The setting is as enchanting as the meet-cute in Abby Jimenez’s "Just for the Summer"

Note: Text has been edited and does not match audio exactly.

Katie O'Connor: Hi, listeners. I'm Audible Editor Katie O'Connor, and today I'm excited to be speaking with bestselling author Abby Jimenez about her latest work, Just for the Summer. Welcome, Abby.

Abby Jimenez: Hi.

KO: I love the premise of Just for the Summer. Our protagonists, Emma and Justin, both have a curse, or a good luck charm, depending on your point of view: When they date someone and then break up, their exes always go on to find “the one” in their next relationship. What was your inspiration for this curse?

AJ: I have a friend that has the same problem [laughs].

KO: Oh, my goodness.

AJ: She's one of my very good friends and she's a beta reader for my books. And we were actually on a—we call them plot walks, where we go for a walk and we talk about whatever book I'm working on—and I was like, "I'm having a really hard time figuring out the premise or the meet-cute for my next one." And somehow we got on the topic of how this happens to her, that she's like the female version of Good Luck Chuck. And I thought, “Wouldn't that be such a funny way that these characters meet? What if they both have the same thing and they decide that their curses, if they date each other, will cancel each other out?” So, as we get further on into the book, the meet-cute premise becomes less important. And you almost sort of forget that that's even what they're doing as you get further on into the story. But I thought it was a really unique way for these two to connect.

KO: It was. And Emma and Justin initially connect via Reddit when Justin does an “Am I the asshole?” post that references this curse. And I found that social is really seamlessly integrated into your story. You have Reddit. You have some light Instagram stalking to learn more about Justin. You have Emma following Justin's sister on Snapchat. Was it difficult to incorporate these platforms, or given that it's the reality of a modern relationship, did it come as naturally as it felt to the listener?

AJ: It came very naturally to me. I'm very active on social media myself. I don't use Snapchat, but the younger generations do. My kids do. So I figured that would be the platform that Sarah would communicate with Emma on, would be Snap. But, yeah, I love "Am I the a-hole?" Reddit threads. I am obsessed with them. I go down the rabbit hole on those, and I thought that was such a fun way to start the book.

"I started writing as a hobby. I've always been a very avid reader, but I never took any sort of writing classes outside of high school."

And Justin mentions his curse within this Reddit thread, which if you want some more inspiration for how I got ideas for the premise of this book, there's a billboard mentioned in the "Am I the a-hole?" Reddit thread. This really hideous Toilet King billboard that Justin has directly outside of his apartment window that drives him bonkers. And I think we all have this in our community where there's a lawyer or some sort of tradesmen of some sort that buys out every single billboard and puts up something hokey. And we have that here in Minnesota, and the guy's got every billboard everywhere. And there was this funny TikTok, since we're on the subject of social media, where somebody was showing one of these hokey billboards directly outside of an apartment window. And I thought, "Oh, my gosh, that is hilarious. Wouldn't it be so funny if that happened to the main character? And he opens up his window and there's just this billboard there that doesn't seem to serve any other purpose other than to just stare into his apartment." And that's how I got the idea for the topic of the Reddit thread.

KO: The billboard was such a great source of comedy throughout the novel. And I appreciate you have a Q&A at the end of the audiobook where you touch a little bit more on the background of the billboard that I encourage listeners to enjoy as well.

So, Emma is a traveling nurse, but Justin convinces her to come to Minnesota for her next contract so that they can date each other, break up, and then hopefully find the one. As Justin sells Emma on Minnesota, the novel really becomes a love letter to the state and its charms and all it has to offer. And now all of your novels are set here. Can you talk to me about your own love affair with the state that's not often the setting of a rom-com?

AJ: I live in Minnesota, so it's very easy for me to write about Minnesota. And I am originally not from Minnesota. I'm from California and I'm a transplant here. And we moved here because we drove through the state on a cross-country trip and just fell in love with it. It's absolutely gorgeous here, and I think it gets overlooked a lot. So, of course, I'm going to write all my stories in Minnesota. One, it makes it so much more authentic and it's so much easier for me to write about the things that I'm seeing rather than having to go and research different places.

But it is a beautiful state. It's gorgeous. It's not even hard for me to romanticize it because of how pretty it is. I'm actually sitting here talking to you and I've got these windows that overlook a wildlife reserve that is my backyard and it's snowing right now. And there's deer meandering through the tree line. I mean, it's beautiful. So, yeah, I put all my books in Minnesota. They're continuing on in Minnesota, maybe with some little jaunts into California because I did live there at one point. But it's just a beautiful state. You should visit.

KO: I want to visit. You are doing an incredible job as your own mini tourist bureau for the state. I want nothing more than to head out on the lake there this summer, and maybe not quite in the same setup, but you understand.

You're also a baker. You own a successful cupcake chain, Nadia Cakes, and you've won a Food Network baking show competition. I have a few questions here. The first is, being a baker and being a writer are two creative and artistic pursuits that also have business components. How do these endeavors run parallel in your life and where do you see them overlap?

AJ: There's a lot of overlap between the cupcake stuff and the author stuff, but I have to say, I don't think I could have done either thing had both things been actively taking up my time at the same time. So, when I started writing, I was very much just administrative at Nadia Cakes at that point. I've got some really fantastic store managers that have been with us going on 10 years. I think actually both of them are 10 or 10-plus years with the company. And that really enables me to do other things, to focus my time on my hobbies and other pursuits. And Nadia Cakes was very much sort of a part-time job by the time I started picking up the author thing, and I do overlap them quite a bit, there's quite a bit of crossover.

We sell a book-themed cupcake in the shop every year when one of my new books comes out, and we sell signed copies of my books in all of my cupcake shops. And then, conversely, I mention Nadia Cakes in every single one of my books. It's like a fun little Easter egg. And I found that my readers make pilgrimages to Nadia Cakes as part of their author book world experience. They go in and they get pictures in the shop and it's like, "Oh, this is the place mentioned in the books and it's Abby's business." My books are advertised within the shop and the shop is advertised within my books. So, there's a lot of crossover there.

Writing and baking are both very much introvert activities, and I am a huge introvert. I know sometimes it doesn't seem that way because of how active I am on social media, but I'm going to go so far as to say that social media is also an introvert activity because you're not engaging with people on a live basis, typically. And it was really easy for me to make these two careers or make these two hobbies, essentially, into careers because of that.

KO: I have to ask, do you have the cupcake flavor yet for Just for the Summer?

AJ: I do. It is a pink cupcake with coconut, orange, and pineapple, and the frosting is a three-colored swirl with a sherbet fruit flavor. So it's very summery and it's going to look great photographed next to the book. It's got a little heart in the middle of it, and I'm actually getting pictures of it in the next couple of days so people can see what to expect.

KO: That's awesome. As I'm visualizing it, it feels like the cover to me. Your cover is so gorgeous, too, and it just feels like that cupcake's going to match it perfectly.

AJ: The cover is stunning. I am in love with it.

KO: But, staying on this topic, do you envision ever writing a cooking show competition rom-com? Does that sit in your brain?

AJ: I have so much anxiety around cooking shows after having actually been on one that I can't even watch those shows anymore. I literally cannot watch them anymore. It is a very real competition. It is very stressful and I think it would feel a little bit like torture, having to actually sit down and write that into a book. And I don't think I ever want to write a bakery romance either for the same reason, you know? Yes, I'd be able to nail it. But I just, I don't know, it just feels like it would not be fun. I'd rather explore a different career path for my characters, and just the exploration of it I think would be fun. But writing about something that I've really just been doing for a very long time, a little bit burnt-out on even, I don't think I'd enjoy it very much. So I probably won't do it.

KO: That's fair. That's totally fair. You dedicate Just for the Summer to your readers and listeners. You say how you started writing “just for me, but now I write for you.” It was very touching and I know your fans are really going to appreciate it. But I would love to hear more about how you started writing.

AJ: I started writing as a hobby. I've always been a very avid reader, but I never took any sort of writing classes outside of high school. I never went to college. I wasn't able to go to college. I had to go right into the workforce. And writing was not a part of my day-to-day life in any way, shape, or form; reading was. I was a very big reader. And after I got the bakeries up and running, I decided to dive back into reading again because now I had the time. And I was very into reading these dystopian YA romances that were super popular at the time, Hunger Games and the Divergent series and the Twilight series. I was very into those.

And I was on a camping trip with my kids and we were rained in and there's nothing to do. There was no cell service, we had no batteries, nothing on our phone. And I decided to tell my daughter this YA love story that I had thought up. And she loved it. And she's like, "Mom, you should go home and you should write this down." And so I did. I went home and I started writing this really what turned out to be a very terrible YA romance. It was a beast at 300,000 words, which to give you an idea how long that is, that is three of my books put together. It's very long. And every day she would come home from school and I would read her these chapters, and I decided to query this terrible YA book to a literary agent who actually replied to me and said, "I think you would benefit from getting some critique partners."

So, I went online and I found a site called Critique Circle, and it's a tit-for-tat community where writers submit chapters of their work and other writers critique it and give you feedback to help you develop your writing. And there's all these tools on this website. Forums, you know, any resource that you can think of that you might need to better your writing, Critique Circle has that. So, I went on Critique Circle and I started submitting my books through there and was told immediately that my book was terrible, but that I was really, really good at dialogue. And so I decided that I was going to trunk this awful YA book and I was going to start from scratch and I was going to lean really heavily onto what I was good at, which was dialogue. And I decided to write a contemporary romance. I didn't have to world-build. And I wrote The Happy Ever After Playlist on Critique Circle, and it was very well received. People absolutely loved it, and I was encouraged to query this to an agent and I ended up getting my agent off of that book.

So, that's how I started my writing career. It was very out of left field for me. And I don't want to minimize it and make it sound like this happened without effort on my part, because I was on Critique Circle for a year. I was in the trenches, man, and I was in there for 12 hours a day, editing my chapter, writing the next chapter that I was putting out the following week, critiquing other people's stories. It felt like a writing bootcamp that I was heavily submerged in for an entire year, and I taught myself how to write on that site.

KO: I love that it came both from a place of community but also from your relationship with your daughter, too, and that you guys had this bond over stories. I think that's really special. It's a really beautiful origin story. What's your writing process like today? Do you plot, do you “pants,” do you write, write, write and then walk away? Are you an editor? What's your typical day like in that sense?

AJ: I have what I think is a pretty unconventional writing style. I do plot, but I plot in my head. I don't write anything down. I don't have chapters built out in a detailed synopsis of where I'm going with it. I write the entire book in my head. I don't sit down and write anything until I know exactly where it's going and have the entire story mapped out in my head. Then, once I'm there, I do have to write a quick synopsis and give it to my editor to make sure she likes it, because they don't like to be surprised. And then once she approves everything, I sit down and I write just, like, from my brain. I don't reference the synopsis or anything, and I write on my cell phone on a Google doc. I do pull out my laptop if I'm going to try and crank out like a big word count. But I do write quite a bit of my stories just on my phone with my thumbs. I'll be on a walk writing, I'll be floating in the lake writing, I'll be in the bathtub writing. And it just gives me the flexibility to do it wherever I feel creative, like whenever I feel creative.

"I went into this book really reaching from some of my own personal experiences, which I think is why it comes off and feels so authentic."

Then, once I get down to the editing phase where my editor has read my first draft, then I do have to sit down with my laptop and I have to write because then it's going to be on a Word doc and I can't access that from my phone. So, it's not very structured. I do not have a desk. Every time somebody comes here and they want to do a photo shoot with me or something, it's like, "Show us your office." And I don't have an office and I do not have a desk. I literally sit wherever is comfortable to sit and write with my laptop on my lap or on my cell phone.

So, I'm actually finding that I think I need to start treating this a little bit more like a job [laughs], which it is, but I actually do need to start to create spaces for myself and sort of dig out time where I can go write and make it a little bit more structured. Because as I'm getting busier as an author, it's not as easy for me to find organic time to just sit down and work on my next working project. So, I'm actually trying to work on that a little bit, you know, put a little bit more structure around the way that I get things done because I am finding that I'm getting a bit behind. The author piece of it, the promoting of the book, and having to go on book tour and things like that, which is a huge privilege and I absolutely love, but it does dig into the spaces that I used to organically find time to just work on my book. So, we're building me an office. That's actually one thing that we're doing this year is we're going to build me an actual office with a desk and everything.

KO: I love that it's happening in reverse. It sounds like freedom of movement is definitely helpful to your creative process. And this idea of plot walks, too, that you mentioned in the beginning, I think is a really refreshing way to come at a story and just sort of think things through aloud with friends, and wherever you are when that inspiration strikes, you can just dive in.

AJ: It's very helpful. I find that it really jogs my brain when I've got some writer's block, is to do the plot walks with a friend. Helps a ton.

KO: So, if you're an Abby Jimenez fan, you know that you're going to get a story that packs an emotional punch. And you included a Q&A at the end of your audiobook, as I mentioned, and you shared that part of the impetus for Just for the Summer was that you wanted to explore the effects of trauma on relationships. It's really eloquently done in the novel. And one thing that stayed with me was that you don't necessarily need forgiveness, either to keep someone in your life, like Justin, or to move on from a toxic relationship, like Emma. What else did you discover or learn in the course of writing the novel?

AJ: I always use advisers whenever I touch on these very tough subjects. And I used a mental health professional’s advice extensively throughout this book. And I did learn quite a bit from her as I was exploring and diving into who Emma's mother was and how this shaped Emma.

But to be honest, I went into this book really reaching from some of my own personal experiences, which I think is why it comes off and feels so authentic. And I was a little afraid that these heavier topics weren't going to be as relatable as some of my previous books. And what's been interesting to me, I think the thing that I've actually discovered in writing and putting this book into the universe, is that how relatable having somebody toxic like that in your life actually is, which is kind of sad. But a lot of people have identified with Emma, a lot of people I think have looked at this book as a bit of a roadmap on how to maybe get out of a toxic relationship that they're in. I think a lot of people feel validated reading this book and seeing maybe a little bit of themselves or somebody who's in their life and feeling validated for the way that they've decided to handle it.

So, I think what I've learned from this book was mostly that I'm not as alone as I thought I was in dealing with that specific person in my life.

KO: I think that's a nice segue, actually, to my next question. The book is filled with symbolism and in particular the island that Emma and her best friend Maddie stay on as it parallels to the island that Emma has really built for herself. PS, Justin paddling out there to get to Emma when she is sick, that moment is just going to live rent-free in my head for a long time. That said, when Emma first describes the living accommodations to Maddie, it sounded so romantic. And obviously there are flaws in the system and there are flaws to the personal island that Emma has built for herself. But do you think that you could ever stay in a place like that long-term or not even long-term, perhaps just for the summer like your characters?

AJ: No [laughs]. My husband and I have this conversation so often. Like, he'll be sending me reels on Instagram or something and it'll be a cabin deep in the woods, and I'm like, "Can I get DoorDash there?" Because if I can't get an Amazon delivery by the next day, or I can't get DoorDash there or shipped, I'm not going. I'm a convenience girly, for sure. I need accessibility and I need convenience for myself. I want to be able to drive out and get an iced coffee from somewhere, and I wouldn't do well with remote. I just wouldn't. It is so novel and it's so pretty, and I might be able to love it for a few days in, but for a whole summer? No.

KO: If you were a traveling nurse, where would you want your next destination to be?

AJ: Oh, gosh. I think I would really think about this the way Emma and Maddie do, considering what hospital do I get to work at? What season is it? Are there festivals in town? Like, what's happening? Is this the off-season? Are there good hiking trails nearby? I'm very much a nature person. I love going on hikes, not so much camping, but the hiking, like day hikes. I would probably lean somewhere towards that, that's got some really beautiful day hikes. And again, it would be weather-dependent. So, I would choose my season. I think I'd like to be maybe in Utah somewhere, or maybe in Maine. Gosh, there's so many really fabulous upper Midwest states that I'd love to visit that I've never visited. I'd love to go to Washington and hike all of those fabulous trails. The forests there are so beautiful. That's probably where I'd go first. I think I’d go to Washington first.

KO: Nice. Gosh, you're really getting my wanderlust going between your ideas and this story.

Christine Lakin and Zachary Webber do a wonderful job with their performances. What's it like hearing your work performed in this medium?

AJ: Oh, audio is my favorite. I think for a lot of authors, when they hold their book in their hands, that's the moment where it feels real to them. For me, it's when I get my audiobook. When I hear my audiobook, that's when I feel like this is a real book and I've made it. Ninety-nine percent of what I read is on audio. Love audiobooks. And Zachary and Christine are fantastic. In fact, I think this might even be the duo that I use for the next one that's coming out next year. They just nail it every time. They're so intuitive. They seem to innately understand these characters without even requiring much direction. I mean, they're just fantastic. They're so good. I can't wait for everybody to hear it.

KO: Zachary has been on almost all of your audiobooks. Do you hear his voice when you're writing now, when you're working on your male protagonists?

AJ: I would say at this point I'm almost writing my heroes for Zachary. He's just so good. And there's actually been a couple of times where I'm like, “Maybe I should mix it up.” Like, maybe my readers are getting tired of having the same narrator. Or maybe it's hard for them to separate my male characters from one book to the next because the voice is always the same. Maybe I should mix it up. And then I always just come back. I can't do it. He's too good. He's too good. I just, he nails it every single time and I just can't picture having it narrated without him. I just can't. He's so good.

KO: He is so good. As a listener yourself, what's at the top of your library right now?

AJ: Oh, boy. I knew you were going to ask me this [laughs]. I have my Audible app on the ready. Let's see. I just finished listening to This Could Be Us by Kennedy Ryan. I grabbed that the day it came out. Let's see what else is in there. I've got Lady in Waiting by Anne Glenconner that I'm going to be probably listening to after this. Captain of Her Soul, which is the story of an actress socialite from the 1920s. I listened to Butcher and Blackbird, which was fantastic. Wonderful narration there. The Sphinx is another one that I just finished, by Hugo Vickers. I listen to a lot of historic nonfiction. It's like my brain cleanse. And then, of course, The Women narrated by Julia Whelan that I have also in the wings. I'm going to be listening to that as soon as I get some time on the plane, I think, when I'm going on book tour.

"I think for a lot of authors, when they hold their book in their hands, that's the moment where it feels real to them. For me, it's when I get my audiobook."

KO: And you do have such a robust tour coming up. What are you most excited for in connecting with your fans?

AJ: I love meeting my readers. They are such a fun group. I feel like every time I meet my readers it's like a bunch of people that feel like old friends. Everybody's just so welcoming and just so kind and fun and funny. It is one of my favorite parts of being an author, honestly, which seems so counterintuitive to my introverted nature, but I never feel like an introvert when I'm meeting my readers. It's like the weirdest thing. It's like, it doesn't wear me out, it doesn't drain my battery like a lot of social engagements do. It's just so fun. I've got a really fun one coming up in Miami. There's going to be an event where there's going to be 20 to 30 baby goats brought in.

KO: Oh, goodness.

AJ: I know. And it's a very interesting story how we got there. But basically it's going to be “Books and Baby Goats with Abby Jimenez.” The event sold out, I think, within like the first 48 hours. Super fun. You'll have to check out social media to see how that one turns out. But, yeah, brand-new newborn baby goats are coming in from Cheeky Goat Soap company. They're bringing their baby goats over and we're going to play with baby goats and get books signed.

KO: That's amazing. I was about to ask, I was like, is it yoga? Is it baby goat yoga?

AJ: Nope.

KO: Just loving on baby goats. That's so sweet. I also wanted to ask, circling back to something we were talking about before, I feel like in so many of your novels there are these wonderful creative careers for your protagonists. What's it like coming up with their different professions and is that something that you enjoy when you're plotting it out? And how does it serve your books?

AJ: My character's career is always based off of who I need the character to be as a person. Obviously, whatever career choice you choose has a lot to do with your personality and your abilities. So Emma, her career is very obviously because of what she grew up doing. She traveled a lot. She had a very unstable childhood. And so her travel nursing is a way to re-create that in a way that is safe and she feels like she's in control of. Justin, who's very analytical, reliable, he works from home, he's a software engineer. And it just depends on what the book requires.

Like, in The Happy Ever After Playlist, I knew that I needed these characters to meet while the hero was away and out of town, out of the country for some reason. So, I sat down and I said, "Okay, well, why is he out of the country? Is he a businessman?" I didn't really like that angle. I liked for him to be a little bit more creative because, you know, Sloan was going to be an artist. I needed her to have a job that would make her work from home, that would have her available to watch this dog that she finds in the meet-cute of that story. So, Sloan's an artist, she works from home, and Jason is a musician and that's why he's gone out of the country, because he's on tour, and they're both artists in their own right and that would make them a good match for each other. So, you know, there's always a reason why I choose a particular career path for my character. And it's because it's true to who the character is as a person.

KO: What's next for you?

AJ: My next book is called Say You'll Remember Me, and I know that I say this every time, but I am so in love with this book. I am so in love with it. There's actually a scene in Just for the Summer where we get a glimpse of the main character from that book. It's when Emma and Justin find a woman with dementia sitting on a bus bench, and Say You'll Remember Me is about a woman named Samantha who is caring for her mother with early-onset dementia. So, I don't want to say too much, but our hero was a grumpy veterinarian. It's a grumpy-sunshine trope. And I've already turned in the first draft, and I have to say, of all my books, this is the only one that my editor was basically like, "I don't really have notes," because that's how well done it was just like right out of the gate. Even as a rough draft, it was just a really solid story.

KO: Oh, I'm so excited. I love that I already know about an Easter egg that was planted that's going to come back around. That's so much fun. I do feel like you always deliver on tropes that I didn't even know I wanted or that I needed. Do you have a favorite trope, either as a reader or a listener or as an author?

AJ: I really like to write friends-to-lovers. I just feel like it's the most organic kind of love story, the most realistic kind of love story where you meet somebody and you just really slowly fall in love with them, you know? But as a reader, I love enemies-to-lovers. I can't really do that with the kind of books that I write because I write cinnamon roll heroes and it's really hard to make us believe that he's bad enough that you could hate him and then adequately redeem him. You know what I mean? When you're writing a cinnamon roll, it's like, "How am I going to make my cinnamon roll this bad, this mean, or this terrible, and then pull him back out?"

So anyway, I love to read enemies-to-lovers, but I will probably never write a true one. I know that it was teased a little bit that Yours Truly was an enemies-to-lovers, but I wasn't able to hold up the facade very long. It had to be a misunderstanding because Jacob is just too soft of a hero to ever be hated by anyone.

KO: I love cinnamon roll. Between that and your cupcakes, now I'm hungry. And just for listeners who might not be aware, a cinnamon roll is typically a hero who is really sweet and supportive and a cheerleader for their partner.

Abby, thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciated getting to chat.

AJ: Yes. I'm so happy to be on. I love Audible.

KO: And your listeners love you, and we can't wait for the books to come. And listeners, you can enjoy Just for the Summer right now on Audible.