WAIT FOR IT Book Club Kit

Letter to Book Clubs Wait For It came to me in the shower. Isn’t that always the way? You’re standing there, naked and sudsy with nary a pen in sight, and BAM, you get hit with a fabulous story idea. This never happens when I’m perched over my keyboard waiting for something great. Oh, no, that’s when my brain is a barren sun-dried wasteland of duh. But make it impossible to write down my ideas and suddenly I am an inspiration orchard in full fruit. It’s maddening.

Originally, I hadn’t planned to write a story for Annabelle Martin, the irrepressible sister of Chelsea Martin who is the heroine of my previous novel, Paris Is Always a Good Idea. But Annabelle was such a force of nature when she arrived in the Paris book as a twice-divorced, twenty-seven-year-old bighearted free spirit who couldn’t find happiness that I couldn’t ignore her. She kept picking the wrong men, trying to fill the void left by her mother’s death, and she was a fixer, choosing men who needed her instead of wanted her. I just had to know how life worked out for her and so Wait For It was born.

How does a person break the patterns of a lifetime? This was the question that drove the plot of this romantic comedy. As previously mentioned, our heroine Annabelle has a habit of picking the wrong men. The consummate fixer, she chooses broken men and then fixes them, becoming the lovable lawnmower wife in their life, mowing down any obstacles in their path. Her unspoken hope is that they will come to need her so much, they’ll never leave her, but of course they do.

Enter Nick, our hero. From a broken home, he is deeply distrustful of relationships, having witnessed firsthand how devastating love

can be. Driven to succeed, he had mastered life as an accomplished builder, creating new neighborhoods where only poverty and despair had existed before. He was living his best life, or so he thought, until an ischemic stroke changed his life at age thirty-five. Now bound to his home and a wheelchair, suffering the aftereffects of the stroke, he is a veritable shut-in. Still, he thinks he is managing. He thinks he is fine. He isn’t.

Having ditched her life in Boston to start fresh in Phoenix, the only contact Annabelle has with her curmudgeonly landlord, Nick, comes in the form of his very exacting notes, telling her in very specific detail what rules he expects her to follow while she is renting his guesthouse. Ever the fixer, Annabelle is determined to meet the old goat and win him over. When she does, she discovers how very wrong she was in her assumptions about her landlord. He is hot and young and debilitated.

And best of all, she is quite certain that he needs her.

What follows is the love story of two people who have to change their default settings if they want the romance that is sparkling right in front of them. This is much more challenging than they anticipate. Can Annabelle learn to ask for what she wants in a relationship instead of always putting her partner first? Can she stop picking men who need her instead of want her? Can Nick confront his anxiety and fear and be the man he once was? Can he believe in true love and its power to heal instead of harm?

Whenever I think about Wait For It, I smile. If someone were to ask me what it’s about, I would describe the plot as…Everything was fine (not really) until she moved in. Because ultimately, that’s the heart of the story. Nick and Annabelle each believe they are doing okay, but when they finally meet and the magic is there, they have to let go of all the self-limiting behaviors they’ve been using to survive this crazy thing called life and take the biggest risk of their lives by loving someone more than they ever could have imagined.

Happy Reading!

Jenn

A Conversation

WITH JENN McKINLAY

Te l l u s a b o u t Wa i t F o r It! What inspired you to write this story?

Annabelle. While writing Paris Is Always a Good Idea, the novel about Annabelle Martin’s older sister Chelsea, Annabelle danced across the page with her own particular sassy energy and I just knew she needed her own story. I didn’t know what it would be, or how it would take shape, but I knew I had to tell it. During a particularly cold February visit to see my family in Massachusetts, Annabelle’s story revealed itself to me as I dreamed of escaping the February cold and heading back to Arizona to enjoy the warmth, sunsets, and margaritas of the state that’s been my home for most of my adult life.

What do you feel are the main themes/issues that are addressed in Wa i t F o r I t ?

Because the story is told from the perspective of the two main characters, Annabelle Martin and Nick Daire, there was a lot to unbox in each of their worlds.

Annabelle is a fixer, she loathes conflict, and she tends to be a flight risk when things go badly. It takes her a while to realize that she always picks the guy who is a diamond in the rough because she hopes that by giving three hundred percent of herself to him, he’ll become dependent upon her and never leave her, which is an abandonment issue left over from losing her mother to cancer when she was young.

Nick’s baggage is even heavier than that. After drug addiction caused the implosion of his family when he was just a boy, he has crafted a life for himself where he is never ever dependent upon anyone else. Years of hard work have made him wealthy and secure, or so he thought. A stroke at the age of thirty-five almost took him out. He survived, but now the fear of it happening again has caused him to become a recluse. He thinks he’s managing his anxiety just fine…until Annabelle moves into his guesthouse, forcing him to question everything.

Did the book require any special research?

If so, please provide any interesting details about your research.

Weirdly, for the opening scene of the book where Annabelle receives a surprise proposal from her first ex-husband, I had to verify that women have accidentally swallowed engagement rings that were hidden in their food or drink. I even saw X-rays. Crazy, right? Trust me when I say food and drink should never ever be involved in the delivery of the ring!

I also learned more about net-zero building and graphic design than I ever imagined needing to know. Nick’s sister, Lexi, is an architect who arrives in Phoenix to build a grantfunded net-zero housing development (this is a green build where the utility costs are nonexistent because of the use of renewable energy sources), and Annabelle is the graphic designer who is hired to do the logo and branding for Lexi’s project. Thankfully, I have a cousin, Brad, who is a graphic designer who is married to an architect, Nancy. Amazingly, they haven’t blocked my calls…yet.

How did your writing process change, if at all, while writing this novel?

Originally, I had no intention of writing from Nick’s perspective in addition to Annabelle’s, but as I started to write the scenes about him and his anxiety, I realized that I needed to be in his head to adequately express his struggles with his fear and self-loathing and also his self-imposed isolation. Nick has spent his entire life pushing people away and keeping them at a distance, but when Annabelle arrives, she changes everything.

As I got to shift between their points of view in each new chapter, I came to delight in the different personalities and perspectives of Annabelle and Nick. Also, I thoroughly enjoyed watching them fight and then succumb to the connection they felt until they were forced to take a chance and choose to change to finally become their authentic selves and to be able to be in a relationship for the right reason: true love.

What do you hope readers will take away from this story?

Aside from laughs and tears and pure entertainment, it is my hope that by traveling with Annabelle and Nick on their separate and together journeys, readers will see the value in seeking help when life is too difficult, in being true to yourself and asking for what you want in a relationship, and that with great risk frequently comes greater reward. Be brave. It’s going to be all right. Really.

1.

Here’s my Wait For It Spotify playlist—these are the songs I listened to when the words got stuck during the writing of the book.

“The Race Is On”

by George Jones

2.

“If I Ain’t Got You”

by Alicia Keys

3.

“16 Days”

by Whiskeytown “When You Were Young”

by The Killers “Summer Samba”

by Walter Wanderley

4.

“Strange Condition”

by Pete Yorn “Feel Good Inc.”

by Gorillaz “Umbrella”

by Rihanna

5.

“No Rain”

by Blind Melon “Bring Me to Life”

by Evanescence “Danny Boy”

by The Irish Tenors

6.

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4.

5.

6.

Hub and I hiking Papago Park, one of our favorites!

Sunset from my front porch Saguaro and creosote—so distinctive to Arizona Camelback Mountain—it really looks like a camel lying down Phoenix from Camelback Mountain Spring in the desert

WHAT’S IN

Jenn’s Beach Bag? Sunscreen, a floppy hat, and a Frisbee—always a Frisbee! And as for books, oh, there are so many to choose from! Here’s an eclectic sampling of some of my faves.

Garden Spells

by Sarah Addison Allen Rebecca

by Daphne du Maurier When No One Is Watching

by Alyssa Cole Where the Crawdads Sing

by Delia Owens Like Water for Chocolate

by Laura Esquivel Things We Save in a Fire

by Katherine Center Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie The Flatshare

by Beth O’Leary The Boyfriend Project

by Farrah Rochon The Friend Zone

by Abby Jimenez Just One Damned Thing After Another

by Jodi Taylor Captive Prince

by C. S. Pacat

Discussion Questions 1.

Annabelle is a fixer. She feels her role is to take care of those she loves. Why does she feel this way? Are you a fixer? Do you know someone who is?

2.

Nick is afraid to show any weakness. Why? How does he change? Why does he change?

3.

Nick and his sister, Lexi, have a complicated relationship, but the sibling bond is too strong to be denied. Do you have siblings? What is your relationship like? How would it be affected by a twenty-year estrangement?

4.

Annabelle chooses to run away from her current situation in Boston. Have you ever wanted to run away and start over?

5.

Nick feels trapped. Fear has him living as a shut-in. Have you ever wanted to shut the door on life?

6.

Who are you more like: Annabelle who runs away or Nick who hides?

7.

When Nick and Annabelle are watching the meteor shower—the shooting stars—they have very different reactions to the vastness of the universe. Nick feels panicked and powerless, but Annabelle feels relieved to be part of something bigger. What do you feel when you contemplate the stars?

8.

Both Nick and Annabelle are forced to step out of their comfort zones and take risks.

What is the biggest risk that each of them takes?

9.

Having a stroke in his mid-thirties, Nick has suffered a terrifying setback in life. Does he handle it well? How would you have handled it?

10.

Annabelle is challenged by a rival at work. How does she cope? Could she have managed it differently? How would you deal with someone who tries to undermine you professionally?

11.

The tragic circumstances of their lives shaped Nick and Annabelle. Have you ever suffered a loss or a tragedy like theirs? How did it change you?

12.

What do Nick and Annabelle find in each other that helps them heal?

© Jacqueline Hanna Photography

Jenn McKinlay

is the award-winning, New York Times, USA

Today, and Publishers Weekly bestselling author of several mystery and romance series. Her work has been translated into multiple languages in countries all over the world. She lives in sunny Arizona in a house that is overrun with kids, pets, and her husband’s guitars. jennmckinlay.com •

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