On today’s blog we are talking with Remember Me Tomorrow author Farah Heron. Welcome Farah, we’re excited to have you on Reader’s Entertainment. First, tell our readers a bit about yourself.Where you’re from, where you live? Is writing your full-time job?
I was born and raised the suburbs of Toronto, Canada. I still live in Toronto with my family and my cats. I am a full-time writer of both Adult and YA romance.
How long have you been writing?
I started writing fiction in January 2016 as a new year’s resolution and sold my first book in late 2017. I did write a lot before that, but not fiction. I was a prolific blogger before switching to fiction, and my previous careers all had a writing component.
What does your typical writing day look like?
I wake up between eight and nine, and after breakfast and catching up on reddit, I go into my home office and start working. Depending on my deadlines, I could be editing, drafting, or working on promotions or interviews for a release. If I am not on a tight deadline, I usually go for a walk for at least an hour in the afternoon. If I am too busy for that, I use my treadmill desk to get my exercise while I write.
Tell us about your latest release? Where the idea came from? Perhaps some fun moments, or not so fun moments?
Remember Me Tomorrow is a time-shift mystery romance about Aleeza, a lonely college student who moves into a new dorm room after a best friend-breakup, but she soon discovers that while in the room she can communicate with Jay, the former resident in the room who went missing five months ago— except Aleeza is talking to him before he disappeared.
The book idea came from me brainstorming new book ideas with my daughter. She told me about a Manga she read where the two characters talked from different time periods. It reminded me of a movie I love, The Lake House. I played with the idea a bit to figure out how to make the story contemporary and set on a Toronto university campus. And then I added the mystery element to make it more compelling.
Who has been the most difficult character for you to write? Why?
In this book, I found it hard to portray Jay’s character growth. The book is only told only from Aleeza’s point of view, and she only communicates with Jay through text messages, so I could not rely on his interior thoughts or his body language to convey his emotional state. I had to rely only on the things he said to her, and the actions that he told her about. It was challenging to portray, but I love Jay’s progression in the book.
If you could spend the day with your character, what would you do? What would that day look like?
I would love to spend a day with both Jay and Aleeza while Jay takes Aleeza to all his favorite sandwich shops in the city. He’d start with shawarma in Scarborough, the part of the city where he is from, and end with a burger downtown, where their school is.
What’s your take on research and how do you do it?
I don’t like doing a ton of research for my books because I get stuck in research rabbit holes, but lately I’ve been writing more research-intensive books than I used to. I usually just research online, but for Remember Me Tomorrow I visited a lot of the settings in the book, like a downtown yacht club, to get an idea of what they feel like.
Do you have a secret talent readers would be surprised by?
I once entered a Tea Dueling tournament and was undefeated. I still have the Keep Calm and Drink Tea teapot that I won that day. I also once took part in a challenge where I would sew a new dress every week, and I lasted longer than I thought I would. A final talent, I can solve a Rubik’s cube in about two minutes.
Your favorite go to drink or food when the world goes crazy!
Always pizza! I love a very well made, stone-fried Neapolitan style pizza with a glass of wine or good beer. Nothing makes me happier.
What is the one question you never get ask at interviews, but wish you did? Ask and answer it.
Question: You write both Adult and YA romance. How do you differentiate between your YA and adult romances, and what to you do to help you transition from writing one to the other?
For the most part, my YA books are in first person, while my adult books are in third person. The different POV helps me get into the different mindset of writing about teens to writing about adults. Also, from a cultural perspective, my adult characters are like me, as in they are the children of immigrants, while my YA characters are more like my own children— the grandchildren of immigrants. I find it easier to write with an adult voice, (because I am an adult), but I love teenagers (and used to be a youth counsellor in a prior career) and I find it fun to think like them when writing YA.
Thank you so much for joining us today, Farah.Â
Readers, here’s a look at Remember Me Tomorrow which releases today.
A missing student. A singular investigation. A new romance. Every bit of it is a mystery in a delightful novel of cosmic twists by the author of How to Win a Breakup.
East House is the oldest and least desirable dorm on campus, but it has a draw for lonely university freshman Aleeza Kassam: Jay Hoque, the hot and broody student who vanished from East House five months ago without a trace. It’s irresistible to an aspiring investigative journalist like Aleeza.
But when she starts receiving texts from Jay, the mystery takes an unexpected turn. To put it mildly. His messages are coming not only from Aleeza’s own dorm room but from the past—only weeks before he disappeared. Sharing space, if not time, Aleeza and Jay are living the impossible, and they start working together to prevent his inevitable disappearance. Causing a temporal paradox that could blow up the universe is a risk they’re going to have to take.
Aleeza digs through Jay’s suspicious friends, enemies, and exes, determined to find out what happened to him. Or what will happen to him. But it’s becoming more than a mystery. Aleeza is catching feelings for her charming new roommate. Wherever, and whenever, he may be.
