More Than Just A Book: Holly Schindler: On Summer Romances

Sometimes summer romances can bloom into what feels like the greatest love of your life. Maybe it's the heat, maybe it's the fact that summer is so short and sweet, or maybe it is just plain true love when you're not looking, but there's something about love in the summer that makes it unique.**

Summer Romances. We all read about it and dream about it, but only a few of us have one. But weather we are the ones dreaming about it or experiencing it, love in the summer is very popular and appealing subject in Young Adult books.

Recently I had a chance to interview Holly Schindler, author of A Blue So Dark and Playing Hurt (read my review HERE), and ask her questions on how she perceives summer romances. I felt that this was a very appropriate subject to talk about, since her new novel Playing Hurt is about a summer romance.

1. Summer love, what do you think makes it so unique?

I think summer love is innately more intense, because those experiences are usually limited by time. People are drawn together because it’s summer break, they’re on vacation…Before long, they’ll have to return to their homes, to school, to their working lives. Knowing that it’s bound to be short-term, I think people involved in summer romances really throw themselves into them. Try to get the most out of the situation that they can…that intensity, that quick-to-flame experience is a bit different than other romances…

2. Your novel PLAYING HURT revolves around a summer romance; what is it about summer romances that appeals to authors to write about it?

That intensity is a big draw. Plus, as an author writing YA, it gives you a chance to get your characters away from the school setting; teen characters’ adventures can really go anywhere when they don’t have to be back at school at 8:00 a.m. Monday morning. It really opens the doors to all sorts of possibilities…

3. What made you decide to involve your main character in a summer romance when she had a loving boyfriend waiting for her when she got back?

What I initially wanted to write about in PLAYING HURT was learning the difference between loving someone and being passionately IN love with someone. The sports subplot (and chapters written from Clint’s POV) didn’t exist until the last rewrite. Originally, Chelsea was a girl with a boyfriend, who went on vacation and met Clint—and found herself falling in love in a way she’d never fallen for her boyfriend back home.

I think the cool thing about friendship is how deep it runs…But when you’re first starting to date, that deepness of friendship can make things a bit murky, confusing—it can be hard to figure out what you really feel for a person. Friendship is an important part of romantic love, sure—but it’s not the entirety of romantic love. Until you’ve felt that hit-you-over-the-head passion, you often don’t realize the big difference.

4. Most summer romances seem to take place on beaches; why did you decide on a Minnesota resort as the plot for your story?

I knew, when I first drafted PLAYING HURT, that I needed to get Chelsea out of town, away from her boyfriend. (I knew she’d never explore her feelings for Clint if, say, he’d come to Missouri.)

I also chose Minnesota because my grandfather was an avid fisherman, and my mom’s an only child. She went on several fishing trips with him to Minnesota, and spoke about them so often, I felt as though I’d been there myself!

5. Did writing PLAYING HURT change the way you feel about summer romances?

That’s a really interesting question…One of the things PLAYING HURT touches on is the idea that the people who change our lives the most are sometimes not the people who are in it the longest…Time is not necessarily a marker of impact. I’m really intrigued by this idea…

6. Do you think you would like to write about another summer romance like PLAYING HURT?

I would adore that! I had a blast writing PLAYING HURT. Another romance would be really fun…

7. What are some of your favorite summer romance reads?

Jessi Kirby’s MOONGLASS (contemporary YA), anything by Elin Hilderbrand (adult contemporary romance), and though it’s a movie, I have to say it: DIRTY DANCING. When a blogger wrote in a review that PLAYING HURT was steamy enough to “easily become this decade’s version of DIRTY DANCING, “ I nearly passed out. What an incredible compliment!

**Quote from an About.com article.

Thank-you Holly for allowing me to interview you!

Holly's Blog: http://hollyschindler.blogspot.com/
Website: http://hollyschindler.com/
Twitter: @holly_schindler

Holly also blogs with other amazing authors at the blog YA Outside the Lines. If you haven't followed them (which you should) go do it now!

She also started blogging about Middle Grade Lit. at the approprietly named blog, Smack Dab in the Middle.

Giveaway Time!

Holly Schindler has kindly given me a copy of her second novel Playing Hurt to

give away to you guys!

Star basketball player Chelsea “Nitro” Keyes had the promise of a full ride to college—and everyone’s admiration in her hometown. But everything changed senior year, when she took a horrible fall during a game. Now a metal plate holds her together and she feels like a stranger in her own family.

As a graduation present, Chelsea’s dad springs for a three-week summer “boot camp” program at a northern Minnesota lake resort. There, she’s immediately drawn to her trainer, Clint, a nineteen-year-old ex-hockey player who’s haunted by his own traumatic past. As they grow close, Chelsea is torn between her feelings for Clint and her loyalty to her devoted boyfriend back home. Will an unexpected romance just end up causing Chelsea and Clint more pain—or finally heal their heartbreak?