129. LAURA TAYLOR NAMEY: Adding a speculative twist to romance & loving Cubano sandwiches

This week on LiteraryHype Podcast, Laura Taylor Namey joins me to talk about her latest book, If We Never End. Laura has previously written several YA romance novels, but this time, she's taking it a slightly different direction and adding a magical twist. We're talking all about it, as well as a little bit about the movie for her most popular book, A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow.

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A Cuban Girl's Guide To Tea and Tomorrow

Transcript

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Unknown
Hi and welcome to Literary Hype. I am Stephanie, your literary hype woman. Back with another author conversation for Literary Hype Podcast.

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Unknown
Today's conversation comes to you from Book Con 2026, in New York City, where Laura, Taylor and Amy and I got to chat all about her latest book, If We Never End. This is a little bit of a departure for her from her normal vibes of contemporary romance. This one adds a little speculative twist in it, so we're talking all about the process of creating this book and how it differs from her others.

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Unknown
So without any further ado, here's my conversation with Laura Taylor and Amy.

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Unknown
Welcome to Literary Hype. It's so exciting to have you on to talk about your latest book, If We Never End.

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Unknown
But you. So much fun being here.

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Unknown
So for anybody who hasn't seen this book in bookstores or on social media yet, what is it about?

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Unknown
Okay, and if we never end? Girl whines a magical watch and a Boy scout who has no idea who he is or how he died.

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Unknown
Don't don't, don't.

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Unknown
What was your initial idea for this? Because this is a little bit of a departure from your normal vibe.

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Unknown
I thought it was time that after five books doing like contemporary, that it was time for a little magic.

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Unknown
So magic kind of found me like it does my character Sylvie to one to watch. And I've always wanted to do kind of that Aladdin trope where a person of interest, in this case a book boyfriend or, you know, he disappears or pops out of an inanimate object. And I've had that idea for about five years, and it wasn't until a couple of years ago that I just sat straight up in my bed one morning with the idea for the twist that happens in this book, and everything kind of fell into place from there.

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Unknown
I mean, if we never end with one.

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Unknown
There are a lot of twists in this book.

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Unknown
I mean,

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Unknown
it's it's a little bit twisty because at first I was like, oh. And then, oh, so what's it like for you as someone who normally writes, like, more contemporary straight romance, to include that magic and your process in figuring it all out?

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Unknown
It was a bag of hamsters in my brain, but we figured it out and it was actually a lot of fun to be challenging. And it kind of excited me to do this new thing that I call, I'm calling it romance aspect. So it's like, no more fantasy, but it's speculative fiction with this from Mountain plot and it takes off, you know, that that was going to do for me.

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Unknown
And I had a lot of fun doing it, you know, through the challenges. It was exciting and that's it's fun to be excited again about it.

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Unknown
So I really enjoyed that. You named your main character Sylvie. That is my dog's name.

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Unknown
So how did you land on that name?

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Unknown
I can't remember at this point. I wanted something I could put it up on.

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Unknown
Tick tock. Somebody was. It was an influencer or a girl and like, okay, that's cute. It's different, but it's not something that everyone can pronounce and they know it. And it also sounds good in English and Spanish. So silly, you know, because my character's Cuban American. So the names have to be kind of a Latina and English who, you know, to the Russians and to sound a little

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Unknown
yeah, we spell our dog's name without the e, because that's Norse for from House of strength or something like that. So yeah. So it's funny because she is such a strong character and like a strong personality and dealing with that, all the stuff that's going on in her life,

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Unknown
she's got a lot going on.

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Unknown
Homegirls going girl stressed.

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Unknown
But you touch on the Cuban-American identity and that's something that you share with your characters. Why is it so important for other people who might not identify with that character to read something from a perspective that they might not identify with?

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Unknown
I never write my books, but I like to show authentic woman's authentic cultural identity. I call them manifestations or cultural traits or fun things about our culture that we share and that kind of bleed out.

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Unknown
And I think that breeds empathy. When you worry about the people in the way they live and their traditions, their foods, the way that we can fix people with everything, it's like, why do they do that? There's a reason. And it's funny. We laugh at ourselves as Cuban Americans. All these cute things are. And some of these, some of the not so quick things, we identify with them.

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Unknown
And it's I think it's lovely that other people can do those things and also identify with the two and maybe learn something, but maybe have a deeper understanding of people in your work and the places

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Unknown
So with this book, there's a lot of different aspects. Which is more difficult for you to write? A friendship, a romance, a romantic relationship, or a familiar relationship

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Unknown
all the time.

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Unknown
I think that each one, it's just trying to make each relationship feel special and feel like something I have done.

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Unknown
So I love it right here, especially with Sylvia Penn. You know, she wakes up, she's like, oh wait, I'm starting to think with somebody who's already passed on, how does that work? And that was a little tricky on how to work that out. Yeah, but they all have their challenges and I think I embrace them all. This is part of the process and I embrace each relationship as its own thing.

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Unknown
And yeah, so they all take work and a lot of love.

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Unknown
like in this situation, Sylvie has a very fraught relationship with her parents. So talk a little bit about crafting that and figuring out how to work through it in a realistic fashion.

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Unknown
What I really want to do is show that immigrant experience. And I told the immigrant mama and Sylvie's parents, you know, they work abroad every year in a special situation.

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Unknown
They work for a billionaire who probably over pays them, but he demands a lot of their time, and it's a great job. And because of that, they're able to give Sylvie this beautiful private school where she meets all these wonderful best friends. She has a home, beautiful home in Glendale, which is no small thing. California with the housing prices, she's able to do a lot of things that Sylvia's parents coming from Cuba would have wanted.

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Unknown
You know, we have the grandparents that we would have wanted for their raising. But the cost of that is not always talked about in that all that time when they forget to nurture some of the things that are going on within city and they think, well, look, what are all the things I've given you? And I haven't really listened to you.

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Unknown
And I think that was something I really wanted to show that that is one of the drawbacks. Well, one of us, you know. Yeah, I have that type of mindset, which is all done out of love. Like I want to give my children the best thing because that is what I want. We're here. We're in this new place and I want them to have success.

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Unknown
I want to go to college without loans. You know, all these things are important, but sometimes they're with that regimented mental that something is lost. And so Sylvie is living out a page one. What is a lot of what she has lost and what she has built up inside of her? And, you know, it made her jaded and a little bit bitter.

00;06;23;03 - 00;06;34;04
Unknown
you also have a podcast where you talk about writing with your critique partners. How has talking about writing with people who understand it on that level helped you improve as a writer?

00;06;34;10 - 00;06;38;05
Unknown
Well, everyone listening to the Darlinghurst podcast on Spotify or Apple has to

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Unknown
plug in.

00;06;39;04 - 00;06;49;28
Unknown
It's the most fun thing I've ever done because my partners and I've been working together for almost nine years, 8 or 9 years, and now it's a speech other on the platform and talks.

00;06;50;01 - 00;07;19;15
Unknown
And I think we have we've grown up together as one. So being able to share a lot of our experiences with writing, publishing, marketing, dealing with edits, you know, from the practical to the subjective worlds of stuff. We get to share those things with emerging authors or authors at any state. And just to encourage them. And if you're just coming in to listen to us and laugh along with us and learn about publishing and also the highs and lows of this thing we do,

00;07;19;18 - 00;07;24;07
Unknown
One of your previous books is in progress of a production.

00;07;24;10 - 00;07;27;00
Unknown
So give us a little update on where things stand with that.

00;07;27;05 - 00;07;39;11
Unknown
I know a quick first guide to inspire a movie. Yes. It's done. Yes, I have seen it. Yes. It's amazing. He's been kicked hundred years ago. We're waiting for is for that deal to go through. And there are deals. It's just like choosing the right place.

00;07;39;15 - 00;07;54;00
Unknown
Hollywood is so much slower than publishing. I did not know this. Hopefully when it lands, I can't. I hope it's this year. Then we all get to see it. I have seen it. It's beautiful. So let's cross our fingers that it finds its forever home. It's like a dog. It's like a puppy. It's like a double.

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Unknown
IMDb has it listed as a 2026 release. So everyone's like, where? Well,

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Unknown
Yeah, anyone can update that. So sometimes you'll get an intern at one of these, you know, places and they'll say things. So we don't always know if that's accurate. There's substances that's subject to change.

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Unknown
Very much so.

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Unknown
I've done panels with celebrities and been like let's play factor crop with what you want is on your IMDb. But with the massive success of that book. How do you deal with the pressure moving forward into other stories?

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Unknown
Oh, gosh, you just hit the nerve. It's tough. It's tough when you've done something like that that has sold in like 20 territories.

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Unknown
And all of these days it's gotten these beautiful psychoactive active. It's a gift. But it's also like, what do you do after that? And so I'm hoping that if you love that book, you read all my other ones and you look at it, I'm not just that book, but the person who wrote that book also has a big enough heart and a weird enough brain to create many, many more world characters.

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Unknown
And I am so glad to meet Sylvia, you know. Thank you all of them too, I promise.

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Unknown
So yeah, I just check it on those

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Unknown
in your bio, it says you love hunting for vintage treasures. What is your favorite that you found?

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Unknown
I love owls, and if you look at my Instagram, I have this library I like in Italy, and I got was when I was watching the Cuban girl movie in your Berkshire.

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Unknown
I went to a flea market near my hotel, and there was this little owl porcelain look like from the 60s, 70s, and I bought that and was able to take it home and to my office, and I it just reminds me all the fun that I had in England watching movie and being in the industry, which was kind of doing like Jane Austen in my carriage house.

00;09;39;06 - 00;09;47;22
Unknown
Little hotel. So cute. I love those little things that remind me of another time and place where I had a ball and have a good battery.

00;09;47;24 - 00;09;58;20
Unknown
Another thing on your website is that your favorite food is one of your favorite foods is the Cubano sandwich. Yes. What makes it the sandwich? Over just any other Cuban?

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Unknown
It's the love that goes into making it.

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Unknown
The story of the Cubano in the middle and what you are, what you eat after climbing many a no chain middle of the night. So after you get done salsa bars, you dance that way. You go in your refrigerator and seen a Cuban house, so you would have ham and pork and cheese, and there is pickles and bread, leftover bread.

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Unknown
And you put together a sandwich because everyone's hungry after dancing and spending all this energy. I love that the origin of that. But it comes with this party celebration atmosphere. And I love eating that sandwich. And in Cuba goes like there's an entire chapter devoted to the tomato sandwich and I was amazed they let me keep this whole chapter essentially about a sandwich.

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Unknown
I mean, there's stuff that happens, but it's pretty much my sandwich.

00;10;41;00 - 00;10;43;04
Unknown
We'll look at sandwich.

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Unknown
Not that we get to eat many of them at, but con the lines are so long,

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Unknown
I am, I am just looking at this right now. We came from the line and didn't stand it. And it was. Yes.

00;10;53;18 - 00;10;55;19
Unknown
one day we'll learn how to eat at a convention.

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Unknown
Not today. But the last question we always ask, because this is literary hype. What books are you hyped about right now?

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Unknown
Okay, you're so well established by Jeanette Smith. Just came out last week from Mira Harpercollins. My antique Carter's book will blow you away. Absolutely love that. So pick that one up. Can't wait for the whole world to discover it.

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Unknown
Awesome! Well, thanks so much for hanging out with literary hype from book.

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Unknown
Thank you

00;11;20;25 - 00;11;33;21
Unknown
Thanks again to Laura for hanging out with me at Book Con and talking all about her latest book, If We Never End. If you want to get a hold of this book or some of her other ones, the links to do so are down in the description for you, as well as where to find her on social media.

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Unknown
So go give her a follow.

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Unknown
If you enjoyed this conversation, don't forget to subscribe to the Literary Hype Podcast.

00;11;39;06 - 00;11;42;01
Unknown
Give us some stars. Leave a comment and share it with your friends.

00;11;42;01 - 00;11;44;24
Unknown
Thanks so much for listening to the Literary Hype Podcast.