Interview: Julie James, author of 'Suddenly One Summer'

Paste BN and New York Times bestselling author Julie James has been called one of contemporary romance's superstars, and the all the high accolades her books have won are well deserved. Julie's intelligent, sophisticated stories host memorable characters and fast-paced plots that keep us turning the pages and encourage re-reads while waiting for her next book to hit the stands. This year Julie brings us Suddenly One Summer, another delight that won't disappoint her legion of fans and will hook those unfamiliar with her work. So, make sure and aside a few hours of reading time because Suddenly One Summer is available today!

Lea: Welcome back to HEA, Julie, and congratulations on the release of Suddenly One Summer!

Julie: Thank you! And thanks for having me — always a pleasure to be here.

Lea: A couple of years back we talked about your first book Just the Sexiest Man Alive and you mentioned the narrative started out as a screenplay entitled The Andrews Project. I've always gotten an excellent visual when reading your books. This can certainly be attributed to your prose and the awesome dialogue, but when you develop the storyline, do you sketch it out like a screenplay then color in the rest of the novel around that sort of skeleton?

Julie: When developing a book, I don't sketch it out like a screenplay since a screenplay is written in very specific format that doesn't translate naturally into a novel. But, what I would say is that when plotting a book, I "see" the story playing out as a little movie in my head. Dialogue is a big part of that, and I'm often jotting down little snippets of conversation between the hero and heroine.

Lea: Your books are known for dialogue that includes hilarious banter and sarcastic one-liners. The relationships between the protagonists and their friends are integral to the storyline for a variety of reasons. You especially seem to have such amazing insight into "guy talk." Do you have male siblings or did you hang out with guys when in school?

Julie: I don't have any brothers, but I do have several guy friends (and a husband) whose brains I'll pick when I want insight into the mystery that is the male mind. For example, just last week I sent out an e-mail to my guy friends setting up a scenario that happens in the book I'm currently writing and asking how they would act in that situation. On top of that, two of my beta readers are men, and that's one thing I specifically ask them to look out for: dialogue that doesn't sound like something a man would say in real life.

Lea: You seem to enjoy doing research, and have tapped into a variety of interesting sources for your books. What sources did you use for Suddenly One Summer? Any fun moments or interesting research stories you'd like to share with us?

Julie: I love doing research. When plotting a book, I start by interviewing people who work (or worked) in my hero's and heroine's professions. Not only does that help give me an insider feel for those occupations, but often my interviewees will tell me little anecdotes or details that I'll use in the story — which I think makes the book feel more authentic.

The heroine in Suddenly One Summer is a divorce lawyer, and even though I'm a lawyer myself, family law is a completely different field than the one I practiced in. Fortunately, one of my best friends practiced family law in Chicago and she was a tremendous resource for me. For the hero of the book, who's an investigative journalist at the Chicago Tribune, I interviewed author Pamela Clare (a former investigative journalist who's also a friend) and, additionally, I talked to an editor who works at the Chicago Tribune.

On top of that, there's a subplot in the book in which the hero and heroine are trying to track down the father of the hero's niece. They have very little information to go on, so for that part of the storyline I interviewed a private investigator and asked how he would track down the man in those circumstances, and then I added in a few extra ideas of my own.

Lea: You explore the dating scene and modern relationships in this book, and Victoria and Ford initially notice each other when they are both out with their friends. Did you enjoy any "girls' nights," to people-watch and check out the modern dating scene for this book? lol

Julie: All right, brace yourselves, because this is a topic I could discuss for hours. From a writer's perspective, I find the thirtysomething dating scene to be fascinating — and a great resource for book material. While there are many reasons Sex and the City was so popular, one of those reasons is because the show was so accurate in depicting the urban dating scene. Admittedly, I'm about to generalize here — although this is also based on the many stories my single thirtysomething friends would tell me — but, on the one hand, you have women in their 30s who are settled in their careers and now, perhaps, are thinking about starting a family. Or maybe you have a woman who was in a relationship that didn't work out and now she's single again. Or, perhaps, a woman who simply enjoyed, throughout her 20s, the freedom of being single. Regardless of the reason, if a single, thirtysomething woman is thinking about having kids someday, she's probably starting to feel the pressures of the biological clock.

But, on the other side, you have thirtysomething men who have no such biological clock issues. There's less pressure for them to try to figure out, early on, where a relationship is headed. And I'd hear all the time from my guy friends that the problem with dating women in their 30s is that, by the third date, the women all want to have "the talk" about where the relationship is going. And I get how, from the man's perspective, he'd like to just see how the relationship naturally develops. But I also completely understand the woman's perspective: She doesn't want to waste time on a relationship that isn't going anywhere.

This is not to say that all thirtysomething women want — or should want — to settle down and start families. Nor am I saying that all men in their 30s are commitment-phobic players. But, I can't tell you the number of times I've met a smart, funny, successful, attractive woman in her 30s who wants to meet someone and settle down, but she's just so fed up with the urban dating scene. So, as a woman, and an author, that's a dynamic I like to explore in my books. Hopefully while having fun along the way. : )

Lea: Well, speaking for myself, reading one of your books is always fun, and uplifting. ;)

Some of the male secondary characters in your novels are awarded their own story, as is the case with Ford. You introduce so many standout secondary male characters, but what was it about Ford that inspired you to write his story?

Julie: I tend to be very focused on the book I'm currently writing and don't think ahead to future books. Sometimes I'll lay little nuggets about a secondary character in a book, but whether that's actually going to go somewhere ... who knows? I don't like to commit (even just to myself) to writing a certain character's book next because it's more important that I write a story that inspires me.

Ford is a good example of that. I introduced him two books ago in Love Irresistibly, and I thought there was a possibility that his book could be next. But when I sat down to start plotting a book for him, something wasn't gelling. So I put that aside and wrote a book with a different hero instead. But then when I finished that book, and it was time to start plotting again, this time Ford's story began coming together more easily. I like having the freedom to do that: Instead of trying to force an idea, I'd rather the story develop organically, when it's ready.

Lea: Ford and Victoria deal with significant issues surrounding his sister who is a struggling single mom. As well, Ford and Victoria deal with their own psychological struggles. Would you describe Suddenly One Summer as more emotional than your other books?

Julie: One of the first things I told my editor when plotting this book was that, tone-wise, I wanted it to be a story like As Good As It Gets, or Silver Linings Playbook, or Sideways. Something that was funny, but also had those deeper, more emotional moments. Yes, there are more serious things happening in Suddenly One Summer than in some of my other books, but I tried to never get too heavy-handed — the story is still funny and has all the back-and-forth banter between the heroine and hero that people have come to expect with my books.

Lea: Extremely intelligent, sophisticated and powerful heroines who can outwit any man are another hallmark of your stories. Victoria possesses these qualities, but she is also unique in many ways. Please tell us more about her.

Julie: Victoria was a great character to write because while, on the outside, she's this smart, confident, successful divorce lawyer who runs her own firm, underneath the surface there's a lot more going on with her. In many ways, she's also the most vulnerable heroine I've ever written — she just doesn't want anyone to know that.

Lea: Can we beg you to share an excerpt from Suddenly One Summer?

Julie: Sure! Given some of the things I've been talking about, here's an excerpt I thought would be appropriate. The setup is that Victoria and Ford have teamed up to find the guy who got Ford's sister pregnant during a one-night stand. They go to the bar where Ford's sister met her baby's father, hoping to gain some information about him, and pretend to be on a date as part of their "cover." Over dinner, they start talking, and, well … here you go.

—

Ford seemed about to say something, then changed his mind. "All right. But how about pre-break-in? How 'non-amateur' are we talking here? Are you a heartless love-'em-and-leave-'em type, or more just a serial monogamist?"

Victoria took a sip of her cocktail. "You're awfully curious tonight."

"It's the journalist in me."

So they were doing this now, getting personal. Okay, good. Come to think of it, after these couple of weeks of living next door to each other, she was a little curious about him, too. "I wouldn't call myself a heartless love-'em-and-leave-'em type. But I do like to keep things simple and casual. No obligations, no expectations, no endgame of a marriage, two-point-five kids, and a minivan in the suburbs. I've self-selected out of the happily-ever-after rat race."

"You don't believe in marriage?"

"I don't think every marriage is doomed. But these days, you've got as good of odds as a coin flip of finding one that will go the distance. And in the eight years I've been a divorce lawyer, I haven't seen much that inspires me to try my luck."

Ford was giving her that "amused" look again.

"What?" she asked in exasperation.

"I've just never had a woman say that before on a date."

"It's a fake date. And welcome to 2015."

He laughed. "You're just so ..." He trailed off, his expression a mixture of frustration and something else she couldn't read.

"Beguiling? Irresistible?" she offered.

"Challenging." His eyes held hers across the table.

The moment was interrupted when the waitress dropped by to take their orders. Starving after her first foray into undercover work—and a darn good performance, if she did say so herself—Victoria ordered the hand-cut fries with dips as an appetizer along with her brisket sandwich.

"Make that two," Ford told the waitress, then picked up right where their conversation had left off. "Okay, so marriage doesn't inspire you. What about kids? Is that something you're considering down the road?"

"Maybe." Victoria shrugged. "I don't know how I'll feel in a couple years, so I've taken precautionary measures to keep that option open."

"'Precautionary measures'? What does that mean?" He took a sip of his beer.

"I had my eggs frozen when I was thirty."

He paused, mid-sip, and then set his beer bottle back down. "That's ... very forward-thinking."

"Maybe it seems that way now, but I predict that in five, ten years, it's going be an option a lot more women consider." She leaned in. "Let's be honest, it's an advantage you men have in the dating game, a chip you wield over us—our biological clocks. How many times have I seen a woman, like me, single in her thirties, successful in her career, but she's in a near panic when it comes to her personal life because she wants kids and she's done the math: she has to meet a guy by the time she's this age, so she can get married by this age, and pregnant a year later. I say the hell with that. I will decide if and when I'm ready to have kids. I'm not about to cede control over that to Fate, waiting around for Mr. Right to show up on my doorstep." She paused, catching that.

Metaphorically speaking, of course.

"Wow." Ford rested his arms on the table. "I can't decide if I'm frightened by you on behalf of the entire male gender, or really f***ing turned on."

She flashed him a grin. "All part of my allure."

—

Lea: So, any hint about the next JJ story we can look forward to welcoming?

Julie: I'm already well into my next book and really having a lot of fun with it. I don't want to say too much about the book yet, except that the heroine and hero have an interesting, unique backstory together. So it's a reunion story, of sorts, with a Julie James twist.

Lea: Yay! We'll be looking forward to the read!

Do you still go to Starbucks to write and enjoy your favorite beverage? What's your poison?

Julie: Every day! My cold-weather drink is a skinny vanilla latte, and in the summer it's a mocha frappucino. And since you mentioned Starbucks, here's a fun bit of trivia: I think Suddenly One Summer is the first book I've written in which no character goes to a Starbucks. Instead, I used an independent coffee shop (an actual place) in the Chicago neighborhood where the characters live.

Lea: I, too, love their skinny vanilla lattes. ;)

Thank you so much for chatting with us today, Julie, it's always a pleasure. Good luck with Suddenly One Summer. It rocks! ;)

Julie: Thank you again! It's been a blast chatting with you!

Find out more about Julie and her books at juliejames.com.

—

Lea Franczak cannot remember a time when she didn't have a book in her hand. She's read and enjoyed multiple genres but is especially partial to contemporary and erotic romance, dark gritty romantic suspense, paranormal romance and has recently become a New Adult junkie. Lea has been blogging and reviewing since 2008 and is also HEA's Tweeter Extraordinaire. Follow HEA on Twitter (@HEAusatoday).