Talk Wordy

daddy is a state of mind - feat. daisy jane

• Sydney Applegate • Season 2 • Episode 6

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0:00 | 16:34

Hey everyone! Welcome back to another episode of Talk Wordy, with this episode's guest being the wonderful Daisy Jane. Her books are full of spice, small towns, and a flare for the taboo, and her newest release, FATHER OF THE BRIDE, is available now! Thanks for tuning in! (Recorded February 2026).

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🫦MY GUEST❤️‍🔥

Author Website: https://www.daisyjane.com/

Buy FATHER OF THE BRIDE: https://www.daisyjane.com/product-page/father-of-the-bride

Shop ALL her books: https://www.daisyjane.com/shop

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/authordaisyjane/


SPEAKER_01

Hello everyone and welcome back to Talk Ordy, my hub for all of the words that I read, write, or otherwise want to yap about. Today I have a very special author guest on the pod. She's the author of contemporary romances with kinks, small towns, and a flair for the taboo and forbidden. And her new book, Father of the Bride, is out on February 24th. Please welcome Daisy Jane. Hello. It's so good to have you on the pod. And on Valentine's Day. Yes. The best day to talk about romance. Exactly. Literally. It was funny earlier. You were like, do adults actually say Happy Valentine's Day to each other?

SPEAKER_00

What's the etiquette? Because it I feel like saying happy Valentine's Day is not the same as saying Merry Christmas.

SPEAKER_01

I know, but like, I don't know. With kids, you know how kids at school will have like the Valentine's boxes and everything. Um, why do we not do that with adults?

SPEAKER_00

I do. I sent out, I just put out a Google form last year and I said, if anybody wants a Valentine's Day card just to feel special on Valentine's Day, sign up and then just tell me what your humor is so I don't offend anybody. Exactly. And I sent out over 500 Valentine's Day cards. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. They were good too. Like meme ones. I found them on like Amazon and yeah, they're fun.

SPEAKER_01

I love that. Okay. So to warm up with my guests, usually, when we have more time to talk, we usually go over what we are reading, watching, and listening to. But since we're on a little bit of a time crunch this time around, I just want to know do you have any current hyperfixations right now?

SPEAKER_00

I don't know if the answer you might want to edit out is yeah, the Epstein files. Oh my gosh.

unknown

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

Real answer? That is my real answer. Um, but for this, um he did rivalry. Good. He did rivalry. He did rivalry. I didn't let myself watch it when it first came out because I was writing a book. And I'm like, I don't want to get lost in this lore. I know me. This is right up my alley. I'll be gone forever. So I didn't look at anything on the internet, which was so good. And in my group chat, like what two of my best friends are like obsessed with it. And I was like, shut up. Don't say anything. I don't want to know anything. And then when I got all my Christmas shopping done and finished my book, I was like, I'm gonna let myself watch this when I wrap gifts. Yeah. And that was Christmas, and I'm still obsessed.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. I feel I was telling somebody earlier that fandom has yet to have a bad TikTok edit.

SPEAKER_00

Oh my gosh. I could just watch those, and now I'm listening to all the things she said in my car as I'm driving place. And I'm like just thinking I'm this like hockey player. It's a whole thing.

SPEAKER_01

It's a whole thing. I'm currently on book submission and it's actual hell. And so sometimes I'll put on I'll believe in anything and just like sob at the wheel. Like, oh my gosh, please. Yeah, it's rough out here. Um, okay, so for those of you guys who don't know, Daisy has a book coming out soon called Father of the Bride. Um, and imagine the blush on my face when I realized like how not similar to the classic movie it is. Yeah. Um Daisy, do us the honors, tell us a little bit about your next book.

SPEAKER_00

Well, I do want to say about Father of the Bride, that's one of my favorite movies. And I'm obsessed with Steve Martin. So I felt like that title was also to like pay homage to that movie. And that all those movies are so good. Okay, but anyways, Father of the Bride is a age gap. It's a 26-year age gap. But the way that feels not icky to me is she's 26 years old. It's not like she's 18. Yeah, which then I'd be like, I mean, 26 and 52 is still kind of a lot, but it is romance. It is, but also like her frontal lobe is fully developed. Totally, totally. She knows what she's doing, she's done with school, she has a career, she's a grown woman, but but best friend's dad is one of my favorite tropes to write. I have another book called Big Daddy that is best friend's dad, and it's just too fun. It's too fun. This is also my first time writing curvy romance too. Um, well, curvy heroin. I've written plus size males before.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So this is a curvy heroin romance, millionaire. I don't normally write millionaires, I'm a small town girly, but I do have a series set in San Francisco. So they interchange with the other Daisy verse universes. Oh, yeah. And since I know San Francisco, I can actually write it well. You know? So it's gonna be really good. It's um, it is really good. It's out on arc right now. Um, it's it's got my highest pre-orders yet. That's awesome. I know, I'm excited. Yeah, because you have how many books under your belt? I have over 40 books. I'm in 2022 when I started to kind of get it together and go, okay, this isn't just like indie publishing anymore. I kind of want to step up, get a step ahead in my career. I unpublished some of the older books that I've written just because they don't really reflect my writing style anymore. But I have written over 40 books and I have, I think, over 35 of them still up on Kindle Unlimited.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Wow, that's incredible. Congrats on such a long-standing career.

SPEAKER_00

Well, I I have had the beauty of when I started really taking it seriously, the pandemic hit. And so you had all this time. I was homeschooling my kids, and then outside of that, I'm like, I gotta do something, you know. So that's when it really kicked off.

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely. Um, so as you were saying, best friend's dad, uh, though that trope is steadily on the rise, which honestly I'm really starting to appreciate. I did not think that I would be the target audience of it when it first started like crossing my metaphorical desk. Um, but I fear I'm succumbing to its magnetic pull. Truly. I just recently read um Elsie Silver's uh wildcard and I was shocked. Like, yeah, that's the age gap, but like anything with like a dad adjacent trope, I'm like, oh.

SPEAKER_00

You know, I this book specifically, the reason why it really works for me and doesn't feel like such a reach or a fantasy or anything like that is that she's best friends with his daughter while she's growing up, and so she's around him and they know each other, but then when she goes away to college and comes back, she's a woman and she's different, and he feels like now she's a stranger, and it kind of builds this safe space for them, you know, where they're they've had this relationship and it works and it's normal, and it's not just I'm gonna go fall in love with some old guy now. Yeah, they know each other, you know, there's there's something there. So the other way I wrote it is is not that way, it's just like you're so-and-so's dad, okay, you're hot, but there's a place for that too.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, you know, there's a spectrum, yeah. Um, so do you also have what now that we're talking about like these specific tropes, do you have any other um forbidden romance recommendations that you've been loving lately from other authors?

SPEAKER_00

Oh my gosh, I always really love Karen Cole. She she hasn't released a book in a a year or two, but the last book of hers, it's called The Lovely Return, and it is a time travel romance. And I don't I don't know how to really talk about it without just saying you have to read it. It's an experience from the moment you start reading, you cannot put it down. And it's like a it's a pretty big book, but it's excellent. I love it, and I love all her books. She's a great, like forbidden author. I really love her books.

SPEAKER_01

Okay, I'm gonna have to go check her out. She's the best. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Like she's the best. You will not be disappointed. And she has a lot of books. So when I first started reading her, I was like, I gotta go see what else she has. And then when I saw she had a huge library of books, I was like, jackpot!

SPEAKER_01

Yes, amazing! Yeah, totally. Um, if you could bring any of your female characters to life from your books and go for a girls' night out, um, which characters are you picking and what would be on the itinerary?

SPEAKER_00

I'm bringing Dolly. I have a stalker romance. She's the stalker. Oh, okay. And uh she's kind of lore in my universe. She's in a lot of books, guiding other women to make bold emotional choices. Um, she stalks her hero in her book and goes into his house, wears his clothes, licks his dishes, uses his toothbrush. She's fully obsessed with him. And at some point he realizes it a little bit slower because men. And finally they they get together, but she is a blast. That book is just a blast. And so I always say if I could have any character be real, if I could hang out with any character, it would 100% be Dolly.

SPEAKER_01

I love that. Yeah, she sounds crazy. I love her.

SPEAKER_00

She's crazy. Her book is called All My Love, but her series is called Twisted Sisters, and all of her sisters are a little bit out there. Out there. Her oldest sister is a unaliver, so a serial unaliver.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Um, okay, well, since I drove from Texas to be here, I passed a lot of small towns on my way. Um, and while I couldn't imagine living in a small town because there was not a lot to do, I feel like there's just this certain magic about small town romances. In your personal opinion, what's the secret sauce behind a small town romance and why do they just work so well?

SPEAKER_00

I think it's the comfort and familiarity. I think when you have a small town romance and you build the small town world, you get to know everybody. Everybody's safe, everybody's reliable. Stuff that happens in contemporary small town isn't gonna be what you're gonna find in dark romance. And it it's comfort and safety, and then it's typically nice romance, right? There's not, sure, there can be violence and things like that, but in small town romance, it's really just comfort for the reader, I think. And and I live in a small town, and so I know small towns really well, and I think for my personal reasons for loving a small town, I think that also translates to books too. Yeah, you know, it's just that cozy, comfortable feeling, knowing everybody, familiarity. It's really safe. I like it.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah. Is there a favorite fictional small town that you've read in other books that just like stays with you?

SPEAKER_00

Oh my gosh. Well, I love all the small towns in Melanie Harlow's books. All of her small towns are so great. She is like an inspirational small town writer because she does it so well. But truthfully, I love all small town romances. It's why I write it. Yeah, because I just love them all. There isn't a singular favorite, I don't think.

SPEAKER_01

I love that. I want to branch out more because I feel like I stick to like very certain, more mainstream authors when it comes to small towns, but like I feel like a lot of indies as of late have been really honing in on small towns, and I just love that kind of if not cozy, just like warm, familiar, like you were saying. It feels like I actually live there with them. Um so in honor of the Winter Olympics that are happening right now, say that all the book tropes competed for a spot in the finals. What three book tropes would you put on your personal podium? Forced proximity, marriage of convenience.

SPEAKER_00

Marriage of convenience. And are we counting age gap as a trope? Absolutely. The age gap. Those are my top three. I've never written uh marriage of convenience, but as a reader, oh my god, oh my gosh. I and then the moment where he's like, my wife, and you're like, oh hello? Yeah, those are my top three. And I just there isn't, you can't do it wrong. Marriage of convenience is just so tasty. And forced proximity, oh, one bed. Oh, darn. I know, darn it. I swear I ordered two. I know. Looks like we'll have to sleep in the same bed. Oh no, what are we gonna do? Right. So I I love those three tropes. They're my absolute favorite to read and write.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. So forced proximity takes gold, marriage of convenience, silver, and then age gap bronze.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I'm throwing age gap in as bronze only because I don't even, I write it so much, I honestly don't even consider it a trope anymore. I'm just like, okay, now they're here's the age gap, you know? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Um, are there any green flags in your books, like how you write them, that if they transpired in your real life, you would be, oh no, that's an immediate red flag.

SPEAKER_00

Pretty much every hero in every book I've ever I mean the the possessiveness is what readers like about a lot of heroes, even in small towns, you know, to be very territorial and possessive and alpha. Yeah. But in real life, like I would never want that. I I mean it to be bossed around or, you know, storm in and have someone take care of me when I'm fine doesn't really work in real life. But in books, it absolutely that that possessive I'm gonna save the day absolutely works in romance books.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, for sure. Um, if you were given three months, all expenses paid, to go on like a solo riding retreat anywhere in the world to draft your next book, where would you want to go?

SPEAKER_00

I'd probably go to Yosemite in a cabin. I we live really close to Yosemite. We have an annual park pass, and it's so peaceful in that park. I would probably get a little cabin and then I would not let my kids or my husband come. And I would just watch nature and enjoy the calm because I usually don't listen to music and stuff when I write. I like calm and peace. So I think that would be my ideal retreat.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Yeah. How long does it normally take you to write one of your books?

SPEAKER_00

It just depends on what type of book it is. I'm a heavy, heavy outliner. I don't pants or anything like that. So I know exactly what I'm setting out to do every day when I write. Uh, usually a book takes about two months to write.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

It's pretty quick.

SPEAKER_01

And did you always know that you wanted to be a writer, or was it something that kind of came later on?

SPEAKER_00

I, in my fourth grade, little talk about yourself and your life. I wrote, I either want to be a writer or I want to be Jerry Seinfeld. So the writer thing worked out. Yeah. The comedian thing did not work out so well. But yeah, I've always I've always been a writer. Writing little stories, fan fiction. I started writing like back when I was like in um late, late junior high, early, early high school, fanfic like Harry Potter fan fiction. Oh yeah. Posting it online and getting like a following doing that. And I've always just this is what I meant to do for sure.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, absolutely. Um, I'm curious. So if you could wipe your memory and reread your favorite book for the first time, what book would that be?

SPEAKER_00

It would be The Lovely Return by Kerry and Cole. It absolutely would be, because it's the type of book that you don't really understand what's going on throughout the whole thing until a certain point. And you can't really ever get that back. That's a one-time read where you're like, Yeah, it packs a punch the first time. The second time it's still amazing, but you know. So I think that would be one I'd love to read for the first time again. Or alternatively, Him and Us by L Kennedy and Sabrina Bowen. Oh. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

I love L Kennedy. Why do I not know about this book?

SPEAKER_00

It's really good.

SPEAKER_01

Him and Us. How long ago did it come out?

SPEAKER_00

Um it's two books. Him is the first book, Us is the second book, Epic is the novella. It's it's about, I think, I want to say it's like eight years old. Okay. It's I'll have to go look into it. It's it's really, really good. It's hockey. Um, it's like friends to lovers. It's it's really good. It's it's one of my all-time favorite books. I've listened to it probably 30 times. Maybe more.

SPEAKER_01

I was like, I think the most I've ever reread a book is like three times. That's impressive.

SPEAKER_00

I have comfort rereads where I'm like, there's nothing I really want to read right now. I'm just gonna go back to what I know is gonna make me feel good, you know? Yeah. And it's it's good.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Love that. Okay, so when we're currently recording this episode, we are at Lovelett Con. Again, it is Valentine's Day. So for any of our listeners uh that are here at the con, where can they find you? Are you gonna be on any more panels? And then for our future listeners, where can they find you online?

SPEAKER_00

I will be at E74. I will be positioned right in the middle of the signing. Um, you can come see me there. I'll be with my husband. Look for the man with the huge beard. Um, but I did a panel yesterday. I I moderated a panel yesterday and won't be doing any more panels today. Um, but outside of that, you can find me online. My website is www.daisejane.com and I also narrate live on TikTok and uh you can find me on Instagram. So I'm not like a big social media user, but you can message me there. Yeah, I will write back eventually.

SPEAKER_01

Love it. Okay, well, there you have it. Thank you so much for tuning into Talk Wordy and my thanks again to Daisy Jane for coming on the show. Thank you for having me. Absolutely. Don't forget to check out her new book that comes out on February 24th. And don't forget to follow the podcast on Instagram at Talk Wordypod. I will see you guys in the next one. Bye, y'all.