Kristan Higgins is the Queen of warm and funny small town romance - hers is a world of "real life, true love and lots of laughs." And her readers love her for it.

Hi there I’m your host Jenny Wheeler and today Kristan talks about staying true to what you know when the 'market' is screaming another message, and why she's ruthless with her own work.

Six things you’ll learn from this Joys of Binge Reading episode:

Why Kristan ditched her first attempt at writing

Why small town romance suits her perfectly 

Ignoring the market - Yes or No?

The benefits of being a good listener

The writers she admires most

The one thing she'd done that's made her success

Where to find Kristan Higgins: 

Website: kristanhiggins.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KristanHigginsBooks/

 Twitter: https://twitter.com/Kristan_Higgins

What follows is a "near as" transcript of our conversation, not word for word but pretty close to it, with links to important mentions.

Jenny: But now, here’s Kristan.  Hello there Kristan,  and welcome to the show, it’s great to have you with us.

Kristan: Thank you so much for having me Jenny!

Jenny: Beginning at the beginning - was there a “Once Upon A Time moment when you decided you wanted to write fiction?  And if there was a catalyst, what was it?

Romance author Kristan Higgins

Kristan: You know, there wasn't a moment  like that. I wish there were, because it sounds great being knocked on your side wanting to do something. I really wanted to be paediatrician, and I still think that would be great except I have no aptitude for maths or science.

I never thought about being an author until I was 36, and my son was three years old at nursery school. The day was approaching where he would be at school all day. I thought- I've got a couple of years before that happens, and I really would love to stay home with the kids, and be the person to get them off the school bus, and be around for other events and everything because I had been a stay at home mum until that point.

My husband was working two jobs, so I knew that it wouldn't really be fair for the kids to go off to school and for me to be alone for 8 hours and not contribute to the family finances. So I thought, ok; I can bartend, or maybe I could write a book! I loved reading; if anything knocked me on the side of the head with a baseball bat, it was the love of reading from an early age.

I learnt to read when I was four, and books made up a huge part of my life. So I felt qualified in one respect, in that I had just read thousands of romance novels. And I thought: I think I can write one, I think I can understand them well enough to write one. And why not? I had worked in advertising, so I had been a professional writer. I actually had advantages there, and I sat down to give that a try.

Fools Rush In - Kristan Higgins

Jenny: Your first novel was Fools Rush In, a contemporary romance, published in 2007. Was romance a natural genre for you – and was “Fools” the first ms you ever finished?

Kristan: Well, it was. I had started another manuscript which is now sort of a joke to me; it was a historical romance set in Ireland during the Potato Famine. So if you're familiar with my books, you'd think "it was what Kristan?!"

So I started to write that book, and for some reason I thought it was a really good idea and then I went to a writer's conference and  I realised I had no knowledge of this era.

I was just kind of making things up as I went along. It was really depressing, as you can imagine, stuck in the Potato Famine.

So I thought, what I should really write is a romantic comedy set in contemporary time, set in a small town because that's what I loved to read. That's where I lived- I lived in a small town, so then I thought I'd be writing about what I knew. So Fools Rush In started at that conference, and finished about six months later in terms of the first draft.