110. CHRISTY SWIFT: Dating a celebrity in Hollywood Hookup

This week on LiteraryHype Podcast, Christy Swift returns to talk about her sophomore novel, Hollywood Hookup. This is about a makeup artist who gets semi-forced onto a celebrity dating show by her best friend, who is trying to help her get a date with her celebrity crush. However, our main character has plenty of secrets that have her wanting to flee the spotlight.

This is a quirky, fun romcom with plenty of nerdy references and vibes. It also packed a huge surprise for me personally, so we are talking all about that, interactions with the actor behind Gimli, and super powers galore. Join us for a fun conversation!

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Transcript

00;00;03;02 - 00;00;09;22
Unknown
Hi and welcome to Literary Hype. I am Stephanie, your literary hype woman back with another author conversation for Literary Hype podcast.

00;00;09;28 - 00;00;23;15
Unknown
This is a returning guest who I got to introduce to you last year as a returning author. And most of the time, I try not to bring someone in to talk when their book is part of a series, because I find it very hard to talk about it without spoilers for the first book.

00;00;23;19 - 00;00;39;04
Unknown
So in that, in case that's your first introduction to this author. But, I got an email from Republic Systems that she really wants to come back on. And then I found a very special, little, little secret in this that they'd been keeping from me. So this author is Christie Swift. Her first book was Celebrity Crush,

00;00;39;09 - 00;00;42;12
Unknown
which, by the way, has the Teddy Hamilton seal of approval.

00;00;42;12 - 00;00;44;07
Unknown
So take that for what you will.

00;00;44;07 - 00;01;02;12
Unknown
This is the follow up to Celebrity Crush, and it's called Hollywood Hookup. It's about the main character's best friend from the first book. Going on a TV show. So we're going to talk all about Hollywood hook up with Christy Swift starting right now.

00;01;02;14 - 00;01;08;14
Unknown
Welcome back to Literary Hype. It's so exciting to have you on to talk about your sophomore book, Hollywood Hookup.

00;01;08;20 - 00;01;12;01
Unknown
Thank you Stephanie, it's always a pleasure to catch up with you.

00;01;12;07 - 00;01;30;21
Unknown
before we get into talking about the book itself, I normally like beginning to end once my questions, but we're going right to the acknowledgments because I was so shook to be reading the acknowledgments, which I'm a weirdo who writes acknowledgments, especially when I'm doing interviews. But to see my own name in it,

00;01;30;23 - 00;01;32;29
Unknown
I'm surprised that hasn't happened before.

00;01;32;29 - 00;01;50;26
Unknown
Come on, I can't be the first. You are the first. And that was so shocking. Especially with your team. Like they kept it a secret, too. They're just like, oh, you would love to be back on your show. I'm like, okay. And then I'm reading it. I was like, jaw on the floor for a solid two minutes before I could function again.

00;01;51;00 - 00;02;10;20
Unknown
You are it. I mean, you got me in Comic-Con. You got me on daytime TV. I got to meet John Rhys Davies. I wouldn't happen if it hadn't been for you. Like you've been like my literary hype woman. Like I feel like my personal when you've been so good to me. So I was super happy to acknowledge you.

00;02;10;24 - 00;02;32;06
Unknown
Well, I appreciate that so much. And then. But the the Gimli part, I did not realize we, we now have that in common, that we have been kissed by Gimli. Oh, it's a very exclusive club. Maybe not. I don't think so. What is exclusive? As we also like, squeeze your ribs. While he was taking a pay cut, like tickle or something.

00;02;32;08 - 00;02;44;22
Unknown
Yeah, I think he. He's like, tries to tickle and I didn't react. So then he went like in my face. And so that's when I left. He's like got you. Okay. So what was your experience like meeting John Rhys Davies aka Gimli?

00;02;44;24 - 00;02;59;14
Unknown
Well it was totally a surprise. It was. I was going on daytime TV, so, you know, you go on in the morning and you, dear, there's no audience, you know, but you're there on the stage and they've got the cameras and you do your segment.

00;02;59;16 - 00;03;18;17
Unknown
And after I finished my segment, I was autographing a book for the hosts, you know, as a thank you. And I heard some commotion behind me and I was like, oh. Like, am I taking up too much time? Like, do you have another guest? And I turn and it's him. And I was like, oh, and he saw me.

00;03;18;17 - 00;03;37;07
Unknown
And I said, I put out my hand. And I said, it's an honor to meet you. And then I said, do you do hugs? And so he's like, I'm always happy to hug a beautiful woman. And. Yeah. And so he and I, I'd given my I gave my phone to Maggie, the host. I'm like, get oh, no, you know.

00;03;37;07 - 00;04;00;23
Unknown
So she got a photo of the hug and she got then a photo of the two of us and, Yeah, that I feel like that was when I peaked. So yeah, I will tell you, though, I kind of feel like I manifested that because another author friend of mine, Lisa AMA whips, she got, a kiss on the cheek from John Travolta back in the 70s.

00;04;00;25 - 00;04;16;08
Unknown
And when she told me that story, I literally became obsessed with that story. And I'm like, oh, what? My kiss on the cheek from somebody. And you know, sure enough, here it happened. So thank you again. Why do you think you're my sponsor? It's like,

00;04;16;10 - 00;04;24;07
Unknown
this is so funny because in your last book, Celebrity Crush, when we were talking about that, you said that you'd only ever met one celebrity, and it was back when you were a child.

00;04;24;13 - 00;04;31;20
Unknown
So now, having gone to Comic-Con, you got to meet several. Did that change how you approached this book?

00;04;31;26 - 00;04;53;15
Unknown
This book was already written. This book was already written. So no, but I did. I got to meet Zachary, Levi and Carrie always. I paid for those, just like, you know, a normal person. It was fun. I did give them copies of my book, you know, and, you know, told them, like, how they influenced it, because with Carrie, I wish I had listened to As You Wish.

00;04;53;18 - 00;05;13;03
Unknown
And that had a huge influence on me. Just kind of that comradery and being a part of something big, you know, like The Princess Bride. And then Zachary Levi actually sang, cast him in Celebrity Crush as I didn't even bother change his name. The exact character, I think has Zachary Levi in there. And it was funny.

00;05;13;03 - 00;05;32;01
Unknown
When I gave him the book, I told him I fan casted him in the book and he points to the cover and he's like, is that me? And I was like, no. He goes, oh, I see how it is. Just very it's kind of kind of funnily awkward, but I'm like, you know, you get a big section.

00;05;32;04 - 00;05;36;12
Unknown
I marked where I marked the pages where you are.

00;05;36;15 - 00;05;51;05
Unknown
Meeting celebrities, you never know what you're going to get or like what is going to happen. So I love that you got to meet some of them, especially someone who was in book one. Now, would we get a book three that involves a Comic-Con? Now that you've experienced that world?

00;05;51;11 - 00;05;57;17
Unknown
Well, we won't get anything in this universe. This is a two book deal and like, done.

00;05;57;19 - 00;06;24;05
Unknown
But I would that was really my first con that I experienced, and I loved it. And so I have plans to go to more so I could see myself writing a nerdy con type romance or something, at least with a romantic subplot with cons involved. I think that would be really fun. And you know, Hollywood Hook Up has some cosplay in it.

00;06;24;08 - 00;06;28;04
Unknown
Not necessarily con life, but definitely cosplay. So there you go.

00;06;28;10 - 00;06;34;05
Unknown
So for anybody who hasn't seen Hollywood hook up on social media or in their stores yet, what is this book about?

00;06;34;11 - 00;06;58;10
Unknown
So this is book two in the Celebrity Crush universe. And if you read Celebrity Crush, Josie is the best friend of our main character from the first book. Emily and Sean is like the captain character of, you know, the like larger than life Tony Stark's super confident, rich guy. But, a cinnamon roll kind of underneath that persona.

00;06;58;13 - 00;07;20;28
Unknown
So we start out, also on a TV show, just like Celebrity Crush. But Josie has been sort of roped into this celebrity dating show that Amy has put on, as a fundraiser, and she does not want to be on camera or have any chance of being on camera because she has a secret past. She was a child star, down in Mexico.

00;07;20;28 - 00;07;43;12
Unknown
Her her stepdad had a studio and she was a bilingual star, as a teenager, along with her step sister. And she made a booboo, and she kind of got herself canceled, and she ran away from that life, and she changed her name. And she does not want to be recognized or any of that coming back to hurt her or her friends or her family.

00;07;43;14 - 00;08;10;20
Unknown
Who has rebuilt from that? So the last thing she needs is, look at me, A-lister Tony Stark type guy, noticing her. And of course, as she goes on the show, the more she just tries to not be noticed, the more he notices her, and she is kind of forced, back into the limelight and to deal with her past, which she's kind of been hiding from all these years.

00;08;10;23 - 00;08;16;00
Unknown
What was the initial idea or spark that was like, this is the story that I want to write now?

00;08;16;04 - 00;08;31;26
Unknown
everyone really liked Josie. She's very kind of sarcastic and funny and dry. I wanted definitely to do something with her. I also I spent a lot of time. I've traveled. I lived in Spain, I lived in Mexico.

00;08;31;29 - 00;08;57;19
Unknown
I learned Spanish, I got pretty proficient, and a kind of celebrity crush is kind of a love letter to the entertainment community. And Hollywood hookup is kind of a love letter to the people in Mexico especially, but also Spain, who sort of kind of took me in and, showed me love and, taught me and introduced me to their culture, food, language, all of that.

00;08;57;22 - 00;09;10;02
Unknown
I really wanted to put that part of my life in a book, in a, in a way that showed love and appreciation. So that is where a lot of this came from.

00;09;10;06 - 00;09;19;21
Unknown
Did you take any extra steps with like, sensitivity readers or anything like that for the representation with Josie Slash? Savannah?

00;09;19;24 - 00;09;30;24
Unknown
Yes. Yeah. So, I do have a friend in my critique group, Angela Sierra, she is of Colombian and she's lived in the US, so she's mastered both languages.

00;09;30;24 - 00;09;58;26
Unknown
So she was extremely helpful. She read early versions and she pointed things out to me that I would not have understood about just, Latinx culture as a whole. Like we when people like us think about it and even talk about it, it seems like this homogenous group, right? Like the Latinx community. Well, it's not like that. It everybody has their people are from different countries, different regions.

00;09;58;26 - 00;10;23;19
Unknown
They have different cultures, foods, way of doing things. They don't necessarily see themselves lightly. And the countries didn't develop all together like this. So there were issues with like, Josie's show that she was on. Would it have been syndicated in this country? Did they have syndicated cable type things in this country at that time? So there were details like this, that she helped me work through.

00;10;23;19 - 00;10;44;03
Unknown
And then we also the publisher, we had a sensitivity reader. I wanted a Mexican American person because there's a lot of Mexican slang in this book, and I do lots of I have a lot of fun with, like the teaching Americans Mexican slang and just having fun with that. And I wanted to make sure, I mean, it's been a long time since I lived in Mexico.

00;10;44;03 - 00;11;18;13
Unknown
I wanted to make sure I was remembering it correctly and that I got everything correct. So we did. We took, a variety of steps to make sure that it was authentic. And Josie herself is not Mexican American. I didn't try to go there. So she very much is an identity that I have experience being kind of like expat in another country and learning a language and learning a culture and, you know, the good and the bad, the difficulties and the twists.

00;11;18;16 - 00;11;34;02
Unknown
There's a story in this book, but in the acknowledgments, you say did actually happen to the Mexican story. So was it like mining your own life and embarrassing moments to include in a fictional representation for other people to read?

00;11;34;05 - 00;11;42;16
Unknown
Well, I couldn't have made up a better story, honestly. Right. It did happen to me. The Mexican bus story did happen to me.

00;11;42;16 - 00;11;59;03
Unknown
It wasn't quite as bad for me as it was for Josie. I can't remember if I said why in the acknowledgments, but did I? Okay, so it was worse for her than it was for me. But, it did happen and it could have been very bad. And it was bad for her.

00;11;59;10 - 00;12;15;16
Unknown
I've lived long time and done many things, and some of them are pretty funny and some of them are, interesting. And so I think that it's also almost easier to write about things that have happened to you because you have first hand knowledge.

00;12;15;16 - 00;12;22;27
Unknown
You were there. You know what it felt like? You don't have to dig too deep. You don't have to research it.

00;12;23;00 - 00;12;26;18
Unknown
The lack of research has got to be nice on that, at least for that part.

00;12;26;20 - 00;12;42;26
Unknown
Yeah, I don't like researching. I would rather I mean, that's why I picked Hamilton to nerd out, because why would I pick something that I knew nothing about and had to research when I can pick the musical that I obsessed over for like six months of my life, like, it's all it's all right here.

00;12;43;02 - 00;12;50;03
Unknown
who didn't obsess about Hamilton? Especially when it went up on Disney+ during the pandemic? And we had nothing better to do with our lives.

00;12;50;09 - 00;13;05;02
Unknown
I don't know who didn't. I don't know who those people are. I definitely is not writing a newscast to Hamilton every single night. Wasn't me. You know what? I need to get a copy of this book in Lin-Manuel Miranda's hands and Christopher Jackson's.

00;13;05;02 - 00;13;20;04
Unknown
And so if you can help me out with that, let me know. I don't know that they really do cons. I haven't seen either of them on a con lineup. So now that I've got the wheels, turn it up. How how can I make that happen? The Po box, I don't know.

00;13;20;06 - 00;13;32;15
Unknown
Hamilton does play a huge part in this, especially with some, some stolen costume goods. So talk a little bit about crafting that side of the plot and infusing your love of Hamilton into this story.

00;13;32;23 - 00;13;48;22
Unknown
The Stolen Heart was kind of a way to show that maybe because Sean Sean is so great, you're like, he's just he's he's weird, but, like, in that lovable theater boy, you know, way.

00;13;48;22 - 00;14;10;20
Unknown
And so we needed something that showed that maybe he was going a little too far. So when you're buying black market, cosplay goods, you know that maybe you have a problem. So that was kind of like a plot device, but the Hamilton stuff, I just I just wanted to have some fun with that, you know? You know, I love to write about my fandom.

00;14;10;20 - 00;14;35;14
Unknown
Celebrity crush was very much into the sci fi. Joseph was a different character. And and so she needed a different something different for this book. The Hamilton on the roof thing. When I got that idea, I was like, oh my God, I really, really hope and wish that this is like one of those premonitions that something you know, how things happen in my book that I didn't know we're going to happen in real life.

00;14;35;14 - 00;14;50;04
Unknown
And then, you know, it's six months, eight months later, suddenly it's happening. I really hope there's a Hamilton on the roof event somewhere that I can attend, because that looks like so much fun. I had so much fun writing the Hamilton on the roof scene.

00;14;50;10 - 00;14;54;26
Unknown
In that scene she does and Alexander clunk as part of her tap dance.

00;14;54;26 - 00;14;57;24
Unknown
Are you a tap dancer? No, I had to research that

00;14;57;28 - 00;15;06;12
Unknown
that was luck. I was like, I know nothing of tap dads. I was like, where do what I don't understand?

00;15;06;15 - 00;15;15;07
Unknown
That was a research moment where I was like, tap dancing moves. So yeah, I got lucky on that one.

00;15;15;09 - 00;15;21;04
Unknown
Another phrase in this book that I did not had not heard before was the, pineapple ponytail.

00;15;21;04 - 00;15;22;20
Unknown
What's a pineapple ponytail

00;15;22;25 - 00;15;39;29
Unknown
cut? Use the one that's on top of your head. And the, you know, it, like, slows down. I had to look that up to all the makeup stuff. I had to look, all the hair stuff. I had to look up the tap dancing. I didn't know any of that stuff. So some of those little details I did have to look up.

00;15;40;02 - 00;15;47;09
Unknown
And pineapple ponytail has such a nice little alliterative ring to it. It's just it was just a pretty a pretty phrase.

00;15;47;15 - 00;15;59;11
Unknown
I get sidetracked on so many, like, little details like that. Like I was reading a Chloe Gong book and she's like, put my hair in a bundle. And I was like, oh, bundle, it's a bun. Wait, is bun short for bundle?

00;15;59;13 - 00;16;15;27
Unknown
And so I had to ask her about it too. And she was like, I've never heard it called a bun bun. I'm from New Zealand, I love. Yeah, I've never heard of bundle for your hair, but when I hear bundle, I think about that messy bun. You know, where it looks like you just got out of bed? Like if I heard bundle, that's what I would have thought.

00;16;16;00 - 00;16;18;08
Unknown
Not a knot, not a tight little bun.

00;16;18;11 - 00;16;33;08
Unknown
And, a little details. The little, little tiny details, which, like, details, are a part of Josie's job with being a makeup artist and with Sean being very into cosplay. Who would you cosplay as?

00;16;33;11 - 00;16;40;05
Unknown
Oh my God, I would cosplay and I have as Starbuck, Katie Sackhoff, Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica,

00;16;40;08 - 00;16;43;15
Unknown
hands down the reference in your book.

00;16;43;15 - 00;17;03;19
Unknown
And I saw a clip on your Instagram where she read one of your comments on her podcast and laughed. All right. Yeah. So you're very into Katie Sackhoff as well, obviously, Battlestar Galactica. What is it like getting those moments with celebrities even though you haven't met her yet in person?

00;17;03;26 - 00;17;17;03
Unknown
see, that was really fun because Katie has a Patreon and, I, I kind of think of Katie as my celebrity BFF, even though it's completely parasocial, but I'm like, I'm going to join her Patreon.

00;17;17;08 - 00;17;40;29
Unknown
She's really fun because she does really interact with fans. You know, she she'll do special little video clips where she's just in the morning with her coffee and she'll just do like a little video for you. She does respond to our comments and stuff. So it's it's fun. And when there's a fandom like BSG, which is kind of super niche and we're all like, we're still talking about it 25 years later, we loved it that much.

00;17;40;29 - 00;18;02;23
Unknown
You know, and a lot of those actors, they they're just they're all still friends. This is why I want to go to DragonCon, because the fleet fam is supposed to be there, and I would love to meet some of them. So I do enjoy. I love the fact that I made Katie laugh. That was super fun. It's it's I don't know, get it?

00;18;02;26 - 00;18;12;21
Unknown
Life. Life is long and terrible things happen. So, you know, if you can have a fun little moment with a celebrity that whose work you've enjoyed, why not?

00;18;12;28 - 00;18;25;05
Unknown
The first line of this book is, that, like age old question of if you had a superpower, what would it be? And for Josie, it was invisibility. Do you vibe with that or would you pick a different superpower?

00;18;25;08 - 00;18;50;11
Unknown
I would not choose invisibility. No, and I should have put more thought into this for myself. But frankly, Oh my God, you know what I would like? I would actually like to have the voice from that. The bandages are it which just have in June, where it's like, you just tell someone to do something and it compels them.

00;18;50;13 - 00;19;01;16
Unknown
So I might just take that and, use it for good to fix all the problems in the world. I'll just tell them what they need to do, and they'll just have to do it.

00;19;01;18 - 00;19;09;10
Unknown
That's a very mom answer to, like, telling your kids what to do and they do it. I start right?

00;19;09;12 - 00;19;17;17
Unknown
There's so many nerdy references throughout this book, as there were in Celebrity Crush. What's your favorite nerdy reference of this one?

00;19;17;21 - 00;19;34;10
Unknown
My favorite nerdy reference in this book would be when they're having games night and they're playing the Firefly game, because that is my favorite game. And, all of the all of the things that happen in that chapter are from the game.

00;19;34;10 - 00;19;49;09
Unknown
You can aim to misbehave and all of those little gems from Firefly. And then talking about Nathan Fillion being a good gift giver. I just thought that was fun. I don't know if Nathan Fillion is a good gift giver, but I imagine he might be.

00;19;49;16 - 00;19;59;26
Unknown
I might assume so. I mean, I mean, I think he said, when I saw him at Emerald City, I think he said he has one of the, like, coats from Firefly.

00;19;59;26 - 00;20;02;08
Unknown
So, you know, maybe he'll give that away sometime.

00;20;02;10 - 00;20;05;00
Unknown
I hope he gives it to me.

00;20;05;03 - 00;20;12;25
Unknown
Well, there is a whole lot of fun in this story. There's also a lot of deeper elements with the family relationships for both of these main characters.

00;20;12;25 - 00;20;17;06
Unknown
So talk a little bit about crafting the tension outside of the relationship.

00;20;17;12 - 00;20;45;22
Unknown
Yeah. So the family dynamics are where the sort of emotional weight is in this. Like, Jose is pretty much estranged from her family and some of it is of her own making. And some of it follows on her family's decisions as well. I kind of find it annoying when I read romance books and everybody has the perfect family, maybe with the tiniest little flaw.

00;20;45;24 - 00;21;24;24
Unknown
I don't think that's realistic at all. I think that family dynamics are difficult. I feel like the problems in families are hard to talk about, and it's easier to just, you know, not say anything and and keep the peace and the status quo. So I did want to make Josie's family a little more, complicated, but still have a resolution that felt felt good, but also real, you know, like you're not going to fix it all, you know, in a moment.

00;21;24;27 - 00;21;52;00
Unknown
So for me, that part, nailing that part was important. For Sean, his feeling was a little bit easier if it wasn't so complex. Really. There was one family member that needed, needed, help. And so the rest of the family was sort of navigating that. And I did talk about, you know, having a fixer in the family, and Sean is the fixer in his family.

00;21;52;00 - 00;22;19;04
Unknown
And so what does that feel like? And I kind of thought about Encanto, you know, and how that the family dynamics are portrayed in that movie. And it's really well done. And I kind of tried to lean into a little bit of that, you know, like what? What when you have a family member like this, what roles are the others kind of forced into, and how does everyone navigate each other?

00;22;19;06 - 00;22;28;04
Unknown
So yeah, that that was probably the probably the hardest part emotionally in writing this book.

00;22;28;11 - 00;22;38;23
Unknown
And Sean is Irish and he speaks with an Irish accent, was talking about the challenges or if it even was a challenge to write an Irish accent.

00;22;38;27 - 00;22;49;15
Unknown
So I had Sean just have a little bit of one, because he was very young when they moved to the States, and I didn't want to be writing an Irish accent through the whole thing more.

00;22;49;15 - 00;23;07;10
Unknown
His brother had the stronger accent, and so I did have to do some research on that. So for Sean, just I might have thrown a word in here there, like when he and his sister get together, you know, maybe a little more of that comes out. And I think that's probably pretty natural, you know, in families.

00;23;07;12 - 00;23;36;14
Unknown
So, but with his brother, I had fun and I, you know, in my books, I don't have a lot of heavy cursing. So it's kind of easier to curse in a different dialect. So, you know, maybe there'll be some, Irish person who reads it and it's like, oh, you know, that's strong. Whereas, you know, in American reading it, we don't really kind of get it, you know, that you don't get the strength of curses in other languages or other dialects sometimes.

00;23;36;17 - 00;23;42;16
Unknown
And you do have a next project that is in the works. What can you say about that?

00;23;42;23 - 00;24;01;05
Unknown
So I have several things in the pipe. So I have I have it another rom com on submission. It's called do the next Wrong Thing, and it is about a NASA project manager who has gotten a little bit too controlling with her team.

00;24;01;07 - 00;24;25;03
Unknown
And so what she thinks is a birthday, party at work for her, it turns into an intervention where they give her a book, a self-help book about, curing perfectionism by doing wrong things on purpose. And they send her on her two week vacation to work through the book and and fix her problem. That one is, available.

00;24;25;06 - 00;24;51;06
Unknown
I talked to my agent. I also have a sci fi series, with a very strong romantic subplot on submission. Planet of Souls. It's kind of, tangled meets Firefly. You've got a dying energy healer, and she has enlisted this charming, galactic medic to transport her across the galaxy to a planet where, souls don't pass on.

00;24;51;09 - 00;25;13;08
Unknown
And then I am going to be later this spring, a self-publishing, fantasy novel that I wrote a serialized fiction piece based on my nephew's board game, Rolling Empires. It's set in a high fantasy world, so it's got six POVs. I got a wizard, I got a I got a, a new queen who is kind of insecure.

00;25;13;08 - 00;25;37;11
Unknown
I've got a neurodivergent dwarf. I've got a mysterious human orphan. And they are all working together to fight this new magic that has arrived in their world via, an asteroid. So that's all based on, lore and canon from his game. It was super fun to write. I'm hoping to get that out in April.

00;25;37;14 - 00;25;38;08
Unknown
Sounds great.

00;25;38;08 - 00;25;41;02
Unknown
We got so much to look forward for from you.

00;25;41;05 - 00;25;41;25
Unknown
Thank you.

00;25;41;29 - 00;25;46;26
Unknown
And the last question we always ask, because this is literary hype. What books are you hyped about right now?

00;25;47;02 - 00;25;59;07
Unknown
I've read a super fun, nerdy rom com by my publishing siblings, Shimizu Patel. It's called Next Level Love. I know you've read it, and I love it because the theme is online.

00;25;59;07 - 00;26;26;11
Unknown
Friends are real friends and that is so true. This relationship starts out as a gaming relationship and comes into the real world. I love her reveals. I love the kind of gentle way everything, unfolds. So that one, I would say if you're a rom com fan, definitely give it a read. Another friend of mine, Emily Colin, is she has a series.

00;26;26;13 - 00;26;33;08
Unknown
She's just I'm trying to think because, like, I know what she's working on that isn't out yet. And

00;26;33;11 - 00;27;02;27
Unknown
She has a series. A romantic series that is so much fun. And the first book is called Fate and Fury, and I love it because her villains are like these snarky demons, and it's, I don't know, like, I've never been a dark link person. But, like, these snarky demons, I'm somehow in love with this one, and I don't understand my feelings, but he's maybe because he makes me laugh.

00;27;02;29 - 00;27;10;26
Unknown
But the books are wonderful and she's got fate, and Fury is out. There are two others. But start with that one for sure.

00;27;10;29 - 00;27;15;19
Unknown
Awesome. Well, thanks so much for taking time to talk to Literary Hype about your brand new book, Hollywood Hookup.

00;27;15;21 - 00;27;19;08
Unknown
Thank you. Stephanie

00;27;19;11 - 00;27;32;19
Unknown
Thanks again to Christy for taking time out of her day to talk about Hollywood hookup with me, and for that super sweet mention in the acknowledgments. I'm still shocked that that's in there. That was my first time being in the acknowledgments of a book, and I'm not over it.

00;27;32;24 - 00;27;40;22
Unknown
If you'd like to check out this book for yourself, the links to do so are down below in the show notes, as well as Kristy's first book and where to find her on social media.

00;27;40;25 - 00;27;44;19
Unknown
you enjoyed this conversation, don't forget to subscribe to the Literary Hype Podcast.

00;27;44;20 - 00;27;51;29
Unknown
Give us some stars and share it with a friend. And hey, if you really like it, there is an option on Buzzsprout to support the podcast.

00;27;52;01 - 00;27;54;16
Unknown
Thanks so much for listening to the Literary Hype Podcast.