Last week I finally got to read Getting Away With It, the first Julie Cohen novel written for Headline Review. I thought it was stunning, and when I got the chance to interview Julie I jumped at it and got my questions off to her as quick as I could! Here are her answers, enjoy!

1. Tell us about your first Headline Review novel Getting Away With It?

It’s the story of Liza Haven, an LA stunt woman whose career goes quite violently wrong. She returns to the village of Stoneguard, Wiltshire, where she grew up (and where she couldn’t wait to escape from) to see her perfect identical twin sister, Lee—only to find that Lee has disappeared. The entire village assumes that Liza is Lee, and Liza plays along with it, to see what it’s like to be the good twin for once. But as she learns more about her sister’s life, she begins to see that nothing is quite as it appears. And she begins to face up to the reality of her own life, and who she really wants to be.

2. Are you currently working on a new novel? Can you tell us anything about it?

I just gave in the manuscript for my next novel this week! It’s about a woman who gets a job working as a costumed historical interpreter in a stately home where they’re re-enacting the summer of 1814. There are two story strands—the modern-day one, where the heroine’s life is a bit of a mess, and the pretending-it’s-1814 one, which is a Regency romp. But eventually the two strands start to come together. Like Getting Away With It, it’s romantic and fun but it’s also got sadness to it. I loved doing the research, which involved dressing up and going to Regency re-enactments.

3. Up until Getting Away With It came out, you were best known for writing for the Little Black Dress imprint, why did you decide to stop writing LBD books and go for a full length novel?

I’d always wanted to write a big, chunky, juicy, thick book, so the move to Headline Review is a dream come true for me. I loved writing the LBDs—it’s such a fun imprint, and you can play around with some great ideas—but I’m drawn to more complex stories that, while they have romance in them, deal with wider issues than one man and one woman. Getting Away With It is about identity, Alzheimer’s disease, dealing with sibling rivalry and near-death, fast cars and big life changes. And there’s a romance, too.

4. You mention in the acknowledgments that Getting Away With It wouldn’t have existed without your agent, Teresa Chris, and editor, Sherise Hobbs, can you tell us a bit more how they helped with the writing of the book?

Teresa is a fantastic agent. When she signed me, she asked me what my dream was. And for six years, she’s never stopped fighting to make that dream come true for me. Teresa believed I could write a bigger book, she got me a contract for that bigger book, and then she let me get on and write it. How’s that for trust?

Sherise is one of those editors, a gift to an author, who instantly gets what you’re trying to do with a book, and who suggests ways of making it better that you’d never think of yourself, but which totally reflect your own vision, style and imagination. The changes she helped me make to the novel weren’t big, but they were significant. I’m really lucky to work with such great publishing professionals.

5. Where did the plot come from for Getting Away With It? It’s not one I’ve ever heard of before, and I thought it was fantastic.

Thank you! I like twin stories, and I really like twin-switch stories. When I pitched the idea to my editor at the time, she got all excited about Sweet Valley High, and The Parent Trap, and stories like that. And a lot of these stories concentrate on the good twin, the one who’s replaced. But I was more interested in the bad twin. I wanted to know what made her tick. Also, twin-switch stories tend to be comedies, and there’s a lot of humour in the situation, but I thought the whole idea brought up some serious questions about identity and appearance. So I guess that’s the new twist, for me.

6. Why did you decide to make Liza a stunt woman? It’s not a career you usually come across when reading a Chick Lit novel!

It took me ages to come up with Liza’s job. I knew the premise of the story, about the bad twin taking over the good twin’s life, and I needed a job that would fit that. It needed to be something that would attract a rebellious person, something that was possibly dangerous, and something that could go very wrong, in order to propel Liza back to the village she grew up in, and which she hates. It also had to be something that involved some sort of acting, so that it wouldn’t be unbelievable when Liza just takes on Lee’s identity. I was talking the whole thing over with my friend L.A. Weatherly (author of smash YA book Angel), and she suggested I try a stunt double. It all instantly clicked into place. So thank you, L.A. Weatherly!

Once I’d decided Liza was going to be a stunt woman, I had an absolute blast writing that part. I talked with stunt women and I did a lot of research on stunt driving and fast cars.

7. Getting Away With It is just over 500 pages long, how long did it take to write the first draft and was the first draft even longer than the end result of 500 pages?

I wrote the first draft in about eight months, though I spent a month before that researching, and I was slowed down near the end because I developed repetitive strain injury from typing. (Fellow writers: get yourself a proper desk, chair and keyboard!) I had to cut the first 30,000 words or so, because they were going in the wrong direction, but then I started over, and after that it went all right. The book is pretty much the same length as the draft I gave in to my publisher; we actually added some very small bits near the end.

I did have a flashback scene of nearly 10,000 words, about the Stoneguard Christmas pageant when Liza and Lee are about twelve years old and Liza is really annoyed because she has to be a sheep, so she plays a trick that goes wrong. I loved that scene, but it didn’t fit, so I had to cut it. I’m hoping to offer it as a standalone free read on my website, though.

8. How did your publishing deal with Headline Review come around? Did the fact that Headline publish the Little Black Dress imprint help at all or are the two completely separate?

My agent and I have always said that I wanted to write standalone women’s fiction, and I think the fact that I’d already worked with Headline for five Little Black Dress novels helped us all to know that Headline Review was an ideal place for me to be.

9. Will you ever go back to writing Little Black Dress novels, or are you just writing Headline Review books from now on? Could you ever see yourself doing both?

If I could write all the books in my head that I want to write, I’d be very happy. But it’s just about all I can do to write one book a year! As I said, writing for Headline Review is a dream come true, so I’m going to stick with that if they’ll keep on having me.

10. When you first saw the cover for Getting Away With It, what did you think of it? (I, personally, think it’s stunning!)

It’s very pretty, isn’t it? I love the butterflies. We’ve used some of the design elements on my new website, too. (http://www.julie-cohen.com) I think the woman on the front fits my idea of Liza quite well. I like how she’s striding into her adventure, bold but maybe a little bit worried.

11. You’re originally from America, but moved to the UK after having a year abroad, why did you decide to set your novel in Wiltshire and not America or any other English village/town?

I love Wiltshire. Stoneguard, the village in the book, is fictional, but it’s not a million miles from Avebury, which is one of my favourite places in the world. Stoneguard has a large stone circle and it’s a tourist destination. It’s surrounded by white horses carved into the chalk hills and crop circles appear in the fields overnight. I invented Stoneguard for one of my Little Black Dress novels, Honey Trap, and I knew when I wrote it that I wanted to go back there. I took several research trips to Wiltshire while I was writing the book, which was a treat. I like the contrast in the novel between Stoneguard, which is tiny and packed with history and people minding each other’s business, and Los Angeles where Liza lives, which is huge, sprawling, new and anonymous.

12. Could you ever see yourself writing a sequel to Getting Away With It?

I don’t have any ideas for a sequel right now. But I do love to use characters and settings from my previous books again. Getting Away With It has characters from Nina Jones and the Temple of Gloom, and Honey Trap. My next book has characters from One Night Stand and Girl from Mars. So I can definitely see characters in future books eating Ice Cream Heaven ice cream or watching a film where Liza blows up a building!

13. What is your normal writing day like? Do you stick to a schedule or do you just see where the words take you each day?

I’ve got a preschooler, so my writing has to fit around the times when my son is in nursery. I write most weekday mornings, and when I’m doing a first draft, I try to produce 1000 to 2000 words a day. I don’t plan my novels particularly, so sometimes those words are an adventure.

14. When you’re not writing your own novels, what books or authors do you enjoy reading?

Because I’ve just finished a book, I’ve got a big reading splurge planned. I’m rereading Suzanne Collins’s YA trilogy The Hunger Games, and after that I’m going to read Susanna Kearsley’s time-slip romance Mariana (also set near Avebury). Next up are Neil Gaiman’s Stardust and Sarah Duncan’s Kissing Mr Wrong. I want to read Jeff Lindsay’s next two Dexter novels and I’m going to raid my library for some manga. For the past year I’ve pretty much lived and breathed Georgette Heyer; my favourite is The Grand Sophy.

15. What advice would you give to those writing their own novels and hoping to one day be published?

Basically, keep writing. I’ve learned so much from writing my books, even the ones that never got published. No writing is ever wasted; even if nobody sees it except for you and the dog, you’ve still grown as a writer from having done the work. And read like crazy, too.

Thank you for having me, Leah and Chloe!

No, thank you Julie!

Julie’s website: http://www.julie-cohen.com
To buy Getting Away With It in hardcover: http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/book/9780755350605/Getting-Away-With-It
Julie on Twitter: @julie_cohen

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