Q&A With Poppy Alexander 

Dear friend and publicist Mary Interdonati connected me with author Poppy Alexander. Poppy is the author of The Twelve Days Of Christmas, The Littlest Library, Storybook Ending, 25 Days Till Christmas & coming out on August 19^th The Battle Of The Bookshops. Poppy also writes under the name Rosie Howard. 

 Q: Poppy would you please give a brief description of each of your books starting off with The Battle Of The Bookshops? I look forward to reading it once I get my hands on it! 

A: Okay, so most of my Poppy Alexander books are set between my very own small-town seaside setting of Portneath, and a little village called Middlemass a few miles inland. 

Battle of the Bookshops is an enemies-to-lovers romcom, in that small-town setting, with two competing bookshops, warring families, mysteries and secrets and even a story thread about seventeenth century witch trials, just because…! Romeo and Juliet vibes (but NO teen suicides) along with a dash of ‘You’ve Got Mail’. 

Storybook Ending is an enemies-to-lovers in the same small-town setting of Portneath and Middlemass, with a newly widowed children’s book illustrator, set to lose everything to the handsome blacksmith who turns out to be the Lord of the Manor, with designs on her house, and everything she owns. Oh, and there’s a baby on the way, and a monstrously narcissistic cat…

The 12 Days of Christmas is a sweet, second chance romance, where our heroine, a chef, comes home to Portneath on Christmas Eve to see her mother one last time, and ends up staying at her teen crush’s house. Cooking her way through her grief, she invents a dish for every day of the old Christmas Carol, starting with a Partridge in a Pear Tree, with the comfort of old loves and friendships slowly making her realize that – even without her mother – she still has plenty to come home for. 

The Littlest Library is a tale of how a librarian who loves her safe, predictable life, moves to Middlemass with nothing more than a precious box of books, left to her by her grandmother. Putting them in the disused phone box outside her little cottage, soon she sees the books start to work with their healing magic, as families and friends are united by the power of the right book in the right hands. Jess gradually learns to take chances in her own life too and is rewarded with a wonderful new future of love and friendship. One for booklovers everywhere. 

25 Days ‘til Christmas is a friends-to-lovers story about strangers united through grief. Our heroine decides to do something Christmassy every day of December, so her little boy can experience the true joy of Christmas. Along the way, she manages to show our grieving hero how living life to the full is the only antidote to loss and grief, as they both begin to realize future happiness might just involve being together.

Q: I like the idea for The Battle Of The Bookshops, how it is Romeo & Juliet meets You’ve Got Mail & The Hating Game! How do you make each book unique when it comes to storytelling and characters? How do the ideas come to you? 

A: Ah, well – you guys probably know – it’s a long road from brainstorm to bookshelf, but I remember this clearly! I’m English, living in the UK, but my editor at the time, Tessa, is in New York, so there we were, on a Zoom call, talking about how The Littlest Library had really found its readership and chucking around ideas about what I could write next. We agreed it had to be another “book about books”, so I told her I would love to do something set in a bookshop, using the same fabulous Portneath seaside, small town, setting I created for The Littlest Library. Suddenly, I had this vivid mental image of Capelthorne’s bookshop, halfway down a steep high street, where it’s been for a hundred years, with its crooked chimneys and Georgian bow window. Suddenly, it was all so clear. I threw down a one-page concept and pinged it across, complete with the strapline “Let the battle of the bookshops commence…” I was desperate to write it! Luckily Tessa agreed and came back to me quickly with a ‘yes’.

Of course, the conflict of the story comes from the contrast of Capelthorne’s with the brand-new, shiny, bookshop just opened opposite. It is everything Capelthorne’s is not, and the idea of warring families, with generations of enmity came from that contrast and how all of us have our own vision of how the perfect bookshop should be… So, the Romeo and Juliet thing grew from that, but it’s definitely more of a vibe than a retelling, picking up on the warring families, but leaving out the teen suicides! You only get happy endings in my books, please be reassured… 

I see Sally Thorne’s ‘The Hating Game’ as quite possibly the most perfect ‘enemies-to-lovers’ story ever written (feel free to tell her I said that!) so I really wanted to try and get that ‘opposites attract’ thing going really strongly, with Roman very objective and detached, fresh from hard-nosed, big business in New York, and Jules, by contrast, much more driven by emotion, valuing the old-fashioned ways, and keen to rescue Capelthorne’s as a place with a heart and a past that needs to be preserved. I also definitely wanted to get in that sense of the hero and heroine secretly enjoying their interactions. It’s a game they love to play with each other, scoring points and being devious in finding new ways to triumph. That said, as attraction grows, they start to realize that they care, and to be secretly kind to each other. There are the little acts of kindness, and then the sudden declaration of feelings when crisis hits, which – I guess – is the ‘You’ve Got Mail’ aspect… To be honest – I didn’t even realize I was channeling that until someone else pointed it out to me. It’s no surprise though, because Nora Ephron scripts, and all those fabulous 90s romcoms, are kind of a blueprint, for me, of romcom done exquisitely well.

All these concepts from Shakespeare to Nora Ephron and Sally Thorne are classics for a reason: they make for great stories, and I honestly never worry about whether themes have been explored before. Of course they have! But when each storyteller takes these ideas, they can’t help but create something fresh and original when they realize them because every writer is unique in the way they tell stories. 

Q: How long does it take you to write a book & do you consider yourself a plotter or a panster where you write as the story comes along? 

A: Oof! You should ask my editor… With Battle of the Bookshops, I couldn’t wait to get started. I think I probably got the first draft down in about four months, which was quick for me, and then there are several further months where I will write and re-write, and move things around, until everyone on the team agrees the story has been told in the strongest possible way. This one was a dream for me though. Other books I have written have felt tougher to get right, but that’s how it goes, I suppose. As for how much I plan, I plan enough not to go insane when I am writing! Of course, I know where I am starting and where I am heading. I am also aware, as I go along, of whether the main points of the story are hitting in the right places. Often that side is less about planning and more about instinct, which comes from being ridiculously immersed in the genre for such a long time, it’s now kind of in my DNA, I think. 

Q: What are specific messages that you hope readers get once they read your books? What emotions do you hope readers feel?

A: Aw, I just want all my readers to get a lift from my stories… We all need to escape from the world, don’t we? I hope my books give people somewhere wonderful to retreat to, where my characters hopefully feel like people they know – people that remind them of themselves, or at least people they would like to be friends with. I also think it’s important to have my characters tackling difficult things such as loss, and loneliness, and not knowing where they want to be in their lives. I want to show how they find ways to connect with others and get through those sad times to end up with happiness at the end. Or at least to end with hope that a better future awaits. So, there are friendships and families and, of course, we all want to read about romantic love, don’t we? It’s the thing that makes us human, and I don’t think I will ever get tired of exploring how that spark gets lit between two people and what happens next.

Q:  I saw that your first book 25 Days Til Christmas has been optioned for tv! Congratulations Poppy! Are they going to start casting and filming soon for it? Does Hollywood have the rights to the rest of your books? The entertainment industry is in desperate need of new material! 

A: Yes, what a memory! It makes me laugh, thinking how excited I was when that happened. Girl, I was in that silver, full-length gown, walking up the red carpet at the premiere! Unfortunately, hardly any of these options actually get made, so, as far as I am aware, the option has lapsed and there are no current plans. But – hey – never say never! I have a fabulous agent who makes sure my books find their way to the people who might just pick them up. We will see… 

Q: Poppy, can you reveal any details about the next book you are currently writing right now? 

A: Oo, I’m so glad you asked… Confession: I adored creating Capelthorne’s bookshop so much, I just wasn’t ready to let it go, so my next book, provisionally titled “How to Find a Romance in a Bookshop” is a ‘friends-to-lovers’ where a literary agent experiences a career-stalling disaster and ends up running Capelthorne’s bookshop for six months. She is astonished to find a stunningly successful debut novelist – who has mysteriously dropped out of sight – lurking in the second hand-books section of the shop. She has ended up falling out of love with books, he is struggling to produce his second novel, and the two of them are united in their misery, until they both realize they might not be able to help themselves, but maybe – just maybe – they can help each other. 

It’s in edits now and should be coming out sometime next year. I can’t wait for people to read it!