Amy Lea is known for her bestselling rom-coms, and her new novel, The Catch, the third in her Influencer series, is positively swoonworthy.

Lauren Mc Diarmid chatted with Amy about what makes her tick:

I came up with the idea for The Catch back in 2019, even before I wrote Set on You and Exes and O’s. I love a fish out of water kind of story where a high maintenance city person meets their small town, rugged counterpart. I guess you could say I love the opposites-attract dynamic.

Similar to Exes and O’s, The Catch was truly inspired by a mashup of romcoms, namely The Proposal and While You Were Sleeping with Sandra Bullock. I’ve always been enamoured with the premise of While You Were Sleeping, where a lonely woman gets mistaken for the fiancée of a guy in a coma and gets adopted into his off-beat, yet loving family. I find the family aspect so compelling, because I think today’s society struggles with serious loneliness. The concept of family, mixed with the always delightful fake dating trope is something I really wanted to put my own twist on.

And romance makes people happy! I love the idea of being able to give someone a happy escape from regular life, where happiness is guaranteed at the end. Romance, more often than not, shows us portrayals of healthy communication and consent that we don’t often see in other media. It gives us a blueprint of what we should expect from relationships.

My creative process tends to change for each book (not sure why), so I haven’t landed on a singular process yet, but there are always commonalities in my writing process. For one, I prefer to write in my office at home. It’s quiet and zen! Then, I’ll always have snacks within reach, a big mug of tea, and The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Expression by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi on hand. It’s the best writing hack! Trust – it is so helpful for wordsmithing.

Otherwise, once I have an idea, I plough ahead with getting words on the page, while avoiding the urge to self-edit as much as possible, and hopefully at the end, I have a story from my heart that I can be proud of.

About the book

In Amy Lea’s latest rom-com, fashion influencer Melanie Karlsen ventures to a Canadian fishing village to revive her brand. When fisherman Evan Whaler’s accident leads to a mistaken engagement with Mel, they agree to fake it for a week. As emotions grow, Mel faces a choice: city glamour or wild love. Will she trade her picture-perfect life for a chance at true romance?

The Catch is out now!

~~~

This article was originally published in The Penguin Post, a magazine about books for book lovers from Penguin Random House South Africa.   

Categories Fiction International

Tags Amy Lea Penguin Random House SA The Catch The Penguin Post