Debuting with Thousand Voices, Anna McCallie shares how mentorship and fresh perspectives shaped Abby Offsides—a heartfelt romance about reinvention and belonging.
Debuting with Thousand Voices, Anna McCallie shares how mentorship and fresh perspectives shaped Abby Offsides—a heartfelt romance about reinvention and belonging.
Debut author Anna McCallie joins Book Gang to celebrate her sparkling debut, Abby Offsides—a contemporary romance set amid the camaraderie and chaos of UK football—and to introduce listeners to Thousand Voices, Jenna Bush Hager's new imprint dedicated to uplifting debut and early-career authors.
Drawing on her own leap from Boston to London, Anna shares how she wove personal experiences of reinvention, vulnerability, and found family into Abby’s journey from outsider to insider—and learned the rules of romance writing along the way!
In this week’s episode, we discuss:
📚Launching with Thousand Voices: Anna discusses being among the first wave of debut authors published by Jenna Bush Hager’s new imprint, Thousand Voices, and shares how this supportive publishing model and hands-on mentorship shaped Abby Offsides from manuscript to publication.
📚 The Power of Found Family: We explore the vibrant, lived-in world of Mersey Football Club, the camaraderie among athletes, and how McCallie crafts cozy, relatable moments—on and off the field—that capture the heart of sports and romance fans alike.
📚 Navigating Romance Reader Expectations: Anna talks candidly about the specific tastes and strong opinions within the romance community, how she approached sensitive topics like infidelity and “messy” relationships in Abby Offsides, and what she’s learned from reader feedback as a debut novelist in the genre.
FREE BONUS BOOK LIST: 12 Books From Thousand Voices to Watch For
This week’s bonus book list spotlights the standout debuts and upcoming releases from Thousand Voices, Jenna Bush Hager’s new imprint. Patrons will receive a printable list to take to their local library, plus a bonus spoiler chat with Anna McCallie, where we dive deeper into Abby Offsides and how she created her unforgettable happily-ever-after moments.
Meet Anna McCallie
Anna McCallie was born in Boston and moved to the small town of Stilwell, Kansas, as a child. She has a B.A. in Arabic from Harvard University and an M.A. in international environmental policy from the Fletcher School, yet has never managed to have a job related to either of those subjects. She lives in London, and when she’s not writing, she can be found solving crossword puzzles, badgering her friends to go to pub quizzes, and watching a tremendous amount of football. Abby Offsides is her first novel and available on store shelves now.
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FREE BONUS BOOK LIST: 12 Books From Thousand Voices to Watch For
Abby Offsides by Anna McCallie
Beach Read by Emily Henry
Into The Blue by Emma Brodie
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Book Gang Podcast Transcript:
Anna McCallie (00:00)
Hi, I'm Anna McCallie author of the debut Abby Offsides
Amy’s Warm Introduction:
Hey, Book Gang! I’ll admit, “I’ve never really cared about soccer” isn’t the best way to start a podcast pitch for a book about soccer—but from the first page of Anna McCallie’s Abby Offsides, I was sucked right into this romance story that’s perfectly pitched for fans of Ted Lasso, whether or not you know a thing about football.
The novel opens with our main character Abby making a spontaneous leap from Boston to Liverpool for a social media job interview with Mersey Football Club. The effortlessly cool chief communications officer, Charlotte Collins, tasks her with launching a campaign that introduces each new player—exciting existing fans and attracting new ones. But before Abby can win over the crowd, she has to learn the game, connect with the team, and keep her messy past from sabotaging her fresh start. At this point when we meet her, she’s already given up her Boston lease and deleted her wedding plans from her shared calendar.
As Abby settles in, she quickly befriends Lachlan Ramsay, the team’s charming new Scottish midfielder—full of wit, talent, and undeniable chemistry. He’s the prodigal son meant to lead the team out of a slump, and Abby can’t help but notice he’s not wearing a wedding ring. She soon learns his wife, Claire, prefers her glamorous life in Spain, while Liverpool leaves her cold.
Abby is quickly swept up in the club’s close-knit world, but Charlotte keeps reminding her: don’t make yourself the center of the story—your job is to spotlight the players. Meanwhile, Abby’s personal life gets more complicated when her roommate asks her to move out. Lachlan, living alone in a big house, offers her a room, and as their chemistry intensifies, Abby risks not just her reputation but the job she’s come to love.
Their lives begin to intertwine in the small, intimate routines that McCallie captures so well: “I take the pickle off his sandwich, he takes a handful of my fries. I mix ketchup and mayo together on a small plate and slide it between us, he fishes the lemon out of my Diet Coke with his knife and plops it into his water...” These cozy, familiar moments make the story feel real, but as those around them notice, they threaten the balance between friends, teammates, and partners—and force Abby and Lachlan to confront what they’re both running from.
Mia Hutchinson Shaw’s audiobook narration truly brings this story to life, with lively banter and a Scottish accent that will have you grinning as you listen. There’s just enough football to set the scene, but the heart of the novel is in the shared meals, bus rides, and pub gatherings that wrap you up in a cozy hug.
If you like your romance without any hint of infidelity, this may not be your pick. There’s some miscommunication and the couple has to navigate new boundaries, but these complexities felt true to life—especially for a love story set in your messy thirties. Ultimately, Abby Offsides is a delight. I’m so excited to welcome Anna McCallie as our first guest from Thousand Voices, the new imprint from Jenna Bush Hager, and I can’t wait to dive into her journey and the team that brought this wonderful debut to life.
If you’re new here, hi! I’m Amy Allen Clark, and this is Book Gang—the podcast dedicated to debuts, backlist favorites, and under-the-radar gems.
In today’s episode, we’re exploring Thousand Voices—Jenna Bush Hager’s new imprint option for debut authors—as Anna shares what it’s like to be part of its first wave and how that mentorship shaped Abby Offsides. Thousand Voices is a collaboration between the Random House Publishing Group and Jenna Bush Hager’s Thousand Voices Media. Launched in 2026, Thousand Voices is a mission-driven imprint dedicated to discovering and championing debut and emerging authors across a dazzling range of genres.
At the heart of the imprint is Jenna Bush Hager’s infectious enthusiasm for books and storytelling. If you know Jenna from her wildly successful Read with Jenna book club, you’ll recognize her commitment to finding compelling voices and bringing them to new readers. But Thousand Voices goes deeper: it nurtures writers for the long haul, invests in their careers, and builds communities around great books.
What makes this imprint stand apart is the hands-on approach Jenna brings to every stage of the publishing process. She doesn't just read every word; she works closely with authors and editors—from manuscript to cover design to launch strategy—to ensure each book finds its perfect audience. That is the process we will be discussing in our episodes.
As always, you’ll find a curated bonus book list—this week, I’ve gathered the current and upcoming 12 titles from Thousand Voices. It’s a great chance to discover fresh voices, and patrons can download a printable version to take to the library, along with a spoiler-filled chat with Anna as a bonus conversation to unlock. To be clear: I am a reader and enthusiast of this new partnership, and we have two voices from the imprint to celebrate this fall season, so I thought it would be fun to connect the dots for our listeners on how this works, since it is still relatively new.
And if you love connecting over books, don’t miss participating in this month’s Book Club pick, One Yellow Eye by Leigh Radford, an extraordinary debut that explores horror through the lens of caregiving—and you can listen to my conversation with Leigh, now linked right at the top of our show notes. Join us for that Patreon Book Club chat on October 29th at 8 PM ET for a deep dive into spoilers, themes, and reader reactions. And Classics Club readers, don’t forget: we’re moving into section two of Jane Eyre—chapters 14–26—on October 22nd at 8 PM ET. All the details for both clubs are in the show notes, and you’re welcome to join anytime!
Now, let’s meet today’s guest. Anna McCallie was born in Boston and moved to the small town of Stilwell, Kansas, as a child. She has a B.A. in Arabic from Harvard University and an M.A. in international environmental policy from the Fletcher School, yet she's never managed to get a job in either field. She lives in London, and when she’s not writing, she solves crossword puzzles, badgers her friends into going to pub quizzes, and watches a tremendous amount of football. Abby Offsides is her first novel and is now available in stores.
If you’re enjoying the show, leaving a quick review on iTunes is one of the best ways to help others discover Book Gang—it’s free and means so much to us. And to our wonderful patrons, thank you for funding our halftime snacks, cheering from the sidelines, and making sure we never run out of page-turners in the playoffs. Thank you for supporting human creators in a world turned upside down by AI. Now let’s get chatting…
Book Gang- Amy (00:05)
Anna, I am so excited to meet you. Welcome to the Book Gang. I cannot wait to celebrate this book. You're my one fall romance of the season. I don't know if I have any others on dock yet, but I'm really excited to celebrate this story.
Anna McCallie (00:19)
Honored to be the one. Yeah.
Book Gang- Amy (00:21)
Well, let's get into a little bit of your background just for a little fun, because of course when I read your bio, it was very intriguing. It says that you got degrees in Arabic and international environmental policy, and instead write a swoonie romance for us, which is quite the plot twist. I always love to ask people when they have really interesting backgrounds.
Do you have any like fun dinner party conversations or tidbits or trivia that you like to drop in dinner conversations just to wow people?
Anna McCallie (00:52)
I do. I have one. I think the most fun fact about me was that I learned how to read Egyptian hieroglyphs when I was like a teenager and then a little bit more in college, which is super fun. But then when I was in college, I would sometimes go to the museum that had a really good Egyptology exhibit, and I would like bring a friend or two as a plant and I would pretend to be a tour guide.
And I would just sit there with my friends and sort of start reading the inscriptions and see how many people I could get to coalesce around me. I don't think I ever gave any deliberately wrong information, but there were a couple of moments when I got questions and just had to, you know, talk my way out of the answer.
Book Gang- Amy (01:33)
My gosh, I love it. You never know. Like when you meet people and they have these very interesting backgrounds, it's always fun to see what little trivia or tidbits they have that other people wouldn't have at the dinner table. Like I love to flex a muscle here and there when I'm at a dinner party. So I would absolutely delight in this little aspect of your career. And of course I'm delighting in this story. I have to ask you, I did do a tiny bit of research before we got on here, and I read that you were creating this as a way to fall asleep. So as someone who's going through the menopausal changes of life and experiencing no sleep at all, I'm curious why this ended up being the task and the beginning seeds for this story.
Anna McCallie (02:20)
Yeah, I mean, spoiler alert, I'm still a very bad sleeper, so it didn't work. But I would just, I sometimes, you know, my brain is just too full of thoughts at night. And it's almost like when I lay down, that's when my brain kicks into overdrive. I'm like, why didn't you think about this during the day? So I'm always looking for a way to keep it engaged enough to drown out the other stuff, but not too engaged that I, you know, just focus on what's going on in my head. So that recently has been a lot of like history podcasts, especially about really old parts of history that I don't find that interesting. That's a tip.
But yeah, many five years ago, I was thinking about this woman and I would just sort of think about what her life was like. Okay, she's in an office. Well, I wonder what she does for a job and what does her office look like and what is she wearing and kind of mundane things like that. But then night after night she would end up at a club with a man and there was something wrong about it. And I was like, gosh, dang it, like now I have to know what's going on with them. and many, many sleepless nights later I was telling my friend about it and he said, the reason you can't fall asleep is because you're writing a novel. And I was like, yeah, I am. You're right and then tried to keep the daydreaming to the day.
Book Gang- Amy (03:50)
I love this. Well, I want to hear about this process. How long did this book take you? What did the process look like for getting an agent and all of that fun? And how long this whole thing ended up lasting before we got to hold this book in our hands.
Anna McCallie (04:05)
Yeah, I just did some deep dives into my inbox the other day because I didn't know the answer to this. And the first mention of this book was in December 2001. I had emailed another agent. I was querying a different project, the book that I wrote during lockdown, and she didn't want that book, but she said, please send me whatever else you have because I really like your writing, which is the nicest way to be rejected. and I kind of gave her some bulleted lists, and then at the bottom bullet was this long gestating soccer rom-com. And so I guess at some point in 2001 I had this idea, started kind of noodling on it.
Then in early 2022, I was again heard back from another agent about that project who again didn't want that project. And by that point I had 10,000 words of this book. And in 2022 and 23, I was working on two separate things. I was working on Abby Offsides, which was called Me and You and the Beautiful Game at that point, and I was working on a different book, and just really not making enough good progress on either because I was so my attention was so split between the two. I had lunch with my friend and I was taking her through all the details and mentioned that if everything lined up and went perfectly, this book could come out during the World Cup in 2026, but who knows if I could get it done in time. And she just, you know, had a real come to Jesus moment and like shake me by the shoulders of like, don't let this opportunity pass you by. And who knows, maybe it won't all line up, but you shouldn't be the one who fails to make that happen. Like that if that doesn't happen, that's because it's not supposed to, not because you couldn't get it together to finish the manuscript. So I put the other book aside, focused entirely on the soccer rom com. And then yeah, about six months after that conversation I was in I had finished the draft. Yeah.
Book Gang- Amy (06:08)
Wow, okay.
Anna McCallie (06:09)
So all in all, I guess three years, let's say, from the initial idea to actually having a draft.
Book Gang- Amy (06:16)
Did you outline? What did this look like for you process wise?
Anna McCallie (06:19)
No, I am, I like I really stress out other authors.
Book Gang- Amy (06:24)
Okay. Wait, wait, wait. You didn't outline, but you have a whole team, right? You don't have any like what helps your brain remember all the players? Just your bedtime story?
Anna McCallie (06:31)
Yeah, just yeah, I did, I think at one point I did write down the team. I think I had a little note card with their number, their name, and what country they were from. But no, I really stress out other authors because I am, I'm like incredibly chaotic in the way that I draft. I don't have an outline. I'll have what I call like tent pole scenes, so sort of four or five big things that I know have to happen in the book, but then how to get from A to B to C is completely vibes based.
Book Gang- Amy (07:02)
Ooh. Risky.
Anna McCallie (07:06)
Yeah. And I know. And I don't write sequentially either. So I'll sit down and I'll put on a playlist or hit shuffle on Spotify and be like, okay, this is angry music. We're gonna write a fight today and then kind of figure out where to put it in the book. Like it's madness. yeah.
Book Gang- Amy (07:19)
Okay. This is interesting to me. This is fascinating. I love that
Anna McCallie (07:23)
I don't know if I'd recommend it, but yeah.
Book Gang- Amy (07:26)
Yeah, I no, you know, everyone writes differently and I do think just my type A spirit could never get behind this, but like I am amazed by people who are like a little bit more type B about their process or just that you are writing to a mood that you're feeling or where you're at in your life, like where you want to write to, which would be great for I think, you know, we have a lot of writers that listen to the show that, maybe you're just not in the mood to write the specific scene if you're going, you know, beat by beat and you know exactly where you're going, but then you wake up and you're just having like a sad day or an angry day, like that you should just lean into that a little bit.
Anna McCallie (08:01)
I totally agree with that. And it's funny 'cause I'm really type A about so much other stuff in my life, but I've never been an outliner, not even with like college papers. And I think for fiction writing, how it works for me is that I just sit with the story and the characters for so long before I even write a single word. So I'm not a person who like has an idea and starts typing it that afternoon. Like I really need to feel familiar with them before I get started. So even though I don't have an outline, like I've thought a lot about the vibes and the feelings and some of the conversations that I know I want to happen. I so applaud the disciplined people who are up at ev every morning at six and don't leave the chair until they've written five hundred words. I wish I could be that person, but I just can't.
Book Gang- Amy (08:55)
But it worked. It's that you're leaning into who you are as a creative. And I think that's so important. And that's why the project got done. And it also got done in time for this World Cup moment, which is very cool. I wanna hear about sale day. Like what did that look like? What was the excitement behind all of this as it transpired for you as a writer?
Anna McCallie (09:16)
It was amazing. I will say that it was happening in the sort of two-week run-up to the 2024 presidential election.
Book Gang- Amy (09:26)
Oh no.
Anna McCallie (09:27)
And actually the sale came through the day after the election. So I just I have these great texts to my friends that are like, whenever anybody is ready for some good news, you let me know. I'm not gonna push it on you, but like whenever you're ready, it's here. And so that just made everything very surreal.
I have a fun, a funnier story about getting the yes from my agent that happened a few months before the election. I can tell that one.
Book Gang- Amy (09:57)
Tell me about it.
Anna McCallie (09:58)
So I was at the pub with my two of my best friends here, these guys named Phil and Harry, who got memorialized in this book as the character Phil Harrison. And we were at the pub and I knew that Caitlin, my agent, was reading the book, and I knew that any day she was gonna email me back. And I was trying really hard not to check my email, but of course I have no willpower. So I checked it. I saw that she'd emailed back, and I had this moment of thinking, like, mmm, to open it, to not open it.
And earlier in the night, Phil had gone up to order us drinks and had noticed that in one of the beer fridges behind the bar there was a full glass of white wine. Just poured into a glass and it was in the fridge. And he was like, I'd like to buy that wine. And they No, no, we can't sell you that. We can pour you a new glass. and then I decided to open the email. It was a yes from Caitlin, and Phil and Harry were so happy for me, and we were all so excited. And Phil just went back to the bar and was like, I am buying the forbidden wine, and gave them like, I don't know, 20 pounds or something for it. And they're just like, Okay. So they handed us this glass of wine and the three of us drank it. I have no idea why it was just sitting in the fridge. I have no idea why they didn't just dump it out. But it was very fun to celebrate with the forbidden wine. and that felt like the real moment that I thought, okay, this might be a real thing.
Book Gang- Amy (11:22)
Mm-hmm. Oh my gosh. Well, that's really special. I love hearing about this. You know, I want to talk a little bit about Thousand Voices imprint because you're our first writer from this imprint. So I'm really excited because I feel like you're such a warm introduction into the world that Jenna Bush Hagar is trying to create for readers. How has Jenna been a champion for this book for you and how do you see her involvement as helping you as a writer?
Anna McCallie (11:52)
It has been the best possible experience. I think she is one of the most important people in the book world today. I think she loves books and it could so easily just be an act. She could just slap her name on the books, have a whole staff that reads them and never really engage. But she loves reading and she cares so deeply about the books that are chosen for the book club and then these books for Thousand Voices. And that has been meaningful, it's very, it's very obvious to say that yeah, having Jenna Bush Hager champion your book is helpful.
But it's also just been really, I find it very comforting to know that it's real, that her love for this, for these worlds is real. And in a world that like, it turns out that most of celebrities are totally full of it and they're not actually nice or they're not actually friends with each other. Like she's exactly like she seems she is on TV, on the internet. I joke all the time because my friends will send me these Instagram ad, she's doing an ad for gummy vitamins or an ad for something, or she's at the soccer game with her family and there'll just be a copy of Abby Offsides in the frame. Like she's so on message. It's incredible.
Book Gang- Amy (13:11)
Yeah.
Anna McCallie (13:12)
Like she is ride or die for all of these books and it has been the most incredible debut experience. It's been great being supported by her team and by the great team at Penguin Random House that works with her.
And she's just a lot of fun. We genuinely have a lot of fun together. Maybe we'll do a road show in the future, a little comedy double act.
Book Gang- Amy (13:34)
Yeah. I love it. You know, I I highly respect her reading taste and you know, I do feel like I'm often misguided, let's say, by celebrity book club picks or, you know, and I just feel like, especially in a time of economic strain for a lot of readers, that it's really, really important that when we promote or share about a book that it actually is coming from a very authentic place. That it's not coming from this has a movie contract or there's another, you know, reason why this book got selected. And so I just love hearing more behind her and how, you know, she really does embody and care about the work.
And I do think too, speaking to her is that she does host a podcast as well, you know, and I do think you have to know a book backwards and forwards in order to interact with that book. She can't phone it in, right? She has to be present and she has to know the beats of your story, understand why they were made. And, you know, I really loved the acknowledgement that you offered and how she asked about where you wanted to go with your career.
Anna McCallie (14:41)
Yes, and that's kind of her mission statement with Thousand Voices is she's intentionally only taking debut and I think she calls it like early career authors because she's so invested in the journey. and of course, I'm sure she could publish an Anne Patchett book or something, but Anne Patchett doesn't need that support now. So it's great to have that like mentorship and that guidance for the Thousand Voices books, I mean, she is reading drafts and giving notes and working alongside our editors. Like she is really in the weeds with them in a remarkable way, especially considering that she has like eight other jobs so I don't know how she does it. She's actually a machine.
Book Gang- Amy (15:26)
Same. So when you get a like book slated with her, does she get first pass then if you write something else? How does that work with your book contracts?
Anna McCallie (15:36)
Yeah, it's I don't know the full sort of inside baseball of it because it's this partnership with Random House. My contract is with Penguin Random House, so they do have first right of refusal on my option book. But it's unclear to me if that means that Jenna has to say yes or if after two books they'll be making independent decisions. I don't know. I'll hopefully be crossing that bridge soon, but not there yet. Yeah.
Book Gang- Amy (16:02)
Okay. I love it. I love that. Well, obviously I want to ask you just as we close this section of the show out with the writing journey, what would you give advice to your pre-debut self? Like if you were put in the role or we have someone listening who's thinking about the debut process, what has been surprising to you as a debut novelist?
Anna McCallie (16:26)
I think it's been, I mean my favorite part, because I love meeting people, has been meeting other debuts on the journey. There's a Discord that a lot of us are in to chat. You meet people on Instagram and that's been great. I think because I live in London and most of the authors I'm interacting with are in the US, that's been it's t you know, I wanna be there. I wanna like go to Happy Hour and hang out. So this is my fault for living in my favorite place in the world.
But I would say advice that I would give myself is advice that I'm reminding myself now when I'm working on the second book, which is to have the courage of your convictions. And it's so easy to look at the whole edifice that has been constructed around reading: Bookstagram, BookTok whatever, the forums, Goodreads, NetGalley reviews, and to let that sway the way that you write or the decisions you make. And I think that that's just how we get kind of boring, samesy books. and it's very hard not to read the reviews of Abby and think, okay, I should do this differently in the second book. But I have to remember to write the story that needs to be written and not write the story that's catering to internet strangers' opinions and hopefully you meet in the middle and they like it. But yeah, that's been something that I just have to remind myself is like write the story you want to write and try to drown out a lot of the noise.
Book Gang- Amy (17:57)
Yeah. Romance, I have told you this before we started recording. There's such a very hyper-specific taste with this genre that I actually wasn't privy to before I became a reader, like where I read professionally, how people respond to specific things or themes. Everyone has their own specific taste. And while you may read feedback from someone who's saying, I don't like this thing, there is a reader who loves that as a plot point. And so I just think you are on the right track and anyone who is writing to trends and tropes and things like that, by the time you write to it, by the time that gets published, it's over, right?
Anna McCallie (18:37)
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And, you know, it was a combination of luck and intentionality to get this book published during the World Cup. And so, but it wasn't like I sat down and said, I'm gonna write a soccer book because the World Cup is happening. It was like I'm writing a soccer book because I love this sport and also this is a cool opportunity coming down. But I think what you said about, you know, one man's trash is another man's treasure, that's what clicked and made the reviews stop hurting because of course I read the reviews as they started to come in.
Like the first time I got a Goodreads review, I was like, my God. And then it becomes this disease and you're just reading every single one of them. But when I had enough reviews that people had diametrically opposed viewpoints on parts of the story, it was just like, right. You literally can't please everyone. Somebody's gonna love this. Somebody's gonna hate it.
And everything's gravy now, like it's fine. Say what you want. Thank you for reviewing the book.
Book Gang- Amy (19:40)
Yeah. And we're like this generation of authors is the first that's had to deal with like this public square kind of experience, you know, where, minute by minute you know everyone's reaction. You know when people start a book, when they finish a book, how they felt about that book, they tag you. It's just such a lot to like deal with. I can't imagine if one of the Bronte sisters was like dealing with all of this, how maybe the next book, you know what I mean? Like what happens after this, right? Because I've received all of this feedback and you have to actually like deal with that or learn like healthy ways to deal with it like having a friend read those reviews for you so that you can like just get the good stuff in your account.
Anna McCallie (20:18)
Yeah. Becoming dead inside really helps. Sort of like let roll off your back. Yeah. Yeah, it's cool. They're just emotions, man. Yeah.
Book Gang- Amy (20:19)
That's something that I see a lot happen with debut writers. Yeah, just like turn it all off. Turn it off.
Well did you know that like, were you in the sports romance world? What kind of reader were you before all of this went down? Are you a romance reader?
Anna McCallie (20:39)
I am I mean, yes, but not exclusively and certainly not as deeply as I probably should be. Like I really am kind of now catching up on the back catalogue of stuff. I am like many people who in the pandemic wanted something nice and light and fell upon Beach Read and Emily Henry and was like, wait, this is exactly what I want because it's a love story and it's heartwarming, but it's also funny and it's well written and it like challenges me, but doesn't make me feel sad. And I just thought, like, yeah, though that's the kind of story I want to tell. So I mean, like fully committed member of the Emily Henry bandwagon, read everything she'd done.
But in general, I am like a wildly chaotic reader, a mood reader. I would say like if I had to pick the genre I read the most, it would probably just be like upmarket, you know, book clubby books, but I read a lot of nonfiction. I will dabble in a sci-fi fantasy. I just read what sounds good to me in the moment. And I think that's fun. And sometimes you go deep in these rabbit holes and all I've read is romance for six months, but then sometimes you come up for air and think, ooh, I just can't do another one right now.
Book Gang- Amy (22:03)
Yeah. Yeah, I totally was I I would go to the library and get these enormous stacks of romance and read like twenty books, you know, over the course of the month and then like return them and then I would need a palette cleanser, something a little bit heavier or more, you know, just a completely different lane. And I always find it interesting because I have had romance writers come through that actually weren't romance readers, and that's also like an eye-opening experience because of how specific people can be about their tastes around romance. So I always love to hear that.
And you know what is surprising, although we'll just keep this here on the show. I'm not trying to bash Emily Henry. It's very interesting because one of my dearest friends is a like religious romance reader. And I gave her Beach Read as her birthday gift. And I thought, my gosh, she loves romance. Like it was like when it first came out, and I was like so excited to give it to her. And she was like, that was devastating. That bothered me so much. And like she had all this feedback. And so I was like, that was my first indication that like what I liked isn't necessarily what another romance reader likes.
And I think it's just one of those things that you learn either as a writer or as a reader because now I know, it can't have too many emotional elements or this person doesn't like this and they're, you know, it's it's just interesting to me about this genre because I'm like, who wouldn't love that book? And she was like, that's really not for me. I don't really like it.
Anna McCallie (23:25)
It's so funny because you don't I mean, I'm sure in other genres of fiction, it must happen, like in mysteries or thrillers, there are certain tropes, but you know, you don't you don't read kind of upmark upmarket fiction and say, I'm it it had a this trope. And so it is funny to have this list of what you do and don't like, but at the same time I get it because there are thousands and thousands of books and if you know what works for you.
I always think about it like going to a restaurant that you've been to many times before and getting the same thing every time. It's like, yeah, because I know that's gonna be good and I know I'm gonna like it. And if I order this other thing, what if it's bad? Then I, you know, then I'll have had a bad dinner. And it's you're always like playing with this tension of like, okay, but what if it's great? What if it's way better than what you've been eating? It's like, but I love the Chili's quesadilla explosion salad. Like, why would I get anything else?
Book Gang- Amy (24:21)
Yeah, right? Well, I wanna talk about this book. I will just admit to you, I actually don't read sports romance and I don't really like sports. And so I'm like, why am I picking this book up? But then I was like, Abby and I are on the same team, which is something I would tell anyone who is listening who doesn't typically pick up romance, or sports romance, I should say, that Abby isn't really into that field either. Like she had to learn to adapt as their like social media guru.
And I know that you guys have a couple of overlaps in your life. Obviously you live in London now, but you grew up in Boston and Kansas and you start her over on the East Coast. And I'd love to hear a little bit about what outsider moments you wanted to create for her that you maybe experienced when you first moved to London.
Anna McCallie (25:14)
Yeah, it's so it's such a good question because of course this is influenced by my life and people ask me if it's based on my life, partly because my name is Anna Macaulay and her name is Abby McIntyre, and I do genuinely apologize to people for how similar those names are. I like it. I didn't even clock that until my agent read it and she was like, by the way, we've gotta change one of these names. I was like, mm, sorry, that's her name. Like I've it's too late.
But no, it is not auto fiction, but of course that journey is influenced by my own journey. And I think like that comes through in the small details, like the things, the really obvious things she's noticing. Like the cars are really small here and the flats are really small and like salaries are really small, and it's just a different, very different vibe from American culture. But it also comes through in the kind of bigger moments, and I had, I think like that particular kind of loneliness that she feels in the beginning was directly lifted from my life. I'm a very social person. I love being with my friends. And I had this moment really early on after I had moved here where I was talking to a guy at work and he said, what are you doing this weekend? I said, I don't actually really have any plans. What are you doing? And he said, my God, I have three b birthday parties, and then I'm like supposed to go meet my roommate to do this and da-da-da-da.
And it was like such a piercing loneliness of knowing that people were out there doing things and I wasn't because I hadn't like transitioned any of those work friends into real life friends. and that's definitely something that Abby feels acutely. And it's probably the main reason that she and Lachlan are drawn to each other in the beginning is they're both new to town and recognized this loneliness in each other and think like, great, let's be friends. Like that solves so many problems.
Book Gang- Amy (27:16)
Yeah. No, I loved just their opening like meet cute moment and also that, I had imagined, you I I don't know if I should tell you this, but I I usually look up people before I have them on just to hear their voice. And I was like, What will Anna's accent be? Will she be parking the car with a bit of London? Like I was like, What will happen? Like I'm so excited, but I'm like, you just sound like me. So that's actually like I was like, Okay, all right, so we can settle in with this, but you know never know what people pick up and especially if they live somewhere for a while, what what all they are latching on to. So I really love how you created that for her and you know that it was modeled off of your own loneliness and experiences that you were building, as you moved into a new town, which I think anyone can relate to. Mersey Football Club feels incredibly lived in.
I want to hear about the research and how you wanted to cultivate, you know, the atmosphere of the club. I will say the the most magical elements for me were like the bus scene and you create all of these like great fringe moments of them hanging out at pubs and hanging out together and that that might be the most lived in feeling for me as a reader but I would love to hear all the research that went into creating this club.
Anna McCallie (28:33)
I mean, first of all, thank you. That is far and away my biggest hope with this team is that you just, you just want to hang out with them. They feel real and they feel like they're a family. And this comes from a long-standing obsession with like, do cast members of a TV show, are they really friends with each other? Like, Courtney Cox and Jennifer Anderson are hanging out. Like they're really friends. I love that. I have always loved that.
The research for Mersey was that I've been a fan of a team called Liverpool FC, which is based in Liverpool and wears red, similar to Mersey. I've been a fan of theirs for almost 20 years at this point, 15, 20 years. And when I was drafting this, there were two players and they've both left the club now, but they were like just best friends with each other. and one of them is Scottish and one is English. And the social media team like really honed in on that because they were so funny together and they were so funny with the rest of the squad. And so I just watched a ton of Instagram videos and YouTube videos about this team. And I watched them training, and you see these little moments where they're like bantering with each other.
And I just thought how fun it would be to be there with them and to be capturing that or to be the one who's asking them the questions and getting to play with them, I thought that would be so fun. And so that's yeah, that's what Abby got to do is just I dropped her into Liverpool YouTube videos and said, What would she do in this situation?
Book Gang- Amy (30:10)
Right. And she has to toe the line, which I feel like with social media, we don't often acknowledge. Like it's very hard to not in some ways center yourself as the social media person, right? People were highly entertained by her and she is, you know, starting to draw attention with the content she creates and also the moments, the real life moments that she's experiencing.
There's a scene on the bus where she's wearing one of their jerseys and like that becomes like a big, like little showy moment, which I absolutely delighted in. But yeah, you have to create these moments so that you can engage the fans. And that's a tricky terrain for her.
Anna McCallie (30:49)
Yeah, it is. And I think, especially, you know, influencer culture, the idea of someone coming into a club like this and using them to promote their own channels, I think would be absolutely realistic. And Charlotte in the story, Abby's Boss, gets is very much like, do not do this. And I think that comes from a place of being burnt by it. And at the same time, it's this tricky line to walk because you do want to be friendly with them so they'll open up to you. You don't I think like the worst videos are when you can tell that the players like resent being interviewed or resent being filmed. So it was like very important to create this feeling of like, yeah, Abby's on the bus. That's our girl. But also, yeah, have that tension of, ooh, what are her, you know, what's what are her motives here?
Book Gang- Amy (31:42)
Yeah, yeah, I totally get it. I mean, we also get a little bit of the WAGs culture, which I didn't really know very much about. Obviously the Beckham's is the only thing that I can even hold on it onto celebrity wise, but did you learn a lot about that experience as well as you were crafting this book?
Anna McCallie (31:59)
Yeah, I was like when I first got into Liverpool in sort of the late noughties, early tens, I was really interested in their WAG's and WAG culture because it's just brutal over here. The tabloids are so intense. and it's like, think about that scene in Notting Hill when they've published all of these old naked pictures of Julia Roberts' character. Like that's what it is.
And so these I think in a way that in America, WAGs kind of parlay that into being on Real Housewives or having their own shows. And certainly that happens here, but it's like if you're on the bad side of the media, you're just vilified in a way that's really, really intense. and so it was I think it was important for Claire, Lachlan's wife, to to feel that pressure in both ways and to want to say, like, okay, well, if this is what I am and I'm a WAG and I like it, then how do I make this work for me? How do I harness this culture to like promote myself and build the life that I want rather than just let it drag me down, which happens a lot. And I think, yeah, I think the tabloids over here are brutal. So highly do not recommend, yeah. Yeah.
Book Gang- Amy (33:15)
Yeah, I mean we can only like imagine, I think, with the royal family and stuff, like what they all endured. I think, you know, I had recently watched The Crown and just kind of reliving everything that was going on with the tabloid tabloids was really fascinating to me. And although I feel like we are better than we used to be and and I would like to believe in some aspects a little bit kinder, I do think after interviewing, you know, celebrities from the nineties, they had a very different experience, right? In the headlines, and we have, you know, kind of gotten better about it. There are still aspects of it that are just terrible. But that's like a whole other level of being a voyeur like scrutiny. I can only imagine how one might want to protect themselves. And I think you added a lot of nuance to that conversation, which I think was important and necessary in this book.
Anna McCallie (34:06)
I'm glad. Yeah, I think it's just, it's wild to me. And I think when I I was watching an interview with Jennifer Garner the other day where she's talking about this paparazzo who's followed her for twenty years, and of course she resents his constant presence in her life, but when this other guy was stalking her, like she's the one he ran to because there was that like feeling of trust, which is just a wild thing. Like truly, truly. And what a crazy thing to have to factor into your life and the life of your kids.
And I think the tension, a huge part of the tension between Lachlan and Claire in the book is that like Lachlan wants nothing to do with this lifestyle. And that would be his nightmare. And Claire has kind of accepted that if you want the perks of it, it comes with some pain. Yeah, so I think I think it's a nuanced conversation about women in the media and wives. And it's yeah, we got to put a little bit of it in this book, but yeah, it's fascinating.
Book Gang- Amy (35:04)
Yeah, I love it. Well, Anna, I want to talk through one of my favorite scenes in this book with you because you are building some chemistry between Abby and Lachlan, which people can uncover in the story. But one aspect is their force proximity becomes kind of a vehicle for their lives to kind of intertwine in unexpected ways in this book. And there is a scene with them sharing dinner that you do such an incredible job with and I want to talk about this. I am quoting you here.
It says, "I take the pickle off his sandwich. He takes a handful of my fries. I mix ketchup and mayo together on a small plate and slide it between us. He fishes the lemon out of my diet Coke with his knife and plops it into his water. I spear the tomato on my burger with my fork, just as he lifts the top of his sandwich up for me to slide it in. It's a routine developed over the course of countless shared meals." So can you talk a little bit about creating these moments of intimacy and how you wanted the reader to see how these two were becoming more intertwined?
Anna McCallie (36:11)
Yes, I love that scene. I will say it is an homage to Two Weeks Notice, which is like a rom-com I think kinda flies under the radar, but there's a scene when Sandra Bullock it's so good.
Book Gang- Amy (36:22)
Wait, I've never seen this. What is this about? Okay.
Anna McCallie (36:25)
It's like, okay, so Hugh Grant is this like big real estate multi millionaire tycoon and he keeps churning through lawyers because he keeps hiring these like unqualified but super hot women. And his brother forces him to hire a really competent lawyer who is played by Sandra Bullock. And so she is like this no nonsense person and they just they immediately snap into this like, not copacetic, I'm trying to like cohabitation. They're just completely like cannot live without each other in a very professional way. And then obviously like develops romantic feelings later on.
But there's a scene when they're at a business lunch and something very similar happens to this, and they put down a plate of salad, and he automatically goes over and takes off all the beets off of her salad, and she's like, beet, beet, beet because you missed one. Anyway, it's a great movie, everyone should watch it.
Book Gang- Amy (37:18)
Yeah.
Anna McCallie (37:20)
So the scene was an homage to that, but also I think like romance is all about these grand sweeping gestures, and I love those. Who doesn't love those? But daily intimacy is so much more important because life isn't just the big gestures. Life is people wanting to do things for you, not because they want attention or validation, but just because like that's what you need. And I loved writing this scene because I wanted to convey how close they'd gotten in such a short amount of time that they don't, like all the walls have come down and they're just living their lives in this tandem sort of choreography and not even realizing it.
And then that's why I like that Abby's best friend Josh is in the scene watching it happen. And I think that's the first time that Abby realizes like, ooh, this is actually kind of wild that I have this much intimacy with a guy that I'm not dating.
Book Gang- Amy (38:26)
Yeah, I loved his observation of that. And also I was thinking when Anna made the scene, did you have to go through it? Did you get a played out? How did you do this? How or, you know, this the catalogue of movements?
Anna McCallie (38:39)
I am looking at the scene here. I think a lot of them are just things that I like I hate when people put lemon in my Diet Coke, so I would love it if someone would take it out of my Diet Coke for me. I love mixing ketchup and mayo for my fries. So it's really just like imagining myself in that moment and what I would want people to, how I would want them to amend my lunch order.
Book Gang- Amy (38:59)
Okay. Laclan is such a dreamy character and I loved how you created him. I wanted to talk through what are some like special characteristics you wanted to offer, maybe some stereotypical things that you wanted to get away from, especially with his role in this type of work and what he does.
Anna McCallie (39:18)
Yeah, I think at the baseline, it's just that I'm so uninterested in writing uncomplicated men. I don't like reading about uncomplicated men. I don't like it when they exist as a blank canvas for the heroine to sort of project all her faults on. So I knew that he needed to have nuance and depth and that comes through this his story of separating from his wife and making that decision. I think especially I don't read a lot of sports romance, I'll be honest. and to me, this is actually more of an office romance that it just happens to be that the office is a football team. But I think athletes are often portrayed in media and in real life as these kind of macho, alpha man, overbearing, highly competitive. And that's great, but like what's underneath that?
And he can be really aggressive on the pitch, but what's going on behind the scenes? And I love that he trusts Abby enough to start to show her that vulnerable person underneath and that he's going through stuff too. So that was really exciting to explore and to think about like, yeah, what if this impossibly handsome man was also like smart and vulnerable and deep and went to therapy? Like what a wild thing that would be. So yeah, is he idealized? Sure, but what's the point of reading romance for normal men? No.
Book Gang- Amy (40:57)
Right, and has a Scottish accent.
Anna McCallie (41:00)
Yes. I mean nothing better, right? That covers up any number of sins. Yeah.
Book Gang- Amy (41:06)
Wait, did you listen to the audiobook? Have you listened to your audiobook?
Anna McCallie (41:09)
I have listened to parts of it, enough that I've heard her accents. I can't listen to the whole thing because then I just start thinking like, my god, no, that's why how d why did I write that? but yes, her accent, Mia Hutchinson, Mia Hutchinson Shaw, the greatest, her Scottish accent is so good. I legitimately was like, my god, I have a crush on a woman doing the voice of a man that I invented, like what's happening?
Book Gang- Amy (41:38)
Yeah. I was meal prepping while I like listened to your book. So I had like a print copy going so I could highlight so when we talked I had some passages that we could talk through. But I was like grinning, like ear to ear standing in my kitchen alone, you know, like kicking my feet because this this Scottish accent and the banter that you created for these characters was like so delicious and I always wonder, like I know everyone feels very conscious of their work, but her accent was spectacular. Did you have any role in getting to pick who got to portray that?
Anna McCallie (42:11)
I did, yeah. They sent me four narrators and I narrowed it down to two that just f sounded more like Abby to me because that was what was most important, is it's it's her voice, so that really had to resonate. and then of the two, I asked if they could send me Scottish accents because he's second most important and I can't have, you know, groundskeeper Willie in your head for thirteen hours or however long it is. And I will say both of their Scottish accents were very good, but I think Mia had actually studied in Scotland for a time and so it just felt more lived in and I just loved I loved her accent and I think she nailed it. And I threw so many accents at her with
Book Gang- Amy (42:55)
You did.
Anna McCallie (42:56)
Like so many regional English accents and regional Scottish accents, and I was like, my friends always ask me if I'm gonna narrate the audiobook. I'm like, absolutely not. No one should ever hear my Scottish accent.
Book Gang- Amy (43:08)
Oh my gosh. Well, I delighted in it. I think you picked a great narrator and I hope that people when they pick this one up, I actually would encourage them to get the audiobook because it was such an immersive experience and it felt almost like watching a TV show in in that regard because she flushed out all of those characters so well that I felt like this warm intimacy with each one of them. And it was easier for my brain to catalog, I think too, as a reader, like, this voice belongs to this person or this voice belongs to this person and helps me kind of keep hold of all the characters that are in this, you know, book, which is a huge undertaking. I just want to acknowledge that a lot of debut writers will not take on a large cast of characters because it's just too much. So they often have two people or even one person with a couple of orbiting like other people. So this is a big, big task for you as a writer.
Anna McCallie (43:58)
Yeah, I think it was important that you got a sense of the team. I didn't want it to just be Lachlan and then maybe one other player. Like the whole point is that she feels overwhelmed in a good way by this like all these boisterous men all around her. And so I felt important to carry that spirit. And so all all praise to Mia for knocking it out of the park.
Book Gang- Amy (44:18)
Yeah. Well, I wanna talk about one aspect of the story that may be a challenge for some readers and just talk it through with you. A lot of romance readers have very strong feelings about infidelity in their stories. And I was wondering if you were aware of those sensitivities when you wrote it and did it influence your approach to writing that relationship or what you thought about all of that. I know that you have been reading reader responses and that can be a deal breaker for some romance readers, and we're trying to get people to read it.
Anna McCallie (44:47)
Yeah. Yeah. Please read it.
Book Gang- Amy (44:50)
Yeah.
Anna McCallie (44:51)
I think the short answer is I didn't know that it was such a thing. because I hadn't been a historically that enmeshed in the romance community. I hadn't really engaged with it online. I sent an early draft of the book to a friend of mine who is really online and she did flag like, just so you know, this is a thing that some romance readers really don't like. And I just thought like okay. Because like, of course I get it. Especially if you're reading romance because you want pure escapism. Yeah, you don't want messy, complicated ethical dilemmas. And so when people either choose not to read it because that's a factor, or it affects how they reacted to it. Like I do get it. I totally understand. I was, I felt very strongly that it needed to be in the blurb on the back cover and that it comes up. I think it's in chapter two when she's reading his Wikipedia article, she realizes that he's married. So I didn't want it to be a thing where you're 10 chapters in and you really love them together and then boom, he's married. It was always part of his storyline.
I did at some points think, maybe he's just engaged or maybe they're partners, but like I just kept coming back to the fact that he's married. And I think a lot of it is because when I was drafting this, three of my really good friends were going through divorces. And so I felt very empathetic, sympathetic for what they were going through. I think it helps to underscore just how deeply in denial Abby is about her own healing and that she got out of this engagement because of infidelity and now she's entering into at very least an emotionally infidelity situation. but really it's just because like God, like life is messy and it's so complicated.
And we rarely make decisions that are a hundred percent in our best interest and don't have any negative consequences and black and white situations don't ever really happen. And so that to me was more interesting. and just to explore that vulnerability that all three of them would have, Abby and Lachlan and Claire, it was incredibly important for me not to demonize Claire as the other woman, as easy as it would have been to make her cheating on Lachlan or just like a bad person.
I thought it would be much more realistic if all three of them make bad decisions, all three of them make good decisions. I'm rambling because I think about this all the time because I realize it's such a fraught thing, and I hope that people will like go on the journey with me and see if I land the plane in a sufficiently satisfying way. But it was absolutely something that I wrestled with and something that I recognize that readers are wrestling with too.
Book Gang- Amy (47:56)
Look at me with my hard-hitting journalism questions. I just I'm like, what do you want to say about infidelity here? Anna, tell us your big think piece on it. I just think it's so interesting to me because I read lots of different kinds of stories to which affairs occur and happen within those narratives. And of all the other genres, I don't necessarily it's not that I don't have a moral compass about it, but it's that it's just like it's part of the story. And so I don't really think about that.
And I was going through the reviews because when I create questions here, it's like what is the thing that either makes the reader tick or is something that bothered them? And when it comes to this, it wasn't surprising to me because I've had these experiences like I told you with Emily Henry's Beach Read, where this person is like, This is not the kind of book I want. And, you know, I'm assuming this is like the romance for every reader, and so it you know it's just it's such an interesting audience, and I had to learn how to talk about romance here because I it's an I am kind of ashamed about the ways that I treated the genre before because I didn't see it as like a serious genre, I didn't see it as a genre for like smart people. I'm like, why would you read that when there's literary fiction or all these other kinds of genres? And it wasn't until I endured my own hardships that I realized like this genre is so important to me now.
And I am ashamed about the way that I treated it before. I've said that before with other romance writers. Like I just didn't understand how impactful and important this genre is. Not only just for us to see what men should behave like, right? Like how we want relationships to work in our life, but also that we crave those happily ever afters. And Abby does get her happily ever after, but you may be on a journey experience with this couple as they are going through and figuring out who they are together.
Anna McCallie (50:02)
Yeah, I think I've had I have such a similar thought process. And I've had friends of mine say, my god, I can't believe you wrote a romance novel. And I'd get offended by that because like, what is more human than falling in love, right? It's like literally the thing that distinguishes us from animals, that and our thumbs. And so like that's another reason why I wanted him to get to be married, is because like that happens, and I think if we're gonna embrace romance as fully as we all should, because it is an incredible genre, then it should cover a lot of different types of romances. And this is a very complicated one, and I'm certainly not denying that.
And I would feel icky about a romance novel with like actual physical cheating. Like if Lachlan were in a very happy marriage and the character comes in like, I wouldn't want to read that. So I think like everybody's got a limit for what they do and don't want and can and can't tolerate. But I think it was just important for me to explore how these three people could become the best versions of themselves because of and without each other in this kind of complicated way.
Book Gang- Amy (51:22)
Yeah. Co-signing. Love this book. You know this. So if readers end up picking this for their book club and you could dream of a perfect book club meeting, what would you like to see them talking about from this story?
Anna McCallie (51:34)
I very selfishly would like them all to decide who should be cast as Lachlan in the film adaptation. because I get this question all the time and I am criminally negligent on my knowledge of very hot 30-something Scottish actors. So I know, I'm like, how old is Ewan McGregor? No, too old.
Book Gang- Amy (51:55)
Yeah.
Anna McCallie (51:56)
Like David Tennant? No, too old. So when your book clubs have that conversation, please let me know. I look forward to some really good Googling.
But then, you know, other than that, yeah, I think kind of like the discussion we've just had, I hope that it I hope that it brings up big questions about what we want out of relationships and what it means to start over and how do you how do you ensure that you can do that while also making sure you have a safety net and protecting your own peace, but also stepping into the unknown and all that stuff.
Book Gang- Amy (52:29)
Yeah. Well, I know you didn't get to experience flashlight reading with your own novel since you were making it. What books or authors have been giving you those feelings of you have to like stay up all night and read?
Anna McCallie (52:42)
Yes, this won't surprise you given my earlier conversation about how bad I am at sleeping, but a lot of books make me stay up late. I'll give a shout out to my fellow Thousand Voices author Emma Brody, who I think we all have read Into the Blue.
Book Gang- Amy (52:57)
Yes.
Anna McCallie (52:58)
That was a big flashlight reading moment for me. And of course I was trying to think about why it felt so intense and so special. And I think it's because it takes place in very much a contemporary setting, but she's using this language that almost is more evocative of like of a romantasy right? They have this connection that's on this otherworldly level, this spiritual level, because they're these scene partners. And I thought that was fascinating because it never veered into feeling weirdly sci-fi in a way that didn't make sense. It felt very grounded in reality, but their love story was so palpable and so intense and I just devoured that one. Yeah, a couple of real late nights. Yeah.
Book Gang- Amy (53:45)
It was so good on audiobook too.
Anna McCallie (53:52)
I haven't listened to the audiobook
Book Gang- Amy (53:52)
Shout out to Julia Whalen, who is the queen of audiobooks and I will say the format of that was not necessarily, I it took me a little bit longer. I know a lot of readers were like immediately immersed. And I just knew like Julia Whalen's confident narration would take me where I needed to go with that story. And I would get there and she would do it well. And it was so cool because Julia came to a neighboring town and I got to go see her and tell her in person like how amazing she was on that that performance, especially because I just think no matter what she narrates, I'm like I'll give it a shot. Like even if it's not my genre, cup of tea, a book I would normally pick up, I love her narration. So highly recommend it if people are going to indulge in it. It's really good on audio.
Anna McCallie (54:37)
I actually met her at an event after BookCon 'cause Emma and I were on a panel and so Emma went and and brought me along, which was so kind, and had this great chat with Julia and we added each other on Instagram and then like a couple hours later she messaged me and she's like, my god, I can't believe I spent the whole night talking to you and didn't realize that you're the author of Abby Offsides. I have your galley sitting on my at my desk right now and I was like, What is happening?
Book Gang- Amy (55:01)
You're like, am I a celebrity now? Is this happening? Yeah, that's amazing.
Anna McCallie (55:05)
Like, no I know. It's like Julia Whalen, you're not allowed to know who I am. That's wild.
Book Gang- Amy (55:09)
She's so generous. She's so generous. And I just love that, you know, you got to have that experience as well. Well, what are you doing now at night? Do you have a new story? What's happening?
Anna McCallie (55:19)
Yes, I was just looking at the date. So in nineteen days I have edits due on my second book. So yeah, I'm in the middle of a big I know, right?
Book Gang- Amy (55:30)
What are you doing here?
Anna McCallie (55:33)
I said I was telling some friends I'm in the deep clean my entire house stage of editing. Today I was using my label maker to make new labels for my linen cupboard. So I hope my editor is not listening to this. Yeah, the draft is done, so now we're just kind of ironing out some last stuff, but it's very exciting.
Book Gang- Amy (55:56)
Ooh, I can't wait. Are you gonna tell us anything about it or no?
Anna McCallie (56:00)
Let's see. I will tell you it's not a sports romance.
Book Gang- Amy (56:04)
Okay.
Anna McCallie (56:05)
It is, I told my agent I only ever want to write books about smart women with jobs. So I'll say it's another American moves to the UK. But his is more in the world of finance and academia. And there may or may not be like puzzles and riddles involved. And that and that's yeah.
Book Gang- Amy (56:27)
Okay, I'm in for this. Whatever you're making, Anna. I can't wait. Well, we are gonna close out this show here, but if you are a patron of the show, you can join me behind the paywall because Anna's gonna be part of our spoiler chat. You can hear about the back half of the book. It's five dollars. It keeps us independent and gives us a chance to give space to writers like Anna to tell their stories. So we greatly appreciate all of your help.
But we always end our shows exactly the same way, which is what's making you feel proud in this moment, whether it's with your writing career or life in general, but I also get to tell you, I'm so glad I got to meet you. We are forever friends as far as I'm concerned. I can't wait to see what else you write. But I just loved this book so very much and I want to say thank you for just the most wonderful escape and talking to me about, you know, romance, it's just so fun to talk to smart people about romance in general. And this has been a lovely afternoon.
Anna McCallie (57:22)
Thank you so much. I have so enjoyed it. I just it's still surreal to me that people are reading this book. So when it resonates it just feels it's like Christmas.
Book Gang- Amy (57:32)
What's making you feel proud, Anna?
Anna McCallie (57:35)
I think when people like kind of what I just said, like when people tell me how much they loved it, that makes me feel really proud. And when people say they're excited for the next book, I there there are a lot of ways this could have gone and I do feel like I'm in one of the best timelines. So I'm just very I'm very proud of how it's all worked out.
Book Gang- Amy (57:57)
Well, thanks for not sleeping. I really appreciate it 'cause we all benefit.
Anna McCallie (58:01)
Yeah. Not me, but okay.
Book Gang- Amy (58:05)
Everyone but Anna is benefiting from her not sleeping.
Anna McCallie (58:06)
Everyone but me. Yeah.
Book Gang- Amy (58:09)
Well, cheers to insomnia and Abby Offsides is available on store shelves now. So readers, please pick it up and definitely check out the audiobook.
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