch that your sister gave you on LaVyrle Spencer back in the day.

FARRAH: Oh, she was just, "Read this book." That's all it took. She was like, "You have to read this book." That's it. And that's all it would take with my sister. That's how much I trusted her.

ANNE: That's amazing. So you were a big romance reader, so much so that your friends assumed that you'd be writing in that genre. Who were some of the authors that were formative for you?

FARRAH: Well, LaVyrle Spencer, of course. Her book, Separate Beds, it's on my comfort read shelf, which all of these authors that I'll mention are what I call my comfort reads, where I can just go and take the book and just open to any page and just get lost in the story. But LaVyrle Spencer was the first.

[00:12:15] Then I discovered Judith McNaught. I think about some of her books now. Newer readers probably would hate them, but I forgive all of those horrible, you know, the heroes who just do things that you could not get away with doing them now in books. I loved those books.

Judith McNaught, Julie Garwood, Sandra Brown's early books, those are the authors who made me fall in love with this genre. It was a different time in romance and just in general, in society, and I forgive them for that. I can read those books and put all of that...

Honestly, I will read them and I just think, "Oh, my goodness, Clayton is such a jackass." I'm sorry, I probably can't say jackass here. But you read those books and you realize that these characters would never be published now. But it doesn't matter to me, I absolutely love them.

[00:13:24] And they are, they're my comfort reads. I read at least one or two of them every year. Take them off the shelf when I just need to lose myself and reread those books. I love them.

ANNE: Every year. What a compliment! Farrah, so now you know that you really enjoy writing these stories. There's just fun, like more fun than writing your John Grisham-esque fiction. But I'd love to hear what are some other things that you find especially fun, exciting, satisfying, you fill in the blank, about this genre.

FARRAH: You know, it's what you mentioned earlier about knowing that you're going to get that happy ever after. That's what I love about romance in general. We put these characters through a lot.

ANNE: Oh, my gosh. Yeah, you do.

FARRAH: We're so bad to these characters, but that's what makes them interesting. You know, we've been through a lot in these last four years as a society. And one thing I realized is that as a romance writer, I have a really important job. Because people told me how important it was to be able to just disconnect from everything and lose themselves in a book that they knew that even though it may have gotten messy, you know, within the story, they knew by the end that everything was going to be all right.

[00:14:58] And for a time when we were locked down and didn't know what was going to happen, people really just needed that type of assurance and comfort. And it really made me look at the romance genre as a whole and what I do as a whole... You know, as a writer of these stories, it made me look at it in a different light because I think it really does help some people.

If you can find just a few hours of escape in something that I write, I think that's important. So, it really put things in perspective for me. I think romance as a genre, it deserves to get some props for what it does for readers.

ANNE: Absolutely. I am forever quoting one of my favorite authors in a different genre, Wallace Stegner, who has a writer at the center of his novel, Crossing the Safety. This novelist quips at one point that hard writing makes for easy reading.

[00:16:01] And I am endlessly grateful to the writers who labor over there, you know, like fun and sometimes frothy stories. But it is hard work to write a book that just goes down so easy. And I'm so grateful that I get to have this buoyant, joyous, often speedy, because I want to find out what happens, reading experience, because of the hard writing they put in.

FARRAH: Oh, Anne, you have no idea how many times I've been in the fetal position on my bed just wondering-

ANNE: Look, I wouldn't wish that upon you, Farrah, but thank you.

FARRAH: ...it goes into it.

ANNE: You said you put your characters through it, but yeah, you're a little more reserved about your own experience writing.

FARRAH: Yeah, it's not an easy thing and it's always funny when I'll have a book come out before I even wake up in the morning, I have emails from readers saying, ''Oh, I just read the new book. I loved it. It hit my Kindle at midnight.''

[00:17:00] And I'm thinking, ''Are you kidding me? You know how long it took me to write that book? I can't believe you've read it already.'' Because of course they want to know when's the next one coming out. Give me a second to have my coffee and take a breath before I get the next book to you. But that is just the best thing, of course. It makes the work worth it. But it is. It's very hard work, especially for me as a writer, just because of the way I write and my process. It's a pretty annoying process.

ANNE: All right. You know we need to hear more about that.

FARRAH: Yeah. I can quickly. I'm an obsessive plotter. I wasn't always that way. In writing, we have this thing called a pantser or a plotter. Write by the seat of your pants or you try to plot the book out. And I started out as a, you know, let's just see what comes to me, typewriter.

[00:17:59] Then I got my first contract and I got my first deadline and I realized that I could not just wait to see what comes to me. I needed to have a roadmap. I think I've gone from one end of the spectrum all the way to the other because now I know everything that will happen in my story. Before I ever sit down to write the actual words, I have it plotted scene by scene. I actually consider that like my first draft, the plotting technique I go through.

And it's just, yeah, storyboarding and going through a lot of Post-it notes. Post-it notes are everywhere. That's how I plot. I plot out everything ahead of time. Even though it's funny when I go and look back at my original plot, I see how much I still allow the story to, you know, create itself as I'm writing. Because there are things that I plotted and I realized that, oh, I never put that in the story because I guess the story knew better and I went another direction.

[00:19:09] So I do leave some leeway for just being creative and being able to change direction, but I need to plot out everything just to have that guide map as I'm going through it. That's me. Really, really obsessive plotter.

ANNE: Now for the aspiring writers and structure nerds who are listening and just those who love to hear how the books they love to read get written, I know that you're not a devotee of any one particular plotting method, but that you have many in your tool belt. Would you say more about that?

FARRAH: Oh, yes. Any of the writing nerds out there, I'm sure they've heard of The Hero's Journey as a way to plot. I'll use that one. I will use Blake Snyder's Save the Cat!. It's one of my favorites. It's actually for screenwriters, but it goes really well in writing fiction novels and especially for romance.

[00:20:09] Another one that I absolutely love Gwen Hayes has one called Romancing the Beat that is strictly for writing romances. It's just all of those high points that you... People try to say that the books are formulaic, and I lean into that. I think, yeah, every book has a formula. That's the reason that readers read them. They want those satisfying points in a love story.

You know, every genre has their formulas of doing it. And I love Gwen Hayes' romancing the beat because it gives you all of those little high points that you expect in a romance.

And it's all about the way the author executes the story. I would be upset if I read a romance and it did not have those things about a romance that I find satisfying and that I'm looking for. So that's why I put a lot of structure into it and make sure they're getting the story that they're expecting, but bringing it to them in a unique way every time

[00:21:16] But yeah, I'm very much a structure person. It all depends on how the plotting is going. It's, you know, which one I decide to do. It's an organic thing that happens as I'm plotting. I decide, oh, this will go better with the Hero's Journey, so let's see how that works.

ANNE: What do you know today that like 2010 Farrah just hadn't had the opportunity to learn yet?

FARRAH: Oh, so much. Well, 2010 Farrah didn't realize just how much social media would have an effect on her career and how much I would have to count on being out there. One of the great things about being a writer, or so I thought, is that I could just hide in my little office and write my little books.

But yeah, 20... what is it? We're 2024 now? That's a long time ago, 2010. My goodness. So I was really a baby author back then. Gosh, there are so many things I didn't know.

[00:22:25] But I think the biggest thing really is how much goes into actually selling a book and getting your name out there, and how much social media would play on my career and overall my life in general, but mainly in my career, how much I would have to rely on it. That's something I think a lot of authors didn't realize how much we would need it.

ANNE: That's such a good observation. I'm really sorry about the slippers and pajamas thing and how that didn't pan out. You know what? Those are my slippers. You didn't say anything about slippers. I'd love to hear what else you're noticing right now about the state of the industry.

FARRAH: Well, I did not realize that my last answer would be such a great segue, but it really is. Because the thing that I'm learning more about the industry is the power of TikTok. We have to talk about TikTok.

[00:23:25] ANNE: What would 2010 Farrah think about that?

FARRAH: Probably would have thought, Do I really have to dance in front of my phone to sell a book? That's what I probably would have. But no, when it comes to the industry... I was actually just speaking about this with some friends.

I come from an era when it was Romantic Times Magazine was the big place that people got the romances they were going to read. Just thinking how far removed we are from that and how people get influenced. In the romance genre, we've never seen anything like TikTok and the effect it can have on the genre.

We've seen books that were off the shelves for 15 years suddenly end up on bestsellers list because of TikTok and its influence and the way that it can just completely change the landscape of the genre and the industry.

[00:24:39] And it's just something... I've never witnessed it. I've seen Twitter and... I still call it Twitter, sorry. But you see Twitter and Instagram and Facebook and all of these things that will have some type of effect, but nothing like we are seeing now.

So I'm interested to see what is next, how long this lasts, or is this just a new way people find out about books? Because it truly does seem everyone flocks to BookTok, the little BookTok portion of TikTok. If you see a book pop up on the New York Times or something, you go there and see how much traction is it getting on TikTok, because it just seems that's where things are. Much to my 14 and 15-year-old niece and nephew's chagrin, because they hate that I'm on TikTok. They begged me to be on TikTok.

ANNE: Please say more about that.

[00:25:39] FARRAH: They did. They called me cringy, and they're right. I am cringy. Again, I mentioned the dancing. But as I explained to them, I said, "It's what I have to do. It's where you get all of your information on the things that you enjoy, so I have to go there." They'll forgive me one day, maybe.

But yeah, we're on the same platform. The thought of being on the same social media platforms with 14 and 15-year-olds, but it just seems that's where people get their info when it comes to their entertainment. For better or worse.

ANNE: Farrah, of course, now I'm thinking about your forthcoming book that's coming in June, Pardon My Frenchie. And now I'm kind of thinking about the teenager running the... I think it's the Instagram account in the book. Now I'm kind of hearing this in a new light and realizing how informed I was by your own life.

FARRAH: Yes. The younger sister of the main woman character in the book, she runs all of the social media. That does come from my life.

[00:26:45] ANNE: Does that come from your dreams? Don't give me a hard time. Take over my TikTok. Don't call me cringe, just run it for me.

FARRAH: I should have her do that. But no, it really does because I have to call my niece and ask her how to do things all the time. It makes me feel so old. But I do. I do. I'll run things by her and ask her, "Does this make me sound old? Is this hip?" And she'll tell me no one uses hip anymore. That's how bad things are. But I do run things by her.

So when it came to that character in part of my friendship, I did lean into how much I have to rely on my niece and nephew to help me with social media so I don't sound like a fool. But also in the book, she is one of my favorite characters in it just because of how much it mirrors my real life.

[00:27:51] ANNE: Oh, that's so fun. So back in the day, people were discovering new romance in Romantic Times and now it's BookTok. This question may be out of touch, but does that have an impact on your writing rhythms and writing days? Like how you think about your role as an author?

FARRAH: You know, I try not to allow it when it comes to my books. Of course, you put the different platforms and things like that in your books. And then, you know, a year later, something else is the hot new platform. So it dates your books.

But when it comes to just creating the story and how I create my stories, I try not to let that influence me. Because I just want to write a good story. And I think a good story needs to stand the test of time and not have any of the whatever the hot new thing is to influence how you're doing it. If that makes sense.

ANNE: Oh, it really does. It really does. And I hope you're able to do that most of the time. As a reader, I hope you're able to do that most of the time.

[00:29:03] Farrah, something we haven't touched on yet is just how prolific you are as a writer. I'd love to hear a little bit about what your career has looked like over the years.

FARRAH: I've been doing this for quite a while. It's funny because a lot of readers discovered me because of my Boyfriend Project series. It never fails to make me laugh when they think that The Boyfriend Project was my debut book. I think it was number 38. I always have to tell them, "Oh, no, go and look at my website. I actually have quite a few."

I have two books coming out within two months of each other this year, so I think I'm at 44 and 45 maybe. I truly have lost count of books. But yeah, I've been doing it for a while. I started with a publisher that's not even around anymore, Dorchester Publishing, but then I moved to Harlequin and I wrote well over a dozen books for Harlequin. I think I wrote maybe 16. I would have to go back and count those two. But I think I wrote 16 books for Harlequin over several years.

[00:30:16] Then I decided to just try indie publishing for years. I've done it all, basically. So yeah, before the books, I guess you can say the series that kind of put me on the map with that Boyfriend Project series, I had quite a few that I'd written.

It's been a beautiful career so far and I'm hoping that it can go for a lot longer. That's my whole purpose, just to make sure I write forever. That is what I want to do. I don't want to do any other job. My only other job I would like to do is a secret shopper for hotels. If someone were to pay me to stay at luxury resorts, that's the only thing that can stop me from being a writer.

ANNE: But then we really wouldn't want you to give it up because I want to read those stories.

FARRAH: Yes, that's true.

ANNE: A lot of times when I go to a resort, I do have my laptop and I'm working. I don't think I could ever truly give up. I don't think I could ever truly give up writing. I don't have anyone knocking on my door saying, hey, go stay at our five-story resort, so I think we're good. It's going to be writing for me.

[00:31:23] ANNE: We absolutely need to talk more about travel. But first, I'm still gawking over the on-the-job training one can get from writing 45 books. And that's not even counting the one in the drawer that never saw the light of day.

FARRAH: No, no, no.

ANNE: What are some things that you can only learn by writing that you feel like you've gotten to learn as a writer?

FARRAH: I think the most important thing that I've learned personally is exactly what my own writing voice is. We talked earlier about those writers who influenced me. And those first books, those that are still on a floppy disk, I realized I was somewhat trying to mimic what they did. But as I've grown as a writer, I've learned to trust just my writing voice. I think that it's something that you find... you can only find it as you continue to perfect your craft.

[00:32:22] It's hard to teach someone how to discover their own writing voice. But once you do find that, and you continue to hone it as you write more and more, you really do rely on your voice to make your books unique and to make them yours.

I think that's the most important thing I've learned over the course of 40-plus books and... 17, I think, years. I think this is year 17 for me, which blows my mind. That's a career. You know, once you've done something for 17 years, that's a career as a writer.

But yeah, just learning to trust my writing voice. First finding it and finding what makes my books unique, and then just trusting that it's going to bring the story out in that way that readers will say, you know, Oh, I read a Farrah Rochon book because there's always going to be a little humor in it. It's just something that makes my voice unique. I love that about this journey that I've been on, just learning to trust me and my writing style, so.

[00:33:35] ANNE: All right. It seems like this might be a really hard question, but maybe they're actually your guiding lights that you have on Post-it notes by your laptop. How would you describe your writing voice? And how do you hope people will recognize that they're reading a Farrah Rochon novel?

FARRAH: Again, it's finding your voice and just describing your voice. It can be very, very difficult. It's that thing. But I think when it comes to my voice, you will have some humor in it because I just think that laughter, even in the darkest times, is necessary.

You will also find... I guess the best way to describe it is just there's just a meatiness to it. You know, I write romcoms. I've really gotten into writing what I would call romcoms and not just a contemporary romance. But you'll always find a meaty center to the book. It's never gonna be slapstick or just really frilly-type writing.

[00:34:42] I'm always gonna have some type of meat to it. Which can be hard to balance the humor, the meatiness. But that's the type of book I love to read. And it's also just the kind of book I like to write. I think it might be a bit of the psychology major in me. I've always [inaudible 00:35:00] in people. I can tell my dad, I do use those degrees for something. But I do.

I think when you develop a character and you're putting this person together, I like being able to just really get to the core of someone. And I think that's what provides that heavy, you know, that thing that people... where they can just feel that they are in this person's head, they are in this person's life and living their experience.

That's just something that I always try to give readers. I lean very heavily into character creation. I do a lot to make sure that I'm creating a whole authentic character when I write. So, hopefully, those are the things that people get when they read one of my books.

[00:35:53] ANNE: You know, something else I've really enjoyed in your recent works, and I haven't read the Disney works yet, is that I find myself Googling specific places and locations so often. Like, there's so much. I am assuming that this comes from your love of travel and your interest in the kind of things you could discover in places that are new to you.

Like, in part, in my friendship, like very specific example. First, we were in New Orleans, and then we got to go to New York City. I wanted to figure out where the restaurants were, and these artworks, and just like, where is that intersection? Which Chase Bank is this fountain? Oh, I understand what you're saying. Oh, so it must be that cupcake shop. I enjoyed all that so much.

And Pardon my Frenchie, it's certainly not the first experience I've had with your works. After I listened to Sarah Adams on the road trip, I came back and I hadn't yet finished Your Boyfriend Project series, so I read The Hook Up Plan. And that takes place in Texas, primarily in Austin. I was Googling all those locations and, oh, what's this little plaza by the river? And are those food trucks still there today? I just really enjoyed it. It really slows me down, Farrah.

FARRAH: I'm sorry. Not really. I'm not.

[00:36:59] ANNE: I love to leave my tabs open on my phone so I can see all the places this book has taken me to. I really enjoy that aspect of the experience.

FARRAH: And I love writing it. I'm sure you can tell. I always think of the setting as another character. Always. To me, it's what gives the book life, and it just adds to it so much. Especially when you're studying a book in New Orleans, or you're in New York, or you're in Austin, which I do not see Austin in enough books, because it's a great city.

I think in the hookup plan, we went to the Texas Hill Country as well, wine country. I just don't see that enough in books. There's so much at that atmosphere. I love it. I think it just enriches the experience. As you mentioned, I love to travel so much.

I've written books set in Rome. I've written two, actually because it's one of my favorite cities in the world. I wrote a holiday book set in Istanbul. It opens in Istanbul, which you would not think. But it was actually the perfect setting for that book.

[00:38:07] I love bringing the settings out in a story, partially because I love just description, I love just creating that picture for people. And I think setting brings that out a lot. And just because it brings you to another world. It brings you to another place. And hopefully it'll bring people to the places that I describe in my book.

I would love people to come to New Orleans because they read about, you know, a restaurant or something. Don't come looking for Barkingham Palace. People don't know about that book yet, but Barkingham Palace is the doggy daycare. It's not there yet, but maybe that's in my future. I love dogs, so. But yeah, I try to bring as much of the setting into the story as I can without bogging it down. Because I want people to feel that they're there.

ANNE: I'm assuming the love of travel came before the writing career.

[00:39:04] FARRAH: Yes. I've always loved it. I've always loved to travel. I've always been grateful to my parents because we always took a family trip. Or even if it wasn't a family trip... my mom was a teacher for 35 years, and we would do school trips.

That's how I first went to Disney. We went on chartered buses to Disney World. I remember family trip all the way out to California. It was a two-day trip. It took a whole day to get through the state of Texas, I will never forget it, in my mom's station wagon. But yeah, I've been traveling. It's something that we've always done. My parents thought it was important as kids, and it's just something that I've continued.

ANNE: What is the interplay between travels and your writing these days?

FARRAH: Well, yeah, like I said, I try to include as much of it in my writing. I do a lot more international travel now that I'm older, of course.

[00:40:05] ANNE: I love that you said "of course". I feel like that says a lot about you.

FARRAH: Well, the fact that my dad at 73 just got his first passport is one of the reasons where it was not going to happen.

ANNE: How was that?

FARRAH: Isn't this fun? He was so adorable. He was so proud of himself. But I do. I try to incorporate all of it. I also just sometimes, believe it or not, I travel to write. Because I love to travel, but I also just love a nice hotel and not having to make my bed and just everything that you get when you leave your space and go somewhere else.

At least once per book, I will go somewhere else and get a hotel room, and just put myself in another space to work. And sometimes things will make it into the book, sometimes they won't. But I think that experience, even if I don't put it on the page, I think that experience just helps with the book no matter what.

[00:41:11] ANNE: Oh, I'd love that. Would it be interesting to say where you were to write your forthcoming books for Fate Be Changed and Pardon My Frenchie?

FARRAH: At this point, it's always Disney that I go to. It really is, just because I'm a Vacation Club member and I don't have to pay for the hotels. They're already paid for.

ANNE: I would love to hear more about your longtime relationship with Disney.

FARRAH: Ah, Disney. That's my real personality, to be honest. I mentioned that we took trips when I was a kid, but I think that we'd only gone maybe two or three times as a kid. But my niece, when she was five years old, she's now 31, we took her to Disney at five.

[00:41:59] That is what really started this obsession, love affair, whatever you want to call it. I just fell in love with it again. And we started taking her every year. And then it turned to more than every year, and, you know, more than once a year.

It turned to going on Disney cruises and becoming Disney Vacation Club members so that we could go several times a year. And believe it or not, I just came back from Disney a couple of weeks ago, where my niece celebrated her 10-year anniversary with the company because...

ANNE: Oh, because of you, but...

FARRAH: She went in the college program, and she never left. And she's been with it for 10 years now. So when you say a Disney family, that is what we are. It's my happy place. It truly is my happy place. And I go as many times as I can every year.

[00:43:04] Sometimes I do go there just to write. And what I will do is put myself in one of their beautiful resorts and write all day. And if I make my work count, I will treat myself to a couple of hours in the parks. So it's become my motivation for writing.

ANNE: Well, I won't ask what you do if you don't make your word count. Farrah, I think I read in an interview that you pitched them on writing. You said, "I'm a fan. I'm a writer. Let's make some magic."

FARRAH: Yes. I didn't realize that people did not really do that to Disney. I had no idea.

ANNE: I'm so glad you didn't know and did it anyway.

FARRAH: I didn't know. I'd heard that they were doing adult romance novels based on the Disney princesses. And as this Disney lover, you know, it's like, "I love Disney. I write romance. This sounds perfect. I need to write one of these books."

[00:44:04] So I had my agent, I gave him the whole pitch for them. I told him, "You have to sell me to them to make sure they get me to write one of these books." And they immediately said, "No, we do not want her to write one of these romance books for us."

However, they had this young adult series, and they had actually been looking for someone to write the book about the Princess and the Frog, the movie, The Princess and the Frog. So it really was kismet in a way because my editor at Disney, the first editor I had, she'd actually just read The Boyfriend Project the week before.

ANNE: What?

FARRAH: I know, right? I end up in her inbox just, "Hello," just right after she had read my book. That's how it happened. That's how it happened.

ANNE: Okay, that is amazing. That's amazing. Would you tell us a little bit about Fate Be Changed, which is the next book coming out on April 2nd?

[00:45:05] FARRAH: Yes. Fate Be Changed is the Twisted Tale... that's the series I write for the Twisted Tale series. And it's a twist on the movie Brave, which I think is one of the most underrated Disney movies. And I think Merida is one of the most underrated princesses because she is amazing. She's an amazing princess. The story is amazing.

For Fate Be Changed, it's a twist on it. If you know anything about the movie Brave, you know that she goes to a witch and she gets a spell. She's looking for a spell to change her mother. But in Fate Be Changed, instead of giving the spell to her mother, Merida decides to take it herself.

And the thing with spells is that you shouldn't take it if it's not meant for you. She don't know what can happen. I like to call this book a marriage between Brave and Back to the Future.

ANNE: Oh, that's so fun.

[00:46:08] FARRAH: Yeah. It was so much fun to write. She actually goes back in time. She changes her fate by going back in time to when her mother and father were teenagers and on opposing clans. And instead of finding her father in the forest injured, her mother actually finds her, and she rescues Merida and brings her back to the castle.

So Merida has to figure out a way to get her parents together now that she has messed up what was their fate. Because if she doesn't, she, her brothers, and even their whole clans will not exist. So, it's such a fun book, and there's a bit of castle intrigue, and there's a great... I say this as the author, and I know you shouldn't. But I will say it. There is a great enemies-to-lovers story between her parents. It is one of my favorite enemies to lovers that I've ever written. Because they are. They start out as enemies. They're on opposing clans. It was so much fun to write. So I love this book so much.

[00:47:21] ANNE: That sounds like so much fun. So we can look for that on April 2nd. Farrah, I'd love to hear what you are reading and enjoying right now, or if that's not a thing at this point in your publication schedule, lately, the books that you're loving and find yourself talking about, recommending to friends.

FARRAH: I'm lucky, because I get to read a lot of books that have not come out yet. My two most recent reads have been books by fellow authors, Kennedy Ryan and Abby Jimenez. Both of their books come out in, I think, March and April.

Kennedy's book is This Could Be Us. It's the second book in her Skyland series. Her writing is just one where you just tell yourself, you'll never be this good as an author, so just enjoy the book. I tell you, she blows me away every single time. And this book was no different. Make sure that you have time to read, because I had to put it down for several nights in a row, and it was hard to think about anything else but going back to that book.

[00:48:29] And it was the same way with Abby Jimenez's next book, Just for the Summer. Thankfully, I was actually on vacation. I was on a short cruise, Disney cruise, of course. And I took her book because I knew that once I started reading I would not want to stop. And that's exactly what happened. I missed several things that I had planned to do on my cruise because I decided, nope, I want to continue reading.

Both of those books have just... I know they're going to be in my top five books of the year as usual. Those two authors, they blow me away every single time.

ANNE: I also thought those were so fun. And I was late to get on the Kennedy Ryan train. But I think actually somebody in our What Should I Read Next? community described the first Skyland book in such a way that made me think, "Oh, that sounds like the book I want to start next." And I did. And then I needed to read book two immediately. And I always have to read Abby's.

[00:49:26] FARRAH: Oh, yeah. Abby's so much fun. Kennedy, like I said, she just completely wrecks me. She takes your heart out and stomps all over it and you're like, Thank you for doing that.

ANNE: There are two authors who really like a strong sense of place and setting.

FARRAH: Yes.

ANNE: Like Abby's famous for using actual businesses on her work, which sounds like something you two have in common. Oh, that sounds like so much fun. Okay, Farrah, this isn't the place I thought we would close, but I feel like we can't hang up without talking about The Pelican Brief, which is the best John Grisham novel. Or do you have a different opinion?

FARRAH: No, that's fine.

ANNE: Well, I just realized, like, wait a second. I know that book was formative for you, and also, it's set largely in New Orleans.

FARRAH: Yes. I actually credit that book with starting again my love of reading.

ANNE: Oh, please say more about that.

[00:50:19] FARRAH: You know, when I was young, I would read the middle-grade books and things like that. But then when I got into high school, I'd gotten away from reading. I remember we had the Nintendo and I'd gotten into playing video games and things like that.

And one day I was just walking around bored, and I saw my cousin reading The Pelican Brief, and she didn't want to talk to anyone. All she wanted to do was read. And it reminded me, yeah, she just... It was like, "Get away from me. I'm reading this book." And it reminded me, you know, it's like, oh yeah, maybe I can read a book.

I didn't read it at that time, but just maybe a few weeks later, I went to the library and I told them I couldn't remember the title. I just remember it had a shiny blue cover with the man standing there. Or shiny brown cover, I can't remember but it had that shiny cover to it.

[00:51:16] The librarian knew exactly what I was talking about. It was a small library. She knew exactly the book. She gave it to me. And just after chapter one, I knew, oh, yes, this is reading. I'd forgotten about this. And I have not stopped reading since that book.

You know, the New Orleans setting, I think that probably helped it. Being able to point out places. I remember they were on the Riverwalk, and I thought, Oh, I've been there, you know? It's like discovering what books can be again. It started me reading again, and I have not stopped. I think I was maybe 13 or 14 years old at the time. And I do, I credit that book with restoring my love of reading.

Then I got to listen to John Grisham speak at this wonderful event that we have in New Orleans. He was one of the headliners. And I just looked at him and thought, "I have this career because of this book that you wrote." You know? It was such a great full-circle moment.

[00:52:27] ANNE: Oh, that's amazing. You know, I was thinking of a different Full Circle moment that you are now, through your hard writing and occasional moments being curled up on the bed in the fetal position, writing the kinds of books that hook a new generation of readers on the story.

FARRAH: Yeah, that's amazing to think. If I could influence just one person the way I was influenced, that blows my mind to think that that could happen. But I have had people who have told me, you know, I started reading romance because I picked up your book. And I can't fathom it.

I guess I don't think of my writing as being the kind of book that could bring someone into a genre, but apparently, it is. And how absolutely amazingly cool is that?

ANNE: Farrah, we appreciate your humility. And also what a world that, yes, that's exactly what's happening every day. And I'm just so glad that we can both be a part of it. Thank you so much for coming on to talk about your work.

FARRAH: Thank you so much. This was so much fun. I really, really enjoyed myself here.

[00:53:29] ANNE: Hey readers, I hope you enjoyed my discussion with Farrah. You can connect with her online at farrahrochon.com. Also, if you want those plotting details, you really should follow her on Instagram if you're there. She is there @farrahrochon.

Readers, do not worry about missing a title from today's show. We list them all out every week on our show notes page. You can find those at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com. We've also linked to Farrah's Instagram and website there, so we got you covered.

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Thanks to the people who make this show happen. What Should I Read Next? is created each week by Will Bogel, Holly Wielkoszewski, and Studio D Podcast Production. Readers, that's it for this episode. Thanks so much for listening. And as Rainer Maria Rilke said, "Ah, how good it is to be among people who are reading." Happy reading, everyone.