*So, sometimes I pretend I get to sit down on a wicker settee with my favorite authors and talk about nothing but how much their books made me super duper happy (or just emotional as the case may be). This is one of those times. In other words, JoJo Moyes is busy and not sitting down on wicker settees with me.
Me: Oh em gee, JoJo. HEY THERE.
Not-JoJo: Well, hello, love.
Me: Heck yes. In my mind you talk like how Robert Pattinson does in bad RPF fanfiction. So keep calling me “love” after every statement.
NJ: Alright, love.
Me: I might swoon.
NJ: Noted.
Me: So, I’d like to introduce you for all those unfortunates out there who may not know who you are. You are the author of (among other titles) The Last Letter from Your Lover and *sob* Me Before You.
NJJ: Yes, I am.
Me: That sob was legit. Me Before You ripped out my grief bone and fed it to dogs while I watched and cried.
NJJ: Yikes.
Me: You may not know this, but Me Before You has been the only book this year that my book club fully and completely loved. It.Was.PERFECT. Hands down. All ten of us. Five stars.
NJJ: That’s wonderful. Thanks!
Me: It’s completely wonderful and heart breaking and perfect and Will and Lou basically made my life for ever and ever and I kind of want to hurt you because my heart hurts thinking about it all.
NJJ: Um …
Me: It was one of those books where when I finished I was completely useless for at least three days.
NJJ: Oh no.
Me: I mean, there was hope and all, but I just … AGH. I can’t give it away. I can say this: The Last Letter from Your Lover made me slightly happier because I have this – thing – for letters.
NJJ: *cough* A Thing?
Me: *glares* It’s NOT A FETISH.
NJJ: Did I intimate … ?
Me: I know that look. It’s just. I really like letters. They make every book better. Like Captain Wentworth is my favorite Austen hero for a reason, yo.
NJJ: Nice to know.
Me: That reason is the letter at the end, in case that wasn’t clear.
NJJ: I got it.
Me: Okay, just wanted to make sure you’ve read Persuasion because it’s amazing and totes my favorite Austen novel and well …
Me: But you seem smart and stuff, so … tell me about your newest novel, The Girl You Left Behind.
NJJ: Gee, thanks. Well, it follows two women, of different eras. One, Sophie, the wife of an artist fighting in the first World War and the other, a recent widow, Liv, who is given a portrait of Sophie decades later.
Me: So, it’s like a historical dual-time novel.
NJJ: A bit. There is also the mystery of what happened to Sophie, and how her husband’s portrait of her ended up in Liv’s hands. It’s a mystery that Liv attempts to solve throughout the novel.
Me: With the help of a strapping young art collector guy, right?
NJJ: Well, kind of. Despite Liv’s connection to and romantic interest in Paul, they ARE working at odds against one another.
Me: Nope. I need sweet, sexy times.
NJJ: Hokay.
Me: Maybe you don’t understand. I’ve read and loved and unabashedly recommended your books. You write LOVE. Real, legitimate, soul-consuming love. But you gotta deliver the rest of the goods this time. No “they meet again when they’re super old” stuff.
NJJ: Whoa there.
Me: The girls in my book club were googling quadriplegic sex after we read MBY. We had a legitimate conversation about FACE SITTING in my friend Melissa’s proper living room over cheesecake and sweet tea.
NJJ: I’m sorry?
Me: Ok, it was Hershey Pie and boxed wine. Don’t judge us.
NJJ: Wouldn’t think of it.
Me: All I’m saying is, with all this soul-destroying love, can we please get some YANNO … loooooOOOOOooove this time?
NJJ: You know the book has already been to press. I can’t insert sex scenes every 4 chapters for you now.
Me: EVERY FOUR CHAPTERS?
Me: And yes, I know it’s already printed. I have a copy on my shelf, which by the way looks LOVELY next to MBY. The covers are some of my favorites.
NJJ: Thank you.
Me: So back to The Girl You Left Behind … we get a bit of Sophie’s perspective and a bit of Liv’s correct?
NJJ: Yeah, the novel starts out in the midst of WWI, and as Sophie’s husband is carted off to war, his portrait of her attracts the attention of the new Kommandant. His interest in her forces her to make some desperate choices.
Me: Ok, so that part sounds tense. Lots of intrigue and sacrifice and desperation, right?
NJJ: Absolutely.
Me: But we meet Liv in the present right? Does she at least have some nice make-out scenes?
NJJ: Seriously?
Me: I need to know.
NJJ: Well, better start reading then.
My real life book club chose TGYLB as their October read, so I’ll be picking it up as soon as I finish our pick for That’s Normal Boozy Book Club. Yeesh. I have a lot to read this month (every month). I’d like to fake-thank Not JoJo for being so awesome. I’m sure the real JoJo is even more so.
Check out my other equally ridiculous fake interviews with Gayle Forman, Rainbow Rowell, and Leigh Bardugo.
Have any of you read JoJo Moyes’ books yet? What are your impressions? Are you like me and desperately devouring everything she’s ever written because Lou and Will just Were Not Enough?
