A Funny Thing About Love by Erin Soderberg Downing

I don’t know what it was about that sign, but the big idea came to me in a flash: a small, insular New England town with a unique library, where a girl finds an unfinished mystery novel that she gradually figures out is set in the very same small town. (It worked that way with The Books of Elsewhere-the whole thing started with that strange, sprawling old house!) The seed of LONG LOST came from a crooked green street sign on a leafy rural road, which I glimpsed as my car streaked past. JW: I’m a bit of an oddball in that my books often sprout from a setting. Where did you first get the idea for this story? And I’m curious to know if you develop your ideas and plot first, or if-like me-you let your characters build things for you? LONG LOST has a lot of similar themes-a family uprooted, figuring out how to live (reluctantly) in an uncomfortable new normal.

When the book opens, the Peaches’ concept of “normal life” and the longstanding meaning of “home” have been shattered by the death of their mother, so it’s very much a story about searching for a new definition of what both “normal” and “home” really mean.

Ultimately, WHEN LIFE GIVES YOU LEMONS, MAKE PEACH PIE morphed into a story about a broken family who find their way back to wholeness during a challenging time, through forced togetherness and a shared family goal. When I set out to write GREAT PEACH EXPERIMENT, I knew I wanted to write a story about a family who suddenly become millionaires and spend their windfall on an epic and fun road trip-but it took me a while to dig out the emotional core and make it a book with humor and heart. I almost always let my characters build each story for me, through their actions and personalities. Characters are the first thing I develop when I have a new idea, and then the plot comes later (sometimes much later). ESD: Yes! This book-like all of my stories-started with an idea that was very character-based.

A Funny Thing About Love by Erin Soderberg Downing