Holiday Romance with Author Julie Caplin

We are sticking to the festive side of things as we slowly get our way into Thanksgiving and Christmas. And now I would like to welcome best-selling author Julie Kaplan. Julie, welcome to the show. Thanks very much, Sydney. It's nice to be here. Thank you so much. And so you have a plethora of books. When I was going through your catalog, I'm like, Jesus, she writes a lot. And so many amazing, you know, different stories, different timelines, different themes, but you have some pretty cool Christmas ones. But before we kind of look at those, tell us a little bit about who you are and what really made you want to become a storyteller? So my dad taught me to read at the age of three and a half And from that moment on, I was just hooked on books. And I've been an avid reader all my life. And I think about age 12, I discovered Mills and Boone. I don't know if you have those in the States, do you? I don't think so. It's like Harlequin. They're all owned by them now. And I just absolutely fell in love with romance. And I've been reading romance ever since. And then... Maybe 20 years ago I was made redundant from a job and thought right I'm going to write that book that I always said I'd write one day and I did write the first three chapters and I shared it with my dad who's a TV director and he said it's rubbish which was the best thing he could have done because what I did then was I went away and learned how to write properly. So and then once I'd written the first book, I was just like, I'm going to get this published. And I just plugged away at it. I wrote five books first, which is why I've been so prolific, because I learned that you just got to keep writing. So I wrote five before the very first one got published. And I think I've just written my 33rd. Yeah. It's like, thanks for the motivation, Dad. You know, like all those years ago. Now look at where we are. Yeah. You're quite proud of me. Yeah. Which I think we all should be because you're keeping us entertained. You know, you're keeping, because reading takes you away for a lot of people, you know, with things that's going on in the real world, it's a nice escape. And so anytime authors have so many books out with so many different, you know, like I said, storylines and ideas, you're contributing to our sanity. You know, so we can escape from everything we have going on. And so, like I said, as we're getting into like this Christmas festive, you know, time of the year already, even though Halloween just happened, you have, I want to talk about two of your recent books. And one of them is Christmas at the Ritz. And just the cover, for whatever reason, reminded me of Home Alone when he was in the hotel at the plaza and just the entire theme of it. So tell viewers a little bit about what's involved in this story. Well, I'm just going to pedal back to, because Christmas in the Ritz is the second in the Christmas series. So last year, I actually wrote one called Christmas on Fifth Avenue, which was set at the Plaza. And I did lean into a lot of those Christmas movie things. So I mentioned the tree where. He met his mum from Home Alone. He meets back up with his mum at the Kennedy Centre and not the Kennedy Centre, the Rockefeller Centre, sorry. And so that one was very much film led. And this one is very London. I live just outside London and I absolutely love London. It's one of the best places to go and visit. I don't know if you've ever been. No, but that's my favourite. My plan for next year, because I turn 30 next year. So I was like, I want to go out of the country for the first time. And London is like on my to-do list. Okay, well, I highly recommend it. But what I really wanted to do, I mean, there's lots of things in London that people do at Christmas. So Covent Garden is one of my favorite places. And they have the most amazing Christmas decorations. And it's all, it's really beautiful cobbled streets and lots of flowers and things. And it's wonderful. So that was a must that had to go into the book but I just really wanted to celebrate the things that happen in London that the tourists might not know about. So I did quite a lot of digging. So I mean the thing, I don't know if you've read the book. No, not yet. It's on my TBR. Okay. So there's one scene where they go to a really famous department store in London on Oxford Street called Selfridges. And it's this big, beautiful store. And it has all the posh makeup, the posh handbags, the posh shoes. And it's absolutely heavenly. And I can't remember the timings now, but at six o'clock most days in December, they have this. Santa Spectacular where Santa comes down the escalator singing surrounded by dancing baubles and they have a gospel choir and there's ticker tape going off and everything and that happens in the store most days. I think it's six o'clock and I just thought what a fantastic thing I didn't know. I mean I've lived in London, been into London for Christmas and didn't know anything Anything about it? That's got to go in the book. So I was trying to put all these really cute, fun things in to just celebrate the city at Christmas. I mean, there is a story there about a couple as well, but I wanted to celebrate all the lovely things that happen at Christmas in London. Now, with these two stories, you know, and just being in that Christmas festive spirit, what was the best part about writing these two stories? Oh, I love Christmas, so I have been to New York just before Christmas, just after Thanksgiving one year, and it's celebrating. I mean I write feel-good happy stories and funnily enough I was on the train yesterday and there was a lady there with a young disabled child and the little girl sat next to me and she was she was very happy she was non-verbal and all around us I got chatting to the mum, the two teenage girls opposite got chatting and it was just this wave of kindness. In the train carriage and Christmas seems to exacerbate that. So people are friendlier, they smile at you. There's just much more of a community feel about Christmas. So that's why I love writing about it because I want to celebrate that actually people in. in principle are kind and we all want the same things we want safety security for our families and our friends and our loved ones and Christmas is celebrated all over the world in different forms different religions whatever but everybody comes together to celebrate with good food with company with family and at the end of the day all we want is to have that safety and security that's our basic need oh that's what I genuinely believe so Christmas to me is the pinnacle of that for the year. Yeah, you and my mom would be best friends because she's loved Christmas since she was like a kid. She would sleep under the Christmas tree because she loved the lights so much. And so when she watches this and she hears about how you guys celebrate in London, she's going to be like, we need to go, especially with Santa and the choir, because she sings, it's going to be an entire thing. Oh, brilliant. I mean, it's... And so before I let you go, Julie, do you have anything else that you would like to say to fellow book lovers out there, especially with reading being so huge and as we get into this cheerful season? I think... Spread the love, review books if you can. There's an awful lot of AI rubbish out there. So if you do read a genuine book by a genuine person, please leave us a review. Even if it's a mean one, it doesn't really matter. I don't like them so much, but just share the book club because we all have more in common with each other than our differences. Well, Julie, thank you so much for your amazing story and keeping the Christmas cheer alive and for taking the time to come and chat with me and fellow book lovers out there. Absolute pleasure. Lovely to see you.