Author Leeanne Slade on the story behind The Return of Ruby Darling and why her first preference is always to publish as audio.
Until now, my books have always begun as a question. What if I put the proposal at the start of the book, instead of the end, and made the heroine not want to say yes? What if you knew you were going to fall in love, before you even met? What if you could go back in time – would you erase your biggest mistake, or repeat it to become the person you were always destined to be?
I let these questions ruminate for a while, letting the plot sprawl out like limbs on a tree, until I can see every intricate leaf.
My new book, The Return of Ruby Darling, was a little different. It was my literary agent and her assistant who had mentioned the concept of Saturn Return to me and told me how they thought this would be a fun hook for book. I’ll admit I hadn’t heard of it before, and as a millennial who used to flick to the back of More! magazine to read the horoscopes and see what the week had in store for me, I was quite surprised this phenomenon had passed me by. It claims that when Saturn returns to the same point in the sky it was in when you were born, around the age of twenty-seven to thirty, that if you aren’t on the right life path, and if you haven’t become the most authentic version of yourself, it will wreak havoc on your life until you do. A lot of celebrities have been very vocal about it – Adele, Emma Watson, Ariana Grande, SZA, to name but a few. Some even writing entire songs about it.
Leeanne: I was intrigued!
I’ll admit I was intrigued. When I thought of my own life at that age, I was getting married and starting a family, and there certainly weren’t any huge life dramas I could reflect on. But then, the more I sat with it, it occurred to me what a formative time this is in a person’s life. Truly in the depths of adulthood, there’s a societal notion that by this age we will have it all figured out. We are well into our careers, we’ve met ‘the one’, we’re feeling comfortable in our own skin. . . Hmm. . . sounds great. But what if you’re not there? What if you’re not even close?
As I considered this conceptually from the standpoint of a novel, I loved the idea of creating a character who wasn’t any of these things, who was in fact living a life dictated by the expectations of the social media world. An unlikely influencer who, in searching for herself, had completely lost her way. She became Ruby Darling. She doesn’t quite believe that the huge online backlash against her, the end of her engagement, and a string of other public faux pas are the fault of Saturn. . . but she does believe that she needs to turn her life around. Having always felt that her estranged father was a gaping hole in her life, she sets off to New Zealand to hunt him down, alongside her old best friend, and the clichédly attractive Nate Andrews. In the end, she finds exactly what she needs. . . and I’ll let readers discover what that is.
Audio and Audible
I say readers, but my books are released as audio first, exclusively on Audible, so maybe ‘listeners’ is a more apt term. It’s been a fantastic experience working with Audible, not only because of their marketing support and Hollywood narrators (Hello, Daisy Edgar-Jones, Claudia Jessie, Sam Claflin – an absolute dream!) but because they embrace the romance genre with so much respect and adoration. And that’s not always a given. I’m a very proud romance author; it’s a genre I consume obsessively. I’ll admit, when I first started trying to become an author, and my agent sent out my book to the publishing world, I hadn’t known that audio-first was an option. I had written my books the way most authors do, with print in mind, so when we were approached by Audible, I initially thought this would mean making drastic changes to suit the audio medium. But thankfully, that wasn’t the case. Aside from editing for cadence, accidental rhymes, and the odd “he said/she said” for clarity, my books have always been written in the format of a novel. It’s allowed me to have the best of both worlds: creating a true-to-my-heart novel that can one day be published in print/digital, with the support of industry-leading experts at Audible to bring it to a life in a way I never could have anticipated.
A cosmic kismet? Perhaps. Or maybe just the way it was always meant to be.
(c) Leeanne Slade
About The Return of Ruby Darling by Leeanne Slade:
From Leeanne Slade, the #1 bestselling author of The Rebound, Told You So and The Glitch, comes a brand new Audible Original about love, family, and finding yourself – no matter how far from home you have to go. Narrated by Eleanor Tomlinson, star of Poldark and One Day.
Ruby Darling’s life is falling apart. Her engagement is over, her career as a travel influencer is in shambles, and she’s convinced the universe is out to get her. Desperate to turn things around, Ruby embarks on a life-changing journey to New Zealand to find her long-lost father, dragging along her estranged best friend, Nate.
As they navigate the stunning landscapes, Ruby and Nate’s friendship rekindles into something more. But with family secrets, cosmic curses, and their own emotional baggage to contend with, can Ruby find the path to true happiness? Or will she lose everything – including the one person who’s always believed in her?
Heartwarming, hilarious, and filled with wanderlust, The Return of Ruby Darling is the perfect escape for anyone who’s ever felt lost and found themselves in the most unexpected places.
Order your copy of The Return of Ruby Darling by Leeanne Slade online here.
And read more about writing for audio on Writing.ie here.
