Q&A with Patricia Leavy

 

 

 

Patricia Leavy is the author of the new novel After the Red Carpet. It's a sequel to her novel The Location Shoot. She is also an arts advocate and is the co-founder of the journal Art/Research International. 

 

Q: After the Red Carpet is your second novel featuring your characters Finn and Ella--do you think they've changed from one book to the next?

 

A: Yes. In The Location Shoot, Ella was afraid of love, afraid to fully give into her feelings for Finn. Now she’s 100 percent committed and ready to build a life together.

 

I think the real growth in each character happens in After the Red Carpet, which unfolds during the first several years of marriage. Ella and Finn are each trying to figure out how to be a partner, what that really means, and simultaneously how to become the best version of themselves.

 

Q: Did you know when you wrote The Location Shoot that you'd be writing a sequel?

 

A: No, it was a wonderful surprise. The Location Shoot is a complete story and so I could have left it at that, but I had fallen in love with Ella and Finn. I could see more chapters of their lives.

 

In The Location Shoot they talk about their dreams for the future, so I decided that was the perfect topic to tackle in a new book—how their life together unfolds, what love looks and feels like in the day-to-day, and what happens to us when “me” becomes a part of a “we.”

 

Q: The writer Jessica Smartt Gullion called the book a “deceptively subtle story about the intensity of love and the complexity of forging a new world for oneself.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: I absolutely love it. She really captured what I was hoping to achieve. Novels with big, outrageous plots can be loads of fun, but I’ve always been a fan of more subtle, character-driven novels.

 

After the Red Carpet doesn’t have huge plot points that are more likely to happen in a novel than in real life. It’s a subtle, whimsical exploration of love and partnership—the highs and lows.

 

So many of us take a chance on love and partnership and try to build a life with someone. At the same time, we have our own identities as individuals. That’s what this novel looks at. Because Finn is a Hollywood star, it takes on a fun, fairy-tale quality, but substantively, many of us can relate.

 

Q: What do you hope readers take away from the story?

 

A: Love is a verb. It’s something we do. It’s something we can and should do well. In many ways the characters in this novel are aspirational and the whole thing is a bit of a fairy tale. Yet, they have a lot to teach us about what love can look and feel like, and what real partnership means.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: More romance novels. Believe it or not, I actually have 10 that are written and awaiting publication, some of which are completely done, and others I’m still revising. It will be a slow rollout process. I’m under contract with my publisher to release two a year through 2030.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I loved writing about Ella and Finn so much that it actually became a trilogy. I can’t reveal too much yet, but the third book will be released in September 2025 and follows the characters 30 years after The Location Shoot and part of the novel takes place on a film set.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Patricia Leavy.