A Study in Sparkling: A Novel #author Jodi McAlister

Fiona Fisher thought she had it all: a loving husband, three kids, and a life far away from the suffocating expectations of her family. But when her husband reveals that he’s leaving her for his secret second family, Fiona is left devastated and humiliated.

Satoshi Tsukamoto wants it all. He’s the owner of a popular wine bar, and he’s studying for the hardest test in the world: the Master Sommelier exam. There aren’t enough hours in the day for anything else—except maybe for Fiona, his favorite customer, and the woman he’s absolutely, catastrophically in love with.

On paper, Fiona and Satoshi make no sense. He’s eight years younger than her and has no time for romance. She’s a single mother and doesn’t know if she’ll ever be able to trust anyone again. But how can Fiona resist when Satoshi suggests they give into their mutual attraction and let off some steam? And how can Satoshi resist when the woman he adores is finally within his grasp—even if they’ve agreed to keep things casual?

Jodi McAlister is an author of romantic fiction for adults and young adults, as well as being an academic.

To connext with Jodi ....
https://jodimcalister.com.au/
https://www.instagram.com/jodimcalister/ 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Good morning for the first time. Jody McAllister. Welcome to Yellow Shelf. Oh, hi. Thank you for having me. I'm very excited to be here. You're not as half as delighted as I am. First time, I kind of couldn't believe that we were connected and I get to chat to you. Very successful author in contemporary romance space. Congratulations, your latest book. Yeah, look at it. Isn't she so pretty? So cute. A study and sparkling. Jodie, tell us all about it.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

So A Study and Sparkling is the second book in my Love Note series. But you don't need to have read the first book, An Academic Affair, for this one to make sense. So obviously, I would love it if you did. So this is a romantic comedy that is about embarrassment in many, many ways. So our heroine Fiona begins the book where she's just been left by her husband for his secret second family. And so big kind of big soap operatic concept that I wanted to really approach in a really grounded human way. Like, what would it actually feel like if something that sort of ridiculous happened to you? And so she's slowly putting herself back together after what has been this enormous humiliation because everyone knows what happened to her. And someone who offers to help her put herself back together in a uh very particular way, uh, is a very good friend of hers, Satoshi, who runs uh the local wine bar that she patronizes and who's had a crush on her for a very long time.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

And you know, for someone I you know, when I read the book, for someone who's not single and not but it's such a great escape, these stories. So whether you whether this is you living this or whether it's just that escape, it's such a great story. Oh, thank you so much. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

I wanted to make sure that this was like a book that you could read on the beach, but also had some real heft and emotional truth to it. That is, I think, the line I love to walk as an author is to give you something that is that bit of an escape, but also has these kind of like deep human concerns running through it.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

Yeah. And I just wanted to check in. I guess if anyone's watching for the first time, do you want to tell us a little bit about you and your writing style? Because, like I mentioned, there's a number of books um that you've written. What what how do you because you're also an academic, so I just you I want to capture that piece in your work. You know, you're a passionate, you know, academic author, writer, creative writer, but you know, you deliver your own work. So can you tell us a bit about you and a bit about your writing process?

SPEAKER_01 2:44

Yeah, absolutely. So to sort of begin with my dual author academic identity, uh, I am a romance author who is also a scholar of romance fiction. So part of my PhD was about romance fiction. I've continued to study romance ever since. Uh, I'm currently the president of the International Association for the Study of Popular Romance. Probably the defining question of my research career are what are the stories we tell about love and what do they do, what do they do to the ways that we think? And when you are that focused critically on stories, it just really made sense to me to turn theory into practice. And it wasn't like I had this academic career and then I suddenly decided to start to write. I've been writing since I was like, I don't know, six, very, very young. But I am a much better author for being a scholar and a much better scholar for being a writer. I think a lot of my uh academic concerns and thoughts tend up making their way uh into my books, perhaps a little bit more obvious in my previous book, An Academic Affair, which is about two academics, than it is this one, but oh, trust me, it's still there.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

And do what do you do when you write? So you do you kind of go away to a retreat? Do you write from four in the morning till six? Is there a theme and a process to writing? Or I'd love you to share that.

SPEAKER_01 4:07

Yeah, absolutely. So I'm quite a disciplined writer and I have to be with my schedule at the moment. So I'm a full-time academic and I'm also producing a book a year at the moment. So I tend to do my creative writing in the very early mornings. So currently I get up at 4:30 and write till my workday starts and then collapse into a bit of a heap at the end of it. But I mean, I've discovered that's what works for me. I think there's a lot of people give very prescriptive advice about how to write. And the best advice I can give you is to work out how your brain works and to, you know, maximize that. So I am a morning person, I start my day very clever and get progressively less clever as the day goes along. So I've learned to kind of maximize my clever hours for my creative output and then give everything else to my scholarly life.

SPEAKER_00 4:58

Yeah. And uh, you know, you mentioned because writing uh, you know, is is part of your balance in life. There's more books to come. Do I do I hear that?

SPEAKER_01 5:09

Oh, yeah, yeah. So I'm currently hard at work on the third book in the Love Note series, uh, which follows some characters that you will see in A Study and Sparkling. And I'm about three-quarters of the way through that one at the moment, I would say.

SPEAKER_00 5:23

Awesome. Well, I just yeah, I just want to say how lucky I feel to be able to talk to you today and share your uh current book with the Yellow Shelf audience. I'd love you to come back with any future work. I'd love you to come back and I can continue to share your work. But enjoy, keep writing, and keep in keep teaching others to be creative. It's wonderful the work you do, Jody.

SPEAKER_01 5:47

Oh, thank you so much. Yeah, I love it when I see uh people who've been in my creative writing classes go out into the world as well.

SPEAKER_00 5:53

Yeah. And just finally, if we're curious, if we're watching anywhere in the world, we're curious to learn more about you, to learn more about your current book or even your your catalogue of books, um, you've put a website, Instagram. You point us in the direction and I'll put it in the show notes. Where would you like us to go?

SPEAKER_01 6:09

Yeah, so probably my website and Instagram are the two best places. So my website is jodiemacalister.com.au, and I'm on Instagram as at Jodi McAllister. Very easily findable. I'm very good.

SPEAKER_00 6:21

You can be found. But I'll put it in the show notes to make it easy. Jodi, thank you so much for joining us. I look chatting to you in the future. Oh, yeah, I'll come back whenever you want. Cheers.