Heather Vogel Fredrick is the author of such popular series as The Mother-Daughter Book Club, Pumpkin Falls Mysteries and more. She kindly took the time to answer my questions about inspiration for her books, mother-daughter bonds and what is coming next from her pen.

1. As you’ve been a longtime resident of MA and visited the Louise May Alcott house many times, how did you go about retelling the Little Women Christmas picture book?

Interesting question. I re-read the Christmas section in Little Women, of course – several times, in fact – and gave a lot of thought as to how I might best reshape these events for very young readers, and for a book where the illustrations play such a major part. It was really a question of streamlining, zeroing in on the main points, and then trying to echo the tone and emotions that Louisa May Alcott so masterfully weaves through her prose. Jo’s concern for her absent father, and for her frail sister, the anticipation of the holiday, and of course the joy of the surprise reunion in the end – all of these things. Plus with picture books there’s an economy of language (hard for a novelist) that’s a challenge, but a very enjoyable and satisfying one.

2. How did you go about researching for your Patience Goodspeed duology?

Oh wow, that was a long time ago! Twenty years, in fact! Let me just say that I absolutely LOVE research – it’s the former journalist in me, I guess. I could research until the cows come home. This was before information was widely available on the internet, so I spent a lot of time in libraries. I read dozens and dozens of books about whaling days, and life at sea in the 1800s, and I visited maritime museums where I closely examined the exhibits and pored over original handwritten 19^th century journals kept by sea captains and their wives who sailed with them, and by ordinary sailors, too. I traveled to Nantucket and to Martha’s Vineyard and Cape Cod and even Hawaii. I went aboard an actual restored whaling ship at a living history museum in Connecticut – Mystic Seaport, which I highly recommend visiting. It was really a dream project.

3. Since the fairytale of Diamonds and Toads is so little known, what drew you to making a modern adaptation of it?

This fairy tale has always fascinated me. Perhaps it speaks to my own awkward adolescent experience, and the feeling of opening one’s mouth and having all the wrong things come blurting out. I’m not sure. It’s hard to say where stories come from. For me, the act of writing has always been an organic process—stories just well up and spill onto the page. I don’t spend a lot of time examining or tracing their source. I’m just glad that they keep coming!

4. Which mother-daughter dynamic was most interesting to write?

It’s hard to pick a favorite, or a most interesting one. Perhaps Cassidy and her mother, because they are both so alien to me! When I was growing up, I was a mixture of Emma Hawthorne (obvious reasons, as she’s a bookworm and aspiring writer) and farm girl Jess Delaney, because I was terribly shy and because I love animals. Cassidy Sloane is outspoken and confident and athletic – all the things I wasn’t in middle school and high school. And her mother is a supermodel, which I DEFINITELY wasn’t, and neither was my mother! But of course the underlying conflicts and misunderstandings and unbreakable bonds of love are the same across the board for mothers and daughters, no matter the package they’re wrapped in.

5. How did you balance the parallels between the book of the year with the real life plots of the characters (ie. Pies and Prejudice has Tristen/Cassidy as Lizzy/Darcy, Stinkerbelle is Caroline Bingley, etc.)?

That was pure fun – looking at the themes and characters in the classic fiction I chose for each installment of my series and then figuring out how to echo them in my own story. It was a bit like putting a puzzle together. That being said, it was amazing how things flowed so naturally, once I set them in motion.

6. What made you decide to include Becca’s POV after four books?

It added a fresh perspective and breathed a little new life into the series, plus she earned it! I felt it was important to show that, just like in real life, characters can grow and change. People are rarely two-dimensional villains—everyone has a backstory, everyone has the potential for self-improvement and character growth. Even Becca Chadwick!

7. Were there any books you wished you had the book club read? (I noticed in book camp they only had the previous 6 and skipped two years since they were in college then)

Hmmm. I think I hit most of my favorites. I suppose The Secret Garden or A Little Princess. I loved both of those when I was younger, too.

8. What drew you to write the unofficial return of TMDBC?

Again, it was organic—another story just welled up inside me and spilled out onto the page. Plus, it gave me a chance to tie up some loose ends and bring their collective tales to a satisfying (I hope) conclusion.

9. This is probably going to be a hard one but do you have any favorite book in that series? Or one you enjoyed writing more than the others?

That’s like asking a mother, “Who’s your favorite child?” Ha! I love all the books and I loved the process of writing each one. That being said, Pies & Prejudice is a TEENY bit my favorite—simply because I adore Jane Austen, and I got to travel to England for research, plus writing the book gave me the opportunity to share a magical childhood experience of my own with my readers. When I was eleven, I moved to England with my family. We lived in a 400-year-old stone cottage with a thatched roof, and I rode a red double-decker bus to school each day and had a great many of the same experiences that Emma Hawthorne did in the book. Such fun for me to re-live those adventures!  

10. Can you spill any details about your latest book?

Sure. Truly Madly Sheeply is the fourth and likely final installment of my Pumpkin Falls mysteries—stories set in the tiny fictional town of Pumpkin Falls, New Hampshire. This time around, my heroine Truly and her middle school friends are embroiled in some spooky doings at her Aunt True’s new farm—which may be haunted. Plus, jack-o’-lanterns are disappearing all over town. And yes, there are sheep involved. Plus knitting, my favorite hobby. See? I just keep weaving my own life into my books!