65. LAYNE FARGO: Retelling Wuthering Heights with the drama of Olympic Ice Dance

Layne Fargo is bringing the chaos in her latest book, The Favorites. This retelling of Wuthering Heights in the world of competitive ice dance is so full of drama, it's being called "Gossip Girl on Ice". We're talking all about retellings, crafting drama and tension, and getting skating icon Johnny Weir to voice a character in the audiobook.

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Transcript

00;00;03;00 - 00;00;22;28
Speaker 1
Hi and welcome to Literary Hype. I am Stephanie here literary hype woman and today's author conversation is a fun one for me because it's reconnecting with someone I did it Kindle with back in 2024 in the spring so to get to have Lane Fargo come back she told me about her book back then and I was very excited and now it is here and I get to talk about it with all of you.

00;00;23;00 - 00;00;52;19
Speaker 1
Lane Fargo's brand new book is called The Favorites, which is Wuthering Heights Meets the Competitive Olympic World of Ice Dance. And if you think that doesn't fit, you are wrong because they go well together in such a dramatic way that if you love drama, you're you're going to love this book. So get ready for this really fun conversation with Lane Fargo about her brand new book, her favorite welcome to Literary Hype.

00;00;52;19 - 00;00;55;26
Speaker 1
It's so exciting to have you on to talk about your brand new book, The Favorites.

00;00;56;02 - 00;01;01;16
Speaker 2
Thank you for having me. I'm excited to chat with you and it's nice to be reunited after our panel at C2e2 last year.

00;01;01;29 - 00;01;13;12
Speaker 1
It's hard to believe it's been a year since we met and you first told me about this book. So for anybody who hasn't seen it, tell them what this is about. But I really love the way you phrased it in our panel. That made me go, what?

00;01;14;15 - 00;01;32;04
Speaker 2
So it's a retelling of Wuthering Heights set in the world of Olympic Ice Dance, which they go together surprisingly well. It's very scandalous in DC and dramatic and just like a lot of people being terrible to each other as Emily Bronte intended.

00;01;32;13 - 00;01;50;25
Speaker 1
So when I first started talking to people about this book, after I read it, I was like, You gotta read this. It's like Wuthering Heights, but I stands and someone went, Wow, you have to really love both of those things to go that hard on a book to combine them. So what was your initial spark for this book?

00;01;51;01 - 00;02;13;17
Speaker 2
It was two different failed books that I was working on at the time, so one was a sort of gothic romance, and one was a thriller about rival ice dance teams. My first two books are, I guess they're thrillers we can talk more later, but I genuinely never know what genre I'm writing in until I'm done. But I was trying to write both of these books.

00;02;13;28 - 00;02;34;11
Speaker 2
It was not going well. I was like, bouncing back and forth between them and just miserable. Honestly, this is like 20, 20, 20, 21. So yeah. And then I decided to reread Wuthering Heights, which was one of my favorite books as a teenage girl, which is like the best time to read Wuthering Heights. I thought it might help me with the Gothic romance.

00;02;34;11 - 00;02;58;06
Speaker 2
Like, give me some ideas so I rewrote it, and then my, like, pandemic addled, isolated brain was like, What if I combined the figure skating and the Wuthering Heights into one book? So that's sort of where it came from. But I am genuinely like, I love Wuthering Heights and I love that sort of dramatic, over-the-top, gothic kind of stuff.

00;02;58;06 - 00;03;06;23
Speaker 2
And then I've been a figure skating fan and an Olympics fan for my whole life, so it was really a chance to nerd out about those two things really, really hard.

00;03;07;10 - 00;03;17;12
Speaker 1
There's a little bit of confusion about the genre. Some people think this is a romance, but it's just a romantic novel. So talk a little bit about the genre on this.

00;03;17;12 - 00;03;38;18
Speaker 2
My first book, I Temper, which has been labeled a psychological thriller by the publisher, but then people will be like, It's not a psychological thriller. And I'm like, You're probably right. Like, I don't know, I just I'm a chaotic Gemini and I've read a lot of different things and watch a lot of different things. And I just don't really think about genre that much when I'm writing.

00;03;38;18 - 00;03;48;06
Speaker 2
Not in like, I like your guy in your MFA, like pretentious way, just to know like I'm chaotic and I don't know what's going on sort of way. So yeah, I would say.

00;03;48;06 - 00;03;49;13
Speaker 1
This is more.

00;03;49;13 - 00;04;08;15
Speaker 2
I mean, no one knows what women's fiction is either, but I think it's more like that book club fiction. Someone called it. Actually, a couple of people have referred to it as Gossip Girl on Ice, which I think is like kind of a great way to describe it. So it's got the, like, romance and the like sexual tension and all that stuff.

00;04;08;15 - 00;04;31;21
Speaker 2
But the focus is more on the journey of the female main character, Kat and just like the drama. So I think there will be a lot of overlap with romance readership because the love story is such a strong part of it. But there are some tropes in this that I've heard from some Angry Romance readers, and they're definitely not things that I would have put in a book if I was writing a romance.

00;04;31;21 - 00;04;42;18
Speaker 2
Like I'm a big romance reader I love the genre, and I definitely had an influence on this book. But yeah, man, I don't know. I'm just I'm just chaotic. It is what it is.

00;04;42;23 - 00;04;53;10
Speaker 1
Well, it doesn't help in the like a chaotic genre spectrum of things that, like the new shelving way for Barnes Noble is like, what do you think it is?

00;04;54;09 - 00;04;55;09
Speaker 2
So on the whole.

00;04;55;10 - 00;04;58;22
Speaker 1
People could have different takes on it and put it in different places.

00;04;59;09 - 00;04;59;15
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00;04;59;29 - 00;05;01;11
Speaker 1
That's not helpful.

00;05;01;17 - 00;05;19;12
Speaker 2
In terms of not in like bookstores and then like in the lists it's been on, like I've seen it on Thriller lists, I think, and like crime because that is what I used to write I guess. And then I seeing it on romance list, I see it on literary fiction list. I'm like, definitely not that. I don't know.

00;05;19;24 - 00;05;38;27
Speaker 2
I went to a bookstore the other day and couldn't find it and it was in the romance section, but usually it's in general fiction. Yeah, I don't know. I'm like everyone, you read it and you decide what you think it is, but don't expect like a traditional romance because it definitely goes. Some places like these are very toxic, traumatized people.

00;05;38;27 - 00;05;41;07
Speaker 2
I'll just say that is messy.

00;05;41;22 - 00;05;48;19
Speaker 1
So with that mess, where do you draw the inspiration from for these insanely toxic relationships?

00;05;49;11 - 00;06;15;10
Speaker 2
That's a great question because I am an like old, boring married person. Like, I've been with my partner for almost 19 years. We were college sweethearts. We've like a really boring, normal relationship I don't know. It's always been disturbingly easy for me to get in the head of these characters who are just doing terrible things and being like ruthless and manipulative and.

00;06;17;06 - 00;06;31;07
Speaker 2
Hmm, I mean, I do love shows like, you know, Gossip Girl, The O.C. that was like classic back in the day with these like, soapy, dramatic, kind of over-the-top shows. Are some of my favorite things to watch and reality shows, obviously.

00;06;31;12 - 00;06;32;28
Speaker 1
And I've also been watching the trailers.

00;06;33;11 - 00;06;36;15
Speaker 2
So I need to get into that because Alan Cumming, I mean, I love him.

00;06;36;19 - 00;06;45;02
Speaker 1
Oh, you reality stars showing how dumb they are sometimes and how manipulative they are at the same time.

00;06;45;16 - 00;06;55;09
Speaker 2
That's on my list of shows where I'm like, I know I would love this, and I'm almost not watching it because I am afraid of like the person I will pick up when I do watch it. But eventually I will.

00;06;56;00 - 00;07;06;03
Speaker 1
Yeah, I discovered it like halfway through season two and I binged one and I like I caught up in like a day and a half and my husband was like, Are you kidding me?

00;07;06;10 - 00;07;07;29
Speaker 2
OK, he obsessed.

00;07;08;25 - 00;07;15;20
Speaker 1
The new episode dropped last night, and I was like, I, you're driving and I'm going to watch it without you. I'm not going to wait three days. I'm sorry.

00;07;16;06 - 00;07;19;13
Speaker 2
No, you don't love anyone that much. I'm like, Yeah.

00;07;20;27 - 00;07;27;26
Speaker 1
This season is insane with Bob the drag queen and Boston Rob from Survivor. And it's just bananas.

00;07;28;02 - 00;07;35;12
Speaker 2
It's going to take over my life. I should save it as a reward for it, like after I hit some like deadline or something because otherwise and just, oh.

00;07;35;25 - 00;07;39;06
Speaker 1
I need to start on the international versions and just lose my life to that.

00;07;41;04 - 00;07;41;27
Speaker 2
All we can do right now.

00;07;42;13 - 00;08;00;23
Speaker 1
So with all of this juicy drama, you also have the ice skating aspect of it. So talk a little bit about how you got into the ice dance world and interested in ice skating and all of that and how you wove in some of these real times and dramas into this story.

00;08;00;25 - 00;08;18;28
Speaker 2
I would say pretty much everything that happens in the book is either kind of like inspired by a real scandal or like maybe in another sport sometimes, but a lot of it straight up from figure skating, which is why it's so funny to me. I get all these comments and reviews where people are like, it's over-the-top, it's unrealistic.

00;08;18;28 - 00;08;37;08
Speaker 2
When I hear from people who are actually former skaters who have been in that world, they're like, Yeah, sounds like a typical Tuesday. Like this is just how it goes. But for me, I've always been very obsessed with the Olympics specifically. Like, I don't care about sports, except when the Olympics are on and then I care about all the sports.

00;08;37;19 - 00;09;07;26
Speaker 2
I will watch everything. I'm obsessed. And skating was always my favorite growing up. Like I grew up in the era of the Tonya Harding, Nancy Kerrigan thing. And like, you know, that was like a wild time in figure skating. So as far as ice dance specific Glee, it was the 2018 Olympics where it has a virtue. And Scott Moyer did their routine to Moulin Rouge, which people told me they like watch it on a weekly basis for the serotonin boost.

00;09;07;26 - 00;09;28;10
Speaker 2
And I totally support that. It's so sexy and incredible. But what really interested in me was like the Pharrell reaction that the Internet had to those to like they just have so much chemistry and everyone on mine was like, oh my God, what's going on? Are they a couple? They have to be a couple, right? Like, they're not they're just they just have incredible chemistry.

00;09;28;10 - 00;09;47;28
Speaker 2
They're really good actors. I don't know. But I was fascinated as a writer by thinking about like, what a really intense relationship like that could be like and like all the different forms it could take over the years because Tessa and Scott and a lot of these teams, they start skating together as kids. And have this it's like a marriage.

00;09;47;28 - 00;10;07;18
Speaker 2
But I mean, even more intense almost. It's like you got married off when you were like seven and you're still with this person all day, every day, years later, trying to like and this really high pressure situation where you're training and competing. And I don't know that just seemed like such a fun thing to explore the behind the scenes of.

00;10;08;03 - 00;10;19;00
Speaker 1
There's so much detail in this book about their performances and the music and their outfits. So talk a little bit about your inspiration in crafting these routines and how they looked.

00;10;19;01 - 00;10;40;26
Speaker 2
I watched a lot of YouTube videos. It's so fun and that can be work. So the music, it was really fun to pick, especially because this book is primarily set in the early 2000s, which is when I was in high school, college grad school and listening to music very obsessively, like more so than I do now. And so it was fun to revisit.

00;10;40;26 - 00;11;11;15
Speaker 2
I tried to pick songs that had like a real emotional charge for me personally, and also that had something to do with like whichever programs I show on the page, it's either going to be matching up with how the characters are feeling at that time and sort of amplifying it, or it was a lot of fun. When they're doing a program that is totally the opposite of how they're feeling right now, like they're really pissed at each other, but they have to act like they're so in love or whatever, and they are more or less successful at that, depending on their emotional state.

00;11;12;10 - 00;11;41;18
Speaker 2
But I had so much fun kicking with the costumes, just looking at all sorts of photos for inspiration and just even deciding what was going to be in the book versus sort of in there being, I should say, in Kat's point of view, like from her experience versus what they talk about in the documentary, portions of the book and the documentary portions were such a good way to kind of sneak in all the details about Ice Dance that I needed readers to know.

00;11;41;18 - 00;11;53;27
Speaker 2
But I didn't want to embarrass them, so I was able to like weave it into the dialog there like you would in a documentary. Like there's a lot of sort of explaining things in a documentary and setting the stage, and so that worked out really, really well.

00;11;54;11 - 00;12;02;24
Speaker 1
What was it like for you to craft the novel side and the TV side at the same time and kind of going back and forth and different formats.

00;12;02;27 - 00;12;18;24
Speaker 2
Because I'm a chaotic gem and I was like, I need to be able to bounce back and forth between things. Like if I'm just writing in one character's voice for a long time, I get restless so it was I did bounce back and forth a lot for the cat sections. She's basically like telling her story to the reader.

00;12;19;02 - 00;12;46;19
Speaker 2
So I did a lot of that by dictation. I would talk as cat or like Pace or my office and kind of talk as her and then run that through transcription software and kind of pick out lines or like a lot of it wasn't usable, but it just got me a lot of raw material. And then the documentary portions the real challenge there was first picking like who would be the voices in the documentary?

00;12;46;19 - 00;13;16;06
Speaker 2
And I wanted it to be people who show up in various ways throughout the regular narratives and then trying to make their voices really distinct just from their word choice, punctuation, which was kind of like the rhythm of the way they speak, and that was it was a lot faster to write those sections. But then editing it took forever because I would write a lot and then cut it down and down and down, almost like I was editing like raw footage of a documentary to get like just exactly what was needed.

00;13;16;16 - 00;13;31;05
Speaker 2
And this book is still it was. So I usually I'm not like someone who writes long books, but this one, it was so long and it's still long and I cut so much, but it covers a lot of time and events and I got it. I short, I think.

00;13;32;06 - 00;13;42;20
Speaker 1
With something of this time span, like it's a massive time span throughout this book. How do you approach deciding what needs to stay versus what can probably fall by the wayside?

00;13;42;24 - 00;14;08;23
Speaker 2
It was mostly about like Cat and Heath, their relationship and kind of like the big turning points for them. That was sort of how I focused it. And then I also had the signposts of the competitions which every single competition in the book, not just the Olympics, but like down to, you know, world's nationals, all the grand prize, whatever, like they are the actual competition, like it took place on that day in that city.

00;14;08;23 - 00;14;32;01
Speaker 2
If I could find the time of the ice dance events, I included that and I had all these like interrelated databases, super nerdy, but having those signposts of like, OK, if this happens in 2006, then like the next Olympics isn't to talk 2010. So like kind of how do we fill that time? What do I skip over what's interesting, what's not?

00;14;32;12 - 00;14;37;11
Speaker 2
But I was always basing it around like that competition schedule in a way that sort of like drove the plot.

00;14;37;20 - 00;14;47;07
Speaker 1
Well, we have all this ice outside of it. There's also the Bronte side of it. So talk a little bit about how Bronte has inspired you just as a writer in general.

00;14;47;13 - 00;15;11;17
Speaker 2
So I mean, first of all, Emily Bronte is my favorite. I'm not a Charlotte girl. I got a beef with Charlotte, but what I always loved about Wuthering Heights and just like Emily Bronte is whole vibe as far as far as we know. Like, so what we know about her is she was just so determined to do exactly what she wanted.

00;15;11;17 - 00;15;31;25
Speaker 2
Like, she didn't get married. She didn't like she didn't have a traditional life in a time when there would have been a lot of pressure to have the traditional life, she seemed to have like very big, unruly emotions, which is something I relate to a lot, especially when I was younger. It just felt like I look back on it and I'm like, how did I hold all those feelings in my body?

00;15;31;25 - 00;16;00;19
Speaker 2
That's crazy. So just that extremity of emotion and not being, like, ashamed or embarrassed by it, but just like embracing it, like stand out in the storm and scream at the clouds and whatever like that whole vibe. Yeah, I don't know. And then Heath, Cliff and Kathy are so they're such messes they're so terrible, they're so problematic. But I love them.

00;16;00;19 - 00;16;08;18
Speaker 2
They're just like two horrible people who found each other. And I just. Yeah, that's my favorite kind of love story. Honestly.

00;16;08;26 - 00;16;15;07
Speaker 1
And you got to visit where she wrote Wuthering Heights. So what was that experience like for you?

00;16;15;08 - 00;16;37;25
Speaker 2
Yes. So when I went to the UK last fall, my UK publisher brought me over to do various things. And one of the first things we did is they took me up to the Bronte Personage Museum in Yorkshire, and I was just like holding back tears the whole time. It was incredible. We were there on a day when the museum was closed, so we got to basically have a private tour.

00;16;38;06 - 00;16;59;15
Speaker 2
We filmed some social media content and they let us go behind the ropes. We weren't allowed to touch anything by accidentally touch the table. And I was like, I'm sort of it was just like mind blowing. Like, I feel like I still can't quite comprehend it. Like you're standing in this room and they're like, That's the table where she wrote Wuthering Heights and that's the cut through.

00;16;59;15 - 00;17;19;09
Speaker 2
We think she died and there's the graveyard. But I don't know, it just it was mind blowing. And the landscape there is so inspiring. Like, I want to just I was there just for a few hours. I want to go back and spend like a week and just kind of soak in the atmosphere, especially because the day I was there, it was like bright sun, blue sky.

00;17;19;09 - 00;17;37;00
Speaker 2
I was like, no, no, this isn't right. I know, but you could still feel like you stand there and you look out over the moors and like, feel the wind. And I just yeah, I felt like I understood Emily Bronte on a different level, but it would have been even better if it was, like, gray and gloomy.

00;17;37;09 - 00;17;40;20
Speaker 1
Just go buy a lottery ticket that you were in England when it was sunny.

00;17;41;02 - 00;17;43;04
Speaker 2
I know. Crazy, right? I was, like, the one day.

00;17;44;10 - 00;17;56;06
Speaker 1
So obviously cat and heath are based on Cathy and Heathcliff and their names, but you have this picture with Kate cats and heath bars. At what point did you realize that their names worked with candy?

00;17;56;08 - 00;18;08;14
Speaker 2
Pretty much when I wrote that scene, I was trying to think of stuff that their fans could do or like throw at them or what, I don't know. And that was I came up with that. I mean, I like Candy so now I give out candy at a lot of my events.

00;18;09;20 - 00;18;10;28
Speaker 1
I am here for candy.

00;18;11;01 - 00;18;11;18
Speaker 2
I love that.

00;18;11;27 - 00;18;21;08
Speaker 1
There's so much tension throughout this story. So much tension. So what is your secret sauce for crafting a good line of tension through your story?

00;18;21;28 - 00;18;44;23
Speaker 2
Oh, that's a good question. I mean, I'm like a pretty stressed out person. Oh, no. But I think like from a writing craft perspective, it's about just kind of keeping the reader off balance a little bit or kind of constantly. And like if you answer a question, then you have another question right away that follows on from that one.

00;18;44;23 - 00;19;13;06
Speaker 2
It was a lot of stuff that I learned writing thrillers. Even then, I kind of did that accidentally, too, that just dropping little clues, but not resolving everything so that people keep reading to find out. And in this case, the you start with the documentary intro where it's talking about something terrible and scandalous happened at the 2014 Olympics and we're sort of building towards that, so we know we're going to get there eventually.

00;19;13;06 - 00;19;32;19
Speaker 2
You got to wait to find out exactly what happened and just dropping in little like seeds and hints about that throughout was helpful too. But even that like the final sort of resolution of that changed a lot throughout the book. So it's almost like I can be hinting at something that then changes as I'm writing, but the reader doesn't have to know that.

00;19;32;21 - 00;19;37;29
Speaker 1
How do you avoid those seeds and hints being placed out the book Stealing Clickbait?

00;19;38;10 - 00;20;01;03
Speaker 2
I don't know if I do, honestly. Like sometimes. Sometimes it's like, well, we talk about it's gossip girl a nice right and like you'd have the like thing right before the, the commercial break where, you know, Serena saw Blair's boyfriend or whatever, and you're like, what's going to happen so I feel like sometimes those like, you know, want to have it every chapter all the time, but those sort of like cheap cliffhangers, like, I don't hate it.

00;20;01;19 - 00;20;24;22
Speaker 2
I'll just I'll just go for it. And then I think, too, the documentary format lends itself really well to having that sort of sensationalized tabloidy. Like, like oh, you'll never believe what happened next like that. Tell you what you see in those sports documentaries a lot. Or like the true Hollywood story. So I just yeah, I just sort of leaned into it.

00;20;24;26 - 00;20;34;12
Speaker 1
So you've mentioned that you write thrillers as well. Did you have a different approach to this since it wasn't a straight thriller, but it does have tension. Did it change your approach?

00;20;34;17 - 00;20;57;04
Speaker 2
Yeah, I mean, this book this book was just completely different than anything I'd ever written before, and it came after a lot of it goes to fill projects, but also, OK, like two years of existential crisis and not knowing what I wanted to do or who I wanted to be as a writer, quite frankly. So it was a lot of trial and error.

00;20;57;29 - 00;21;20;28
Speaker 2
And the main thing that was really, really different about this book for me was I let myself go all in on the research process, which I kind of had to do to get the details right. But it also was I have a library science background. I used to work in an archive like I love research and with my previous books I did some research, but I would kind of stop myself at a point and be like, You're just procrastinating.

00;21;20;28 - 00;21;42;02
Speaker 2
You need to write like stop just looking stuff up and reading books like Get Back to the Page. And what I realized when I was writing the favorites is it's like, I don't know it like feeds it. So if I do a lot of research, it cures my writer's block because I constantly have these new, like, images and details and stuff to bounce off of.

00;21;42;02 - 00;22;05;15
Speaker 2
So I found it actually the more I went down these rabbit holes and I would spend like a whole day sometimes trying to find like what time or what the specific event took place or something like really just obscure detail. But then it would bring a scene or a character or something to life in a way that it never would have without that detail.

00;22;05;15 - 00;22;12;26
Speaker 2
So in the end, it was, it was worth it. OK, so go down the rabbit holes, procrastinate. That's my advice to writers everywhere.

00;22;12;27 - 00;22;17;05
Speaker 1
What's the wildest little detail you found during one of your rabbit hole excursions?

00;22;17;05 - 00;22;45;01
Speaker 2
I think my favorite one is the stuff about so like men in Ice Dance are dating in general, like there's not a lot of them. There's way more women who want to do it. So people will go to extremes to get male partner. And there are stories of girls, parents, they'll like bribe them. They'll be like, We'll buy you a sports car if you'll skate with our daughter, will pay all your expenses as they bring these boys over from other countries.

00;22;45;01 - 00;23;02;08
Speaker 2
Sometimes it's like it's like a little human trafficking. You it's a little, but it's just wild. It's like I don't know. You can have like a reality show about just all of that insanity. So that was one of the things that we got in the book. And I feel like that's a detail people would be like, Well, she made that up.

00;23;02;08 - 00;23;05;26
Speaker 2
That's so over the top. And I'm like, No, that's literally what happens.

00;23;06;08 - 00;23;08;13
Speaker 1
One more reason where it would have been nice to be a dude.

00;23;08;26 - 00;23;10;00
Speaker 2
Just, you know.

00;23;10;00 - 00;23;11;10
Speaker 1
Like some girl.

00;23;12;10 - 00;23;42;12
Speaker 2
Yeah. I mean, they're in demand. They're talking now, and I am so in favor of this about allowing same sex teams to compete like Canada is already allowing it, I think, but it's not international yet. And actually, just yesterday, two of my favorite ice dancers, Madison Hubbell and Gabriella Papadakis, premiered a new show program. So not in competition for an ice show in Switzerland, I think, where it's the two of them skating together and it's just the most beautiful choreography.

00;23;42;12 - 00;24;04;21
Speaker 2
And also, like as a Suffolk lady, I'm like, so in that there's it's just stunning. So I'm really hoping that that takes like, I don't know, it takes off more and is more accepted because I think it'll open up a lot of new avenues for the sport. And also, quite frankly, because these boys are so in demand, sometimes they really get away with a lot.

00;24;04;29 - 00;24;24;01
Speaker 2
And I don't want to go into details, but there have been all sorts of scandals and allegations and everything. And it is like they're treated like little princes because they're so, so needed in the sport. But if girls could skate with girls, then the boys would have to actually like behave and bring something to the table to be a good partner.

00;24;24;24 - 00;24;35;10
Speaker 1
And Prince of the Ice Skating World happens to also be in your audio book, Johnny Whistler. What was it like getting him to be part of this project?

00;24;36;17 - 00;24;55;15
Speaker 2
Completely surreal. It was my idea but it was like kind of a joke. I emailed the producer of the audio book and was like, It's my delusional author dream for Johnny Weir to play this role because I kind of like base the character on him and she's like, Oh yeah, I can totally see that. We'll get someone who sounds like him.

00;24;55;16 - 00;25;15;20
Speaker 2
That's great feedback. And then a few days later, she emails me again and I was like, You know what? Let's just shoot our shot. Like, we'll ask and we'll make an offer. And he can just say no. And I was like, Great. I thought there was absolutely no way he would say yes. Absolutely not. So I was just enjoying the fact that, like, he maybe had heard my name and like, knew the book existed.

00;25;16;00 - 00;25;40;17
Speaker 2
And then, yeah, he said, yes, he's incredible. I'm actually listening to the audiobook now, which is not something I usually do, but this one is so fantastic. It's forecast. Christine Lincoln is the voice of Cat and she is incredible. Like, so perfect. I can't even so yeah. Just completely surreal. Can't believe he did it. And it's brought I think, a lot more interest to the audio book.

00;25;40;17 - 00;25;44;09
Speaker 2
Like it's outselling all the other formats right now and people are so, so into it, which is great.

00;25;44;17 - 00;25;56;10
Speaker 1
Now I go, I did audio, but it's so good. So like for you as an author who doesn't normally listen to your own audiobook audio book, to sit there and hear all your words back to.

00;25;56;10 - 00;26;21;06
Speaker 2
You, sometimes it's a little crunchy for me, but it's also like they're such good actors. It makes me feel things on a different level, even though I'm the one who wrote it. Like I was listening to Christine read one of my favorite parts of Kat's narration, and I was like crying like my own. I wrote the back, but she's so incredible at bringing that emotion to it.

00;26;21;21 - 00;26;30;23
Speaker 1
So I read a little thing that said that you like to make astrological birth charts for all of your characters. So talk a little bit about that whole process and why it's so important to you.

00;26;30;27 - 00;26;55;11
Speaker 2
I'm very awake, which again, into astrology of late. Like so many other queer women, I don't know why we're like this, but it's really fun for characters, I think, because it's based in archetype and myth in a way. So it can like tie the characters to these larger traits. And it also helps me think about how they bounce off each other in a way, like for Heath and Kat.

00;26;55;24 - 00;27;19;05
Speaker 2
So Heath is a cancer and Kat is a Scorpio, so no wonder they're like this. But also I made it so they have the same moons and they're both Leo moons, and then he's Scorpio rising, so he has rights and kindness the same as her sunshine. So like I kind of thought about her that way, like they would play off of each other in that way.

00;27;19;17 - 00;27;40;11
Speaker 2
And it was interesting for Bella and Garrett Lynn because obviously they're twins, but they have really different personalities so kind of thinking about. They're both Sagittarius. And I was also kind of locked into that too, because I wanted it to be a thing where they were like conceived in the Olympic Village and like a certain year. So I was doing like this.

00;27;40;27 - 00;28;00;13
Speaker 2
I probably made the algorithm think I was pregnant because I was checking all these like birthday calendars and whatever, like trying to figure out, like, if they were conceived by men, would they have been born and like, what time of that be? So, yeah, just thinking about like statutory, I was very like they are independent and kind of want to do their own thing.

00;28;00;13 - 00;28;08;08
Speaker 2
And so I thought about that a lot. With the twins, it's like they both ultimately want to do their own thing. But they have very different ideas of what a fulfilling life is.

00;28;08;19 - 00;28;19;01
Speaker 1
The twins bring this really fun twist to the relationships in the skating world. So talk a little bit about crafting Bella and Kat's friendship.

00;28;19;13 - 00;28;46;23
Speaker 2
Yes, that was super important to me to show these two women who are rivals, who are ultra competitive and ambitious, but they are still friends. They do still really love and respect each other. I mean, I know some shit goes down like I'm not so Wuthering Heights y'all like it's, it's messy. But I, I was thinking a lot about my friendships with fellow writers.

00;28;47;00 - 00;29;05;19
Speaker 2
We're not rivals in the same way. It's not like we're competing for one gold medal or, you know, facing off directly. But there is that element of you are close friends with someone and you are going to be jealous of them and they're going to be jealous of you, and you are going to be directly competing for the same opportunities sometimes.

00;29;05;19 - 00;29;30;24
Speaker 2
And allowing that jealousy and competition to coexist with genuine love and respect is it's difficult, but it's possible. Like, that is something that in my writing career, I'm so grateful for all of my, you know, professional rivals that I'm friends with. I've learned so much from them, and I'm a better writer because of that moment, better person. And we push each other to get better.

00;29;30;24 - 00;29;57;14
Speaker 2
We share information. So I wanted to show that kind of female friendship in a book. And it's also very based on a lot of the top skaters. Like they're in this very intense, insular world. They're all the same competitions. A lot of them train together under the same coaches. With those skaters I was talking about earlier, Madison and Gabriella, they for years trained at the Ice Academy of Montreal, along with a lot of other top ice dance teams.

00;29;57;14 - 00;30;24;22
Speaker 2
So they're like literally every day training alongside their competition. And then they're like hanging out after, like you hang out with your coworkers after work. And I just think that's incredible. It's like two to let those two really strong feelings coexist and like be adults about it. And like, yeah, that's why I wanted to reflect with Kate and Bella and not have it be a typical, like, frenemy catfighting kind of thing.

00;30;25;02 - 00;30;27;29
Speaker 1
Have you read Deepened by Ali Hazelwood yet?

00;30;28;15 - 00;30;31;20
Speaker 2
No, I just got a copy the other day and it's next on my list.

00;30;32;01 - 00;30;37;18
Speaker 1
So Bella and Kat give pen and Scarlett rhymes.

00;30;37;20 - 00;30;39;16
Speaker 2
Oh, yeah. OK, I'm excited.

00;30;39;21 - 00;30;55;25
Speaker 1
So there's, there's, it's a little bit it's different obviously it's a different story, but like thinking about both of them at the same time, I'm like, Hmm, these are very interesting sports, not just having been an athlete sports relationships and friendships were very weird.

00;30;56;18 - 00;31;18;09
Speaker 2
Yeah, it's weird. I mean, I think like in any field where you're going to be competing with people, but then like, those people are also the only people who really understand what you're going through, what you're experiencing. It is it's, it's very strange, it's very intense. And I think it's hard for people to understand sometimes, but I'm really that makes me even more excited to read Deep End, and I was already super psyched.

00;31;18;24 - 00;31;25;00
Speaker 1
Well, that's a great set up for the last question. The last question we always ask is because this is literary hype, what books are you hyped about?

00;31;25;01 - 00;31;50;29
Speaker 2
So I got Deep and I got Cleavage by Jennifer Finney Boylan. I'm really excited to read that Peyton Curran's new book and Loves You, not like literally setting it up to get rid of Exac. And then I am very psyched for Victorian Psycho Best title. Incredible. I've actually been to multiple bookstores this week to sign stock and I've been looking for it and no one's had it like it's sold out.

00;31;50;29 - 00;31;58;26
Speaker 2
Like I saw one they had the stalker up and like no books, so I'm going to get a copy of that, but that is clearly like the hot title.

00;32;00;07 - 00;32;04;00
Speaker 1
Well, thanks so much for hanging out with Literary Talk all about your favorites.

00;32;04;04 - 00;32;05;25
Speaker 2
Thank you so much for having me. This is fun.

00;32;08;20 - 00;32;31;05
Speaker 1
Thanks again to Lane for taking time out of your day to discuss the favorites with me. I really enjoyed this book, and I'm sure you will too. If you love drama, if you love Gossip Girl vibe, if you love withering heights, if you love dance, if you just are here for a good time, then you need to get this book links to get your hands on this book or any of Lane's other ones is in the show notes for you.

00;32;31;11 - 00;32;40;25
Speaker 1
If you enjoyed this conversation, don't forget to subscribe to the literary podcast. Give us some stars and share this with a friend. Thanks so much for listening to the Literary Hype podcast.