Q&A With Monica Comas 

I’m delighted to be doing this interview with Monica Comas! Recently Monica released her debut novel Recipe for Joy. In the past she was a journalist for a decade and worked as a financial editor and ghost writer! 

Q: Monica welcome to Book Notions! Can you please give a brief description of your debut novel Recipe for Joy? 

A: Of course and thank you so much for having me!

Recipe for Joy is about a book of cherished family recipes, a series of letters sent by a secretive hand, and two sisters who desperately need directions back to one another. 

This novel is about weathering the unfathomable contours of grief, navigating anger and forgiveness—and endeavoring to find happiness again. The tender gifts bestowed during life’s most difficult times, the connective power of memory, and flavors passed down through generations that hold the sweet promise of reconnection no matter how much time has passed…it’s all inside Recipe for Joy.

Q: Where did the idea for Recipe for Joy come from and how long did it take you to write it? 

A: I’d long had the kernel of this story in the back of my mind but never had the right narrative for it. In a lot of ways, I think I wasn’t ready to write this story. But after my sweet mom passed away, at a time when I was reeling from grief and unable to pick up any of the other projects I’d been working on, this kernel of an idea floated back up.

There I was, feeling adrift with so many emotions bubbling up…and at that time of all times, the only thing I could envision writing involved the kernel of a story that had been lodged in my head. For so long I wasn’t able to write the story in a way that would truly serve the idea. But at that point in my life, I could see the characters in their fullness, in their messiness, in their complete raw form. I could see the paces of this story, the nuance, and the overarching themes. Finally, I was able to meet this idea.

All told, the beginning of the writing process was a sloppy affair, but I eventually got my feet underneath me, and at the end of about a year and a half, I had a novel. Then I spent another six months revising. That was on top of all the years that I did nothing with this idea. But in a lot of ways, I think I needed that time. To grow as a writer, yes, but, and this is a bit of a heartbreaking realization, experiencing profound loss firsthand allowed me to write about it with authority and restraint. 

Q: Are there any lessons and emotions you hope readers come away with after they finish reading the final page? 

A: This is always a tricky question because you want readers to walk away from a book with the feeling or message that is true to them. I’m a big believer that books speak to people in all manner of ways—and they resonate differently depending on the point in time readers come to them. So, with all of that said, I think my only wish is that readers are entertained, and they walk away from Recipe for Joy with a sense of hope.

Q: I saw the wonderful Mark Gottlieb whom I’ve also interviewed a few times, post about your next book Upton Retreat! Would you please give a description of Upton Retreat? Since Upton Retreat is your second novel, did you find writing it more challenging than when you were writing your first novel? Or did you feel writing Upton Retreat was easier to write? 

A: I’d love to! I’m so excited about my second novel, Upton Retreat—and yes, I’m represented by the incomparable Mark Gottlieb of Trident Media Group. Mark is a consummate professional and someone who’s passionate about good stories. I consider myself fortunate to have Mark guiding my career and championing my work.

Here’s a taste of Upton Retreat:

Summer just got messy. The Uptons must be home.

Every July, Olivia Upton, 39, joins her older siblings, Derrick, Patrice, and Jane, at their childhood summer home in East Hampton for one week, but this year’s gathering turns tricky when milestones churn up stormy memories of art and marriage. Their complicated mother, Camille, is exhibiting for the final time at the Hamptons Summer Art Show. Meanwhile, their grandmother, who holds powerful sway over the family (much to her daughter-in-law Camille’s dismay)—is having a memorial for their troubled father nearly twenty years after the fact.

The events honoring their mother’s artistic career and their father’s life bring a strange emotional weather to the visit, which the siblings struggle to navigate amid their own issues. Derrick, facing private equity troubles, is unraveling. Patrice, despite appearances, isn’t accepting her divorce. Jane, a psychiatrist who never recovered from her fiancé’s death, now babies a pug. And Olivia—fresh from a breakup, unable to finish her second novel, broke—can’t stop her life from careening. If Olivia is to turn her fortunes around, she’ll have to face difficult truths about herself and her family. Indeed, all four siblings need to grow in different ways—and none can do it without the others’ help.

 Upton Retreat reveals the challenges of adult siblings returning home, how emotions, memories, and resentments rear up—and what a family must do to see its way through. It’s a story of one woman facing a family secret, making peace with the recollections evoked by her childhood home, and learning from her boisterous family…no matter how dysfunctional they might seem. 

As far as which was easier to write, Upton Retreat was written at a very different time of my life. With Recipe for Joy, I was in the deepest throes of grief. Upton Retreat was a novel I’d been putting final revision touches on before my mom passed away, so it wasn’t written while I was shouldering the same emotional heaviness as when I wrote Recipe for Joy. But, as I described, after my mom passed, I couldn’t get back into the rhythm I had when I’d been working on Upton Retreat…or any of my other projects I’d been finalizing. It simply wasn’t available to me. And that’s when that kernel of an idea bobbed up and I started writing Recipe for Joy. After I finished that manuscript, enough time had passed so that I was able to turn my attention once again to those other projects, including Upton Retreat.

I think what I learned throughout this process is that for as much as I believe you just must sit and write…sometimes that simply isn’t possible. There are life events that will knock you far off-course writing-wise, and you must be comfortable taking a pause or pivoting, turning your attention to something else entirely. You never know where that something new will lead you. It could end up leading you someplace special.

Q: If you’re finished writing Upton Retreat, are you plotting novel 3 right now? 

A: Authors are always plotting, right? I’m working on a couple things at the moment. One is in the fine-tuning stage, and another is in what I like to call the noodling stage where the writing (more brainstorming) is all over the place. It’s that exciting, loose phase of writing where anything goes before I start to see the vague shape of an entry point into the story. I’m not a plotter, but I do like to do a lot of free-style writing before I really get down to real writing. And I’m someone who doesn’t like to discuss stories until they’re nearly done, so I can’t say anymore!

Q: Does Hollywood have the rights to your work yet? The entertainment industry needs original content, and it wouldn’t hurt them to use more book related content. Who would be your dream cast for both A Recipe for Joy & Upton Retreat? 

A: I always love it when I see a movie or TV show that’s based on a book! Of course, Recipe for Joy and Upton Retreat being considered by Hollywood is a dream. And as far as dream casts go….oh my goodness, that’s a such a fun question!

What’s interesting is that I just had a bunch of readers discussing how they’d cast Recipe for Joy. These readers thought that Brie Lawson could make a fantastic Belle (who’s the protagonist of the novel). I also think Reese Witherspoon or Kristen Bell would play an amazing Belle. As for Belle’s younger sister, Lexie, I always thought Rose Byrne would be wonderful. No hyperbole, if any of these sterling actors were ever to be cast in an adaptation of anything I wrote, I’d flat-out weep with joy.

Upton Retreat has a bigger cast of major characters. I could blue-sky different casts every hour of every day. Here’s one all-star dream cast for the four Upton siblings:

Olivia: Lizzy Caplan

Patrice: Emily Blunt

Jane: Florence Pugh

Derrick: Chris Evans

Q: You were a journalist for a decade as well as a financial editor and ghost writer! Would you say that being a journalist, financial editor and ghost writer helped when it came to writing fiction? Would you ever return to ghost writing and journalism? 

A: I think being a journalist is fantastic training for being a fiction writer, although I wouldn’t have thought that before I started seriously writing fiction. As a journalist you have to listen, analyze, and discern motivation when you’re writing about someone. Or, if it’s a feature about something static, say, a building, you still need to build a story around the subject to get to the “why” of a piece. Now, as a journalist, you’re trained not to let your own opinion influence heavily in any way, but you still have to consider the story that’ll carry the reader through the article. So right there is terrific hidden training for fiction writing. 

Also, being on deadline all the time teaches you that you absolutely cannot be precious about the writing process. When you’re on staff somewhere, you don’t just write on the days when you’re feeling it. It’s your job to write. Period. And I’ve found that really helpful with fiction writing.

But for all the gifts that my journalism career gave me in terms of experience, I’m not looking to return to it in any form—either bylined or ghost writing financial pieces for others. Fiction has always been my first love, and I’ve always wanted to return to it. And now that I’m lucky enough to be here, I want to stay as long as the publishing world will have me. 

Q: Can you talk about some of the people you’ve ghost written for, or are you under NDAs not to talk about it?

A: I’m afraid I didn’t ghost write for anyone famous that would require an NDA. I did financial and investment-related ghost writing, which I realize doesn’t exactly rank in terms of exciting ghost-writing gigs.

Q: Would you please provide your social media links Monica? The readers of the blog and I would love to follow you and read your work! 

A: Absolutely, I would love readers to have a follow and be in touch!

You can find me on my website (I have an old-school blog…I know, I’m retro), Instagram, Goodreads, and Facebook. All the links are below!

Website: Home – Monica Comas

Instagram: Monica Comas (@monicacomaswrites) • Instagram photos and videos

Goodreads: Monica Comas (Author of Recipe for Joy)

Facebook: Monica Comas Author | Facebook

Thanks so much for having me!