Enchanted to Meet You: 5 Quick Questions With Meg Cabot!
A delightful chat with the legendary author!
Reading has always been a huge part of my life, it's one of the reasons I love putting together this newsletter. When I was a little kid I used to work in the bookshop that my mum managed, from helping them to restock shelves to reading galleys and suggesting what they ordered. That was where I spent most of my afternoons as a kid and preteen, earning a little cash and growing my love for reading exponentially. One of the authors I discovered there was Meg Cabot through the pages of The Princess Diaries and later Jinx. She became one of my favorite authors and someone that I've read consistently for most of my 35 years. All of that is to say I was honored when I was offered an early copy of her gorgeous new supernatural adult romance Enchanted to Meet You, which subverts the Chosen One story in a fantastic way while introducing audiences to a cozy witchy world that you won't want to leave.
And I'm delighted to say I was lucky enough to ask Meg 5 Quick Questions about the gorgeous book that's the perfect fall read. So, without further ado, enjoy!
This is your first adult novel to feature witches and witchcraft. How did the idea of Enchanted to Meet You come about and what was the aha moment that made you know that it was the next book you wanted to write?
I’ve been obsessed with witches since I was a little girl, probably because my mom was born on Friday the 13th, which earned her the nickname Jinx from her family. I knew about witches from my favorite comic books, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and always assumed that one day I’d inherit my mom’s magical powers.
Alas, she had none, aside from being a great mom (which is magic in and of itself). So instead of performing magic, I read everything I could get my hands on about it, and even wrote my own YA novel in 2007 about a young witch named after my mom (Jinx, Harper Teen).
But I never gave up my witchy dreams, and when my aunt told me recently that my dad’s grandmother was a witch (she was always “curing” people of warts using a “magic cloth”) that was enough for me to go back to my longtime adult editor Carrie Feron and pitch a witch romance for adults…and thankfully, Carrie said Yes! That’s how Enchanted to Meet You was born.
I adored the origins of Jess' witchcraft and the idea that intention is more important than lineage, it's such a great subversion of the classic chosen one tropes. What made that the story that you wanted to tell?
Thank you so much! Since I very clearly did not inherit my great-grandmother’s rumored magical powers, I wanted to write a book set in what I feel is the “real” world: where you don’t have to be descended from someone who had a specific set of skills in order to perform that skill yourself. In my witch universe, anyone can do magic, if they have the right intentions—and enough confidence. The question is: what are the “right” intentions, and does my heroine have enough belief in herself to save her small town from supernatural destruction?
As a writer myself, writing believable romances seems like a huge challenge, yet you present another completely delightful pairing here. What's your process for crafting a romance that readers can fall for?
Thanks so much for the kind words! I generally come up with a plot for a book first, then populate it with the kind of characters I think would make that plot the most interesting. In this book, the main character, Jessica, is a plus-sized “business” witch who is astonished when the mysterious hero, Derrick, shows up at her place of work and tells her that she is the Chosen One—chosen to help save her town from an unknown evil! I thought it would be fun to pair quirky Jessica with the very serious Derrick—and watch her warm his icy heart!
West Harbor immediately feels like a world I'd love to visit. What goes into building a fictional yet grounded world that showcases and adds to your characters and story?
Aw, thank you so much! Even though there are some supernatural elements in the book, I wanted it to be grounded as much as possible in reality. That’s why I based West Harbor on smallish towns I’ve actually been to in Connecticut, like Fairfield and Westport, and threw in a lot of detail about things that we non-witches have to deal with every day—where to get the best cup of coffee, how to deal with your high school nemesis, and the difficulties of finding someone to date in a small town!
Can you tease who might be at the center of the next Witches of West Harbor novel?
It’s in an early draft right now and could change, but we definitely get to see more of Jessica and Derrick, along with some new characters who might—or might not—be related to them!
You can grab your copy of Enchanted to Meet You from your favorite bookshop now!