Alicia Thompson on magic, music and men worth loving

And also there's magic afoot.

And I am curious, you mentioned this is the first time you've incorporated elements of magical realism.

Yes.

We don't really know how Jess has wound up in Dublin after just having been in Florida.

She basically gets mugged and bonks her head, is not having a great time after this date, and then wakes up and finds herself in Dublin.

And it's a bit of a mystery as the book goes on of how she got there and is this really happening, etc., I would love to know what was it like for you to dip your toe into this type of story? Was it difficult to figure out how much to make clear? Was it exciting? Did it feel liberating? Was it scary? What was your experience moving into this space?

I mean, it was really fun.

Like, I have to admit, you know, a couple people have asked me, like, am I going to write magical realism in the future? And I don't know, because I don't have currently, like, an idea kind of cooking that has that element to it.

But I'm not opposed to it, because I thought it was really...

I thought it was really fun.

And I, you know, you keep using the word grounded, which I love because like that, to me, that's what I like in my romance.

Like both when I read and when I write, I personally like a romance that is very grounded.

I like it to feel very real.

Like these are real people and they have real problems and they're living in our like real world.

I mean, not always our world because for example, the president is never the president in my books.

But, you know, like a very close approximation of like, this is the world that we all kind of know and understand.

And I really liked adding the magical element to it.

But I liked keeping it's like everything but that is very grounded.

And so that was very fun to me.

I really am dying to just like spoil the whole book, to be honest with you.

Yeah, I just I'm going to get into it.

I just want to go

for it.

So one of the only things that I did get some actually early pushback on just when I pitched the idea.

So it wasn't like the book didn't even exist yet.