Where I Left Off

Far From Over with Author Manda Mazanec

• Kristen Bahls • Season 2 • Episode 32

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Author Manda Mazanec joins me to talk about her latest romantic suspense release, Far From Over. 

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Kristen Bahls:

welcome back. I'm kristen bahls and you're listening to where I left off, a bookish podcast, and today I'm joined by author amanda M, who wrote under the maple tree, nothing between us and there you were, and her latest novel, far from over, which is what we are talking about today. Thank you so much for joining me.

Manda Mazanec:

Thank you for having me and it's really nice to meet you like in person. I know.

Kristen Bahls:

Yeah, not just over Instagram, but actually over podcast, yay, so the first question that I always ask everyone that's on the podcast is what are you currently reading right now?

Manda Mazanec:

So I just finished. It's called Mistletoe Misses by Alexandra Grace. It was a great. It's a Christmas novella, so that was a really fun book. And then, because I'm an audio lover, I'm kind of doing two things at once. I like to read physical books, kindle books and a little bit of audio. So I have it's Above the Truth by Sarah Tallery and then Madison's Score. It's a new one for me because I am a big Lucy Score person. I just love her banter and I figured I'm going to give her sister a try.

Kristen Bahls:

Nice Now. I can't wait to read all of those. They're all on my list and I like the novella length of some of the Christmas books especially. It's nice to just kind of like get a quick win and enjoy a short story.

Manda Mazanec:

Yeah, and there's a lot of them that are coming out right now that I'm really excited about reading and it's because I listen to so many audio books I can go through more of them. When I have a physical book it takes a little bit longer, just because you know I have a busy home life.

Kristen Bahls:

So all the short novellas are going to be fun ones for me this Christmas, very true. I just found out on NetGalley that you can select the auto read function and even though it's like a really bad AI voice, it still turns anything into an audio book. So now that I know I can listen to my arcs on audio book, I'm like, okay, this is kind of life changing.

Manda Mazanec:

Yeah, and I you know you could do that with Kindle as well. It's like a sys-tive reader. It's not the best, but I've kind of used that a little bit as well sometimes. Yeah, I mean, of course the inflection isn't perfect by any means.

Kristen Bahls:

Like real voices are way better, but it's nice when you, like you said, when you don't have time and you still want to enjoy the book and don't want to forget what's going on, then at least you kind of have that option.

Manda Mazanec:

Yeah, absolutely, and what can you tell us about your work in progress? So what can readers expect next? Normally I'm a one person, one book type of person. I focus on one and I don't have time for anything else. Right now, though, I'm working with there's a collaboration of a few of us authors. We're going to announce something in, I think, february. We decided so. Next year it'll start coming out, but that's going to be a shorter novel. It's not a novella, but it's going to be a longer. Oh, I think we're aiming around 60,000 words. It's going to be a forced proximity adventure, road trip type of fun book. So I'm really excited about that. I'm pretty far into it. But then my other one that's probably going to really sooner, is going to be a spinoff from Far From Over. So I'm working with the Tate siblings.

Kristen Bahls:

So is that one also going to be a romantic suspense?

Manda Mazanec:

I don't know if I'll do suspense. So like I always feel like I just kind of like naturally feed into the suspense and I don't really purposely start off that way. I just kind of do so I'm not really sure where it's going to lead us. I'm not of do so I'm not really sure where it's going to lead us. I'm not sure yet. I mean, it probably will with my characters, but I just haven't gotten that far yet.

Kristen Bahls:

Well, that's awesome. Yay, I'm glad that another book's being worked on for them. And then, of course, we get that partnership. That sounds like really fun to just get to write with author friends. How did that idea kind of come about? Did everyone just say they wanted to work on something together?

Manda Mazanec:

Oh my God. So it's really funny that you even asked that I was thinking it and I kind of threw it out to another author and she was like, well, I already kind of was thinking it too and I already have a group started. Do you want to join us? I was like, absolutely so. There's a handful of us. We all have our own book that we're writing but with the same theme, and have our own book that we're writing but with the same theme, and then there we're going to do a rapid release, probably 2026. But again, we it's still in the beginning stages. And yeah, it was just. It was really funny that we both were on the same wavelength at the same time.

Kristen Bahls:

Wow, that is awesome, and forced proximity is always a win. That's one of my favorites. What's your favorite trope?

Manda Mazanec:

Oh man, enemies to lovers yeah, enemies to lovers. Probably. I do like a grumpy person somewhere. I feel like I always want to aim that way, and then none of my people really end up being too grumpy. They end up being too nice, I think. But this next one I absolutely there's going to be some grumpy people in my next book.

Kristen Bahls:

Oh yay, More to look forward to.

Manda Mazanec:

What about you? What's your favorite trope?

Kristen Bahls:

Oh man, I would say that my top three, because it's hard to pick, I know right. Yeah, friends to Lovers is actually my favorite, and then it gets. It can kind of get a bad rap, but when it's done well, it's really good. And then Enemies to Lovers is my second, and then, I don't know, my third is probably a tie between fake dating and forced proximity. Those are always fun.

Manda Mazanec:

Yeah, I agree. I do think the forced proximity it always ends up being like a bed and it's like, oh, I want something else besides a bed, what else, where else can we be forced? And so, like my road trip thing, it's going to, it's not a bed, so it's going to be a little bit different.

Kristen Bahls:

I like that. I like the idea of a road trip. Oh yay, I need to read what is it. It's called Take Me Home by Melanie Sweeney. I think that one there on a road trip as well.

Manda Mazanec:

I feel like I read that one. So I'm like one of those people where as soon as I read something, it kind of like goes off and then I get a new one and it goes off and. I can't remember which ones I'm reading, so I just sometimes look at the actual you know cover of the book to know if I read it or not.

Kristen Bahls:

Yeah, I can be the same way If I have, like a book spreadsheet, only because I, you know, have to keep up with the books.

Manda Mazanec:

So that's the same book.

Kristen Bahls:

Yes. And then you start reading it and you're like, why does this seem so familiar? And then it's like, oh yeah, that's yeah. Before Bookstagram I definitely did, but now that I have to like keep such careful track, it's a lot easier. It just takes a little bit more effort. That you know. If your life is busy and you don't need to do it, then I wouldn't suggest it.

Manda Mazanec:

Yeah.

Kristen Bahls:

So focusing a little bit more on Far, Far From Over. So the title in itself kind of suggests that there are some unresolved issues. So how did that theme kind of manifest itself in both the suspense aspect and the romance aspect of the book?

Manda Mazanec:

So that's a really good question. I was going in a completely different direction when I first started the book Last summer. There was a lot of things that kind of happened, transpired, and I had a totally detour from the book itself and I knew that I had to have some kind of grief wrapped in there. And you could clearly see it with Kinsley. There's lots of grief that she has to overcome, lots of backstory for her, because it all revolves around Ethan.

Manda Mazanec:

There's so much that she buries inside herself and that's what I think a lot of people do. They bury things inside themselves instead of like opening up, and so that's where the grief kind of stems from. And then you know you have him who's got. You know this grief because of a father, you know death of a father and because I think he's able to overcome his so much faster, like his is a. I want connections and you could see it in the military when he, when his friend, passes away, he surrounds himself with other people for the veteran outreach program, but for her she kind of shrinks into herself and she kind of puts up a wall, even with her sister, and so I think the suspense more comes along when she doesn't even have a clue what her sister is doing.

Manda Mazanec:

She's been so self-absorbed with what she's doing that she doesn't even see outside like hey, here's my sister, this is what's going on. Or with the whole adoption process, like we don't get glimpses of that until later because she doesn't. She just kind of sucks inside herself. I mean, I think that's like a lot of us just in real life, and they have to overcome these, both of them together, by like having these discussions about what, why and I don't know it's. That's a that's a really hard one, because then when you think about it far from over you're thinking it's not over because they were fake dating but at the same time you have all this grief. How do we work through it?

Kristen Bahls:

Yeah, there's a lot deeper things going on, that kind of unravel as the book progresses and, speaking of both Ethan and Kinsley, they do have a lot of grief that they're dealing with. But which character overall do you feel will resonate the most with readers?

Manda Mazanec:

So I want people to say Ethan, just because you know I'm a Marine veteran and I write Marine veterans inside all of them, and I do think that for some of my female Marine veteran friends they will easily identify with him. But the vast majority of us aren't veterans and the vast majority, I think, are women reading these books and they're going to identify with Kinsley. I kind of wanted to write her as a badass and she comes across as doing this job that no one else does. Right, she's got to confront people but at the end of the day you know you have it doesn't matter how many curveballs you're thrown, you're still going to have this fatigue at the end of the day. And so I wanted to wrap her into this. I might look like a badass, I might have an awesome job, but I'm not living really a badass life on the inside and there's so many women that we put so much stress on ourselves, there's so many curveballs thrown our way that I think that women will really identify with her. She's just got so much adversity.

Kristen Bahls:

I agree and thank you for your service, and I feel, like anyone that's reading it, it's nice to be able to put yourself in Ethan's shoes and kind of understand it a little bit more on a human perspective, versus just you know the facts. And then same with Kinsley it's nice to be able to get a feel into her very unique job and everything that she's dealing with and it does. There are kind of parts of both of them that I could definitely see a lot of people resonating with.

Manda Mazanec:

It was also the fact that, like you know, with guys, you know there's so many women who they start to fall for someone and they realize, oh, that's not really who I was with that person, or that's not who I pictured. And you know, people change and it's not always the other person, sometimes it's you. You know you're, you're presenting yourself to someone else and it's like a brand new relationship and then you're like, oh, now I realize that, you know, it's not what it was cracked up to be.

Kristen Bahls:

And yeah, you don't realize until you get into it that that's just kind of the direction that it went and what would you say was kind of your favorite scene in the book where the romance and suspense really kind of collided into one without spoiling it. It's kind of hard.

Manda Mazanec:

I know. So when I think about like my favorite scene, I don't necessarily think it's where they collided. I really liked the beginning, when we meet Ramon with his kind of like snarkiness, right, it kind of gives it the little fun, banter, and I was hoping the rest of my story was going to go that way and you know it was kind of fluctuated a little bit. But I think that scene where she first like sees him again it I that was one of my favorite scenes. And then the bowling activity where they were, you know, fake dating but they're, you know, they're on a bowling date and you see them both kind of like just having fun, even though this is fake and she's bitter right, she still has this bitterness to her but they're able to have fun and she sees him for an adult. Now, this isn't when they were in high school, it's a little bit different. So those were kind of my favorite scenes. The suspense part where that all kind of met up, not so much my favorite, it just had to happen, right, that makes sense.

Kristen Bahls:

Yeah, will Ramon possibly ever get his own?

Manda Mazanec:

book. I don't think I'll make his own. I'm not, I don't know. I don't even know if I'm going to make one for. So I was thinking about all the you know Tate siblings and you know Carter is a for sure. I've had a couple people talk about Carter and Maya. You know Beckett, detective Beckett, and that is probably one of my favorite ones. I did set it up that way purposely to make another story for them. And then you got Logan, who's kind of quieter.

Manda Mazanec:

And I kind of fed a little bit in to make one for him and Jill for sure. But I don't even think I'll make one for the youngest brother. I think it's just going to be those three more. I'm not sure We'll see where it takes takes us, because I do also like throwing them into the book, so maybe something will pop up.

Kristen Bahls:

I could see how that would happen, but yeah, oh my gosh, I would love for their story to happen, especially after again trying not to spoil it after all the events that they run into.

Manda Mazanec:

I'm sorry, so actually, when you just thinking about it. So in my current book Ramon's sister has a cameo. Okay, so I do like to throw cameos into reina books, so they his sister will have a little cameo.

Kristen Bahls:

Oh good, yay good, yeah, who knows, maybe he'll show up in a novella or something. You never know. How do your characters trust issue? Trust issues affect the romance, especially when they're in the midst of danger, or it could be without danger.

Manda Mazanec:

I think with Kinsley, like, okay, so Ethan's a little bit obvious, right, he's kind of he's not really he. He ends up saying like I'm not pretending at one point Um, I think for him it was just a matter of timing and seeing her. But for Kinsley, I think she's really guarded. She has to keep up that wall. She wants to let him in, but there's so much that she does.

Manda Mazanec:

I think it's a timing issue too, because her sister's leaving and she doesn't know the whole story with her sister, so she doesn't want to like blow things up too fast. That's what she's thinking is going to happen. Yeah, I think it's just mostly she's super guarded for everything and it it's him who has to pull it out of her. And then at the very end you know, without giving too much away, it's she sees Victoria again and she's like, oh well, oops, like this isn't what I thought it was, and she kind of retracts again and she has to overcome it on her own instead of having someone do it for her. I mean, the trust issues are deep with her.

Kristen Bahls:

And I mean it makes sense, based on her other relationships or previous relationships that she talks about kind of in the book and how all of those led her to her feelings today. How did you make sure that the characters had believable chemistry throughout the book, because Ethan and Kinsley had some chemistry.

Manda Mazanec:

Yeah, they heartache, for sure, and grief. I think in order to be believable, you have to have some kind of heartbreak and, because this was a second chance, you had to see a little bit of both. Right, you had to see it at the beginning and then, you know, some people call it like the third act breakup. It wasn't a breakup because they weren't really together. It was fake dating. But they had to overcome something you know, but they had to overcome something you know. So they had to have that heartache. They had to have to see what it would have been like to not have each other. Now that they were back in each other's lives yeah, they had, like the family.

Manda Mazanec:

So I was really happy with the way Ethan's family came out. I really wanted them to be believable characters and the only way I felt like doing that was really tying in some believable characters. Especially on his side, you could see the family dynamics. On her side it was a little harder and I wanted that was where more of the suspense had to come from. So I was trying to play an even field of it being like here's some information, but I don't want to give out too much information because we're not supposed to know this yet, but there was little, you know trickles of pieces of stuff I was trying to throw in. So it wasn't just out of shot, you know, out of nowhere. One of my beta readers actually mentioned it.

Kristen Bahls:

She was like I think you might need to fill in a few more holes here and there I was like, oh my God, you're right, and I was even going to ask about how you kind of decided when to reveal the clues, and that makes more sense that it was coming more from kind of her side of the family and that probably helped kind of keep it straight as you're writing. And then, what are, what do you think are the most important qualities in a romantic suspense that a story should always have, because it's a hard genre.

Manda Mazanec:

It is.

Manda Mazanec:

It is the suspense is. It was hard, especially because in my mind I'm seeing it one way, and then again, when my beta readers are reading and it's not coming across the way I wanted it to come across, and then sprinkling it in, you know, because I didn't want it to be a full out suspense. I think when I first started writing it, like I said, it was totally different. It ended up being like more thriller, borderline thriller, and I was like, oh God, that's not what I want. So I was like, well, how is her adoption going to play a role into? Why is that even an important aspect of it?

Manda Mazanec:

And then, with this Hernandez, who's in prison, and you know now we have Tessa's husband, and like there was all these little elements. So I had to try to very carefully just sprinkle them in without giving out too much. And I know someone had mentioned she's like whoa. I was not anticipating any of that, like I probably should have sprinkled a little bit more in earlier on, but I felt like if I did, I was just giving up too much.

Kristen Bahls:

Yeah, and then the focus might've been more on the suspense than the romance, which was you know part of it.

Manda Mazanec:

Yeah, and I know a lot of people want it to be very and I really struggled with balancing it because if I did it would have been too much suspense and that's not really where I wanted to go. I wanted it to be primarily the romance, with that sprinkle of suspense towards the end, because that's where that's where Ethan had to find out like, oh my god, like they had to have that you know kind of friction of I'm about to lose you again and, yeah, something had to happen.

Kristen Bahls:

So that makes sense and that sounds really, really difficult. So you can definitely maybe make the next couple romance uh, contemporary romance to take a break for a second and then go back to romantic suspense, because that sounds like a really hard yeah it's um which I'm sure, like any kind of sub-genre, is really hard to try to balance multiple things in one book and still keep the focus on everything.

Manda Mazanec:

Yeah, but if I do Beckett and Carter, I feel like there's going to be some suspense in there, because she's a detective, right.

Kristen Bahls:

Yeah, especially with them. Yeah, I was going to say especially with them. That would be hard, that's true, that's very true. But I'm really looking forward to their story. Thanks, it'll be awesome either way, even though it's hard to write. Readers don't understand that, you know. You just open a book and you're like I love it and you don't realize like all of the hard work and planning and all of that that goes into it, scrapping it and rewriting it and throwing it away and oh yeah, it's a lot.

Kristen Bahls:

Are you generally a plotter or a pantser?

Manda Mazanec:

I am very much a pantser. I think I plot things in my head first and I actually have a friend, um, who I throw ideas off of her all the time just to get the general sense of everything, and then I kind of go with it. But my new book that I'm writing right now with a collaboration, I am absolutely plotting it and it's really hard to plot because I'm like I I'm stuck with that storyline and I'm like, but no, my characters want to go here and there and yeah, it's hard to plot.

Kristen Bahls:

Yeah, I could see it being difficult for both options. Either way, you're writing a book which is hard, so no matter which way you go, it's going to be difficult. But I was thinking that we could play a game. So with this game it's kind of similar to like the wedding shoe game, where the bride and the groom like hold up a shoe based on which character, uh, they think would fit each question. So if you can tell me if this is gonna be more Kinsley or more Ethan to each of my questions, okay? So the first one is who is better at keeping surprises?

Manda Mazanec:

ethan, no oh man, I wanted to say ethan, but I feel like kinsley, because she was able. Oh no, I think she's too sporadic, it would. I would absolutely. I think ethan, I think he can hold, hold surprises the best I agree.

Kristen Bahls:

And then who is who would be the best gift giver?

Manda Mazanec:

Ethan, I think he would, absolutely. I think he's the sentimental type you know like at the end, like he has his book you know oh, I already the code of conduct, all that stuff, like everything's in there, and like I have one. It's called a monster, the still, and there's stuff all scribbled in it from boot camp and if someone still has that laying around then absolutely I think they're going to be a good gift giver that's true.

Kristen Bahls:

I never even thought about it from that way, so I like that. Uh, what? Who is more likely to be running late?

Manda Mazanec:

absolutely Kinsley. I mean simple fact. Ethan's a Marine Corps veteran. He's never going to be late, he's. You know, if you're on time you're already late. And Kinsley again, I just think she's a little bit more of a hey, I have to go with the flow, type of thing.

Kristen Bahls:

So and especially before the end of the book when she's doing the wedding cancellations. You never know how long those are going to take, so I could see her also running, running late from doing stuff like that yeah, I feel like she probably had a lot more anxiety like high, high anxiety, especially from you know circumstances in her life.

Manda Mazanec:

So I think that she's more likely to be late.

Kristen Bahls:

Who has the better shower? Singing voice.

Manda Mazanec:

Ethan. So I was thinking it like Ethan's got a guitar and he does his little singing and I, after everything was all done and over and it already went through beta reading and it was already going through editing, I'm like I didn't put more of his guitar and singing in there and I really wanted to, just didn't make the cut, I guess.

Kristen Bahls:

But it was really cute the parts that were in there and who is the biggest thrill seeker.

Manda Mazanec:

Kinsley I want to say they both are probably going to be good, but I feel like he'll probably take a step back from it and it would have to be Kinsley for sure.

Kristen Bahls:

Yeah a step back from it, and it would have to be Kinsley for sure. Yeah, I could see her running like headfirst into something and just trying it. Who and last question, who is more likely to cry during a sad movie?

Manda Mazanec:

For sure Kinsley. But I also think that he'd be right there holding her hand the entire time and he might just like have that little look on his face when he's looking at her. But Kinsley for sure. I agree, I think she's the emotional one.

Kristen Bahls:

And is there anything that you would like readers to know that we haven't already covered about? Far From Over.

Manda Mazanec:

Oh, not without getting everything away. I feel like I already gave so much away. No, it was a really tough book to write. The first few that I wrote were much quicker this one. I took a long time re-editing and editing and editing again, but I was really happy with this one. I'm really excited to write about the Tate family.

Kristen Bahls:

And if readers were going to start with one of your books, what would you suggest Publishing order, or is there a specific one you think would fit like a specific type of person or reader?

Manda Mazanec:

My last book I wrote. Nothing between us is not romantic suspense. I think there's again. There might be a little dusting. It's a lot less of a dusting um compared to this one and it's a standalone, so no big deal. You could, you know, they could read that whenever. My first two and there you were and under the maple tree are back-to-back um books in a series. But you don't really have to read the first in order to read the second one, because they are kind of completely different books. You just from Under the Maple Tree, you have the same character that just happened to be in the first book. I just it's not very much related. So any book is fine, but Far From Over is my favorite for sure.

Kristen Bahls:

So start with that one. Okay, good to know, and that's it for today. Thanks for listening to when I Left Off a bookish podcast, and you can purchase Amanda's novels through the links in the show notes, and, of course, they are also available on Kindle Unlimited. Thank you.