A Zibby Summer Reads pick! Paige Toon, SEVEN SUMMERS
[0:02]Hi, I'm Zippy Owens, and I am the host of this podcast, Mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[0:08]I am also a newly minted USA Today best-selling author of the novel, Blake.
[0:14]I've created a whole community of book lovers around this podcast, a publishing company, reading retreats,
[0:20]a bookstore, and more. Learn more at ZippyMedia.com or follow me on social at Zippy Owens,
[0:26]or join the community at ZippyReaders.
[0:31]Page tune is the author of Seven Summers, a novel.
[0:35]Page grew up between England, Australia, and America, and has been writing emotional love stories since 2007.
[0:41]She has published 15 novels, three parts spin-off series for young adults and a collection of short stories.
[0:46]Her books have sold nearly two million copies worldwide.
[0:49]She lives in Cambridge, Shire, England, with her husband and their two children.
[0:53]Welcome, Page! Thank you so much for coming on Mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books to discuss.
[0:58]Seven Summers, congratulations!
[1:00]Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.
[1:02]So, tell listeners where the idea for this book came from and what it's about, please.
[1:07]Hey, well, I've got a copy here too, also.
[1:09]And as you can see, I'm stuck in the background.
[1:11]Seven Summers, I came up with this idea.
[1:15]Initially, it was going to be an idea based around sand art and stuff,
[1:18]and I remember pitching the idea to my editors.
[1:21]My American editor really loved the sound of it, and I hadn't told my UK editor the same idea.
[1:27]I told them a different one.
[1:28]And somewhere, you know, basically, the idea that I ended up pitching wasn't the one that this was more my American editor's favorite one.
[1:37]And in the time that it took for us to all talk together about which idea I was going to write,
[1:44]I heard the song I was just really listened to the lyrics of Tiz the Damned Season by Taylor Swift.
[1:49]And it just thought the whole idea together, like with sort of breathtaking clarity,
[1:54]like I had five days between the time that I'd said, I think I could write this idea, the sand art idea,
[2:00]which is basically about a girl who lives in a tourist town,
[2:04]and the same person comes back year after year.
[2:07]And then when I heard the song, basically, I've flipped the narrative.
[2:10]So Finn is the singer-songwriter who comes back year after year,
[2:14]and my character live is the person from the hometown.
[2:17]And if they're both single, then they spend the season together.
[2:20]There's a lot more. There's other things.
[2:23]There's a whole love triangle.
[2:25]You know, I sort of found myself wondering how long it would, how long a person might put their heart on ice in the situation,
[2:30]and when they might be open to looking into new possibilities.
[2:34]And so the story is told across seven summers.
[2:37]This summer, when Liv is opening herself up to a potential with a permanent love,
[2:43]and the previous six summers where you see her falling in love with this hot singer-songwriter, Finn,
[2:48]who comes back year after year, and they go through lots of sort of ups and downs together.
[2:52]Wow. So the sand art, were you walking around one day
[2:56]and saw something beautiful in the sand?
[2:58]And you're like, I should write a novel about that.
[3:00]Well, I'd go to Portugal every year.
[3:02]It's a place that I've just been going to with my family since I was like 10 years old.
[3:05]And I was down there a couple of years ago and talking to a friend,
[3:08]and she was telling me about the beach where I used to live.
[3:11]I used to sort of have this house.
[3:12]My family did, you know, have this house overlooking this beautiful sort of beach.
[3:16]And she said that a sand artist has been coming back every winter and drawing art down on the sand.
[3:22]And that just kind of made me think about, you know, this idea of living in a place that is a tourist town.
[3:28]And in the case of seven summers, she lives in Cornwall, which is this beautiful beach side town.
[3:33]I decided to make a set of in Britain just because I thought I'd be able to identify a little bit more with character who wasn't Portuguese.
[3:39]But she comes back, you know, when when he sort of comes back year after year to see her.
[3:45]You know, I did have this same sort of idea about this character who feels that she can't leave.
[3:50]And in the case of, you know, like the, the Taylor Swift song, there's that lyric which says,
[3:55]I won't ask you to wait if you don't ask me to stay.
[3:58]And it, I've made it, I won't ask you to leave if you don't ask me to stay because she can't leave because something happens at the end of the first summer that basically
[4:07]roots are warm well in Cornwall and, you know, with her family and, and equally Finn has reasons why he can't stay.
[4:14]And that totally took me by surprise, by the way, and I was like holding my heart.
[4:19]So anyway, big twist, lots of twists that I was not expecting, particularly that.
[4:24]But anyway, only that alone. So we don't spoil it.
[4:27]I will say though, the character of her brother Michael, it's Michael, right?
[4:32]Michael, the brother with Down syndrome was so interesting.
[4:35]Particularly when you talked about how when she was growing up and she got to age 12 and she suddenly overtook him in height.
[4:42]And just the balance of that relationship and the caretaking.
[4:47]And yet he was taking care of her by slipping her like cocoa puffs or whatever.
[4:51]I mean, it's a really beautiful relationship and one that we don't often see depicted in fiction.
[4:56]So tell me more about that.
[4:57]Well, I want to have a reason ultimately for why Liv would feel like after that, after what happens at the end of the first summer,
[5:04]she feels like she can't leave St. Agnes in Cornwall this beach side town.
[5:09]And Michael is the main reason for her.
[5:12]And although her perspective sort of grows and develops over the years, at the time she feels very much like she needs to be there for her family.
[5:19]And I'd never written a character like Michael before.
[5:23]It took an enormous amount of research.
[5:26]I really wanted it to be authentic and I wanted the whole everything about it to just ring true for anyone who might have a friend or family member who has Down syndrome.
[5:38]I didn't want it to be a characterist.
[5:40]It couldn't be a caricature.
[5:43]And so I just did a lot of research.
[5:46]And in my sculpture research, Liv is a sculptor.
[5:49]I did so much research on this book.
[5:51]It was insane.
[5:52]That was so many subjects that I know nothing about because I did so much research.
[5:58]But Liv's character.
[6:00]She's a sculptor.
[6:01]And in speaking to your couple of famous sculpted trusses.
[6:04]And I was telling them about the story.
[6:06]And one of these sculptures as haves or reaves as friends with a lady who'd been writing a memoir about her experience of having a younger sister with Down syndrome.
[6:13]And so I reached out to Hillary.
[6:15]Her name's Hillary Standing.
[6:16]And she very, very kindly allowed me to read her memoir of her experience with her sister.
[6:21]And we also had a really good chat.
[6:23]She sort of pointed me in the direction of, you know, good things to sort of read and and what she know for authentic representations of a, you know, person with Down syndrome.
[6:31]So it was super, super helpful.
[6:33]And I just, Michael is just one of my favorite characters.
[6:35]Like I love how he takes no prisoners.
[6:38]You know, he's just, he's just, and I've had so many readers in the UK right to me.
[6:43]Telling me that I've, you know, really sort of captured his personality based on their own experiences of, you know, people just people who've said my uncle.
[6:52]He just sounded so much like him.
[6:54]So anyway, lovely.
[6:55]It's been really touching.
[6:57]It's been one of the nicest things you know about having this book come out.
[7:00]That's wonderful.
[7:01]Well, it's always fun to have a character with a modified filter if you, if you will.
[7:06]Yeah, it just says what's out there might like what happens then.
[7:09]Like if we all could do that, you know, what would that novel look like?
[7:13]Right.
[7:14]I might have to think about about that town.
[7:17]Yeah, seriously.
[7:18]That could be the title could just say be no filter.
[7:21]And we get, you know, I don't know.
[7:23]Take it.
[7:24]Run with it.
[7:25]I like it.
[7:26]I like it.
[7:27]I mean, the acknowledgement if you do it.
[7:29]There's also this whole, you know, the high school quiet guy or not even high school.
[7:35]Was it high school?
[7:36]You said 10th grade or 10th class or something.
[7:38]And I was like, is that even the same thing?
[7:39]It's like right here, but 15.
[7:41]15.
[7:42]Yes.
[7:43]Who was this like quiet, reclusive more, you know, soft spoken guy.
[7:46]And what happens when he comes back and they've both changed and the sexual tension.
[7:52]And then what happens next and how that carries on and on and on.
[7:55]But also that you lease it with this sort of foreboding, right?
[7:59]Like this warning that you have pretty early on.
[8:01]So I feel like I'm not spoiling too much.
[8:03]But, you know, that the mom had been known more about his mom back in the day.
[8:08]And was a little bit nervous about the whole thing.
[8:11]So tell me about that.
[8:13]And that's set up and how much to give the reader when and all of that.
[8:18]Yes.
[8:19]So there has to be a reason, again, why Finn can't stay in Cornwall.
[8:23]And so, you know, when I had this, you know, this inspiration from this song,
[8:28]especially this, you know, one lion, I won't ask you to ask me to stay.
[8:32]I was trying to think about why he wouldn't be able to stay.
[8:34]And so much of the time, you know, like with characters, it's just, it's such a rich kind of exploration.
[8:40]When you, when you can delve into their families and what might have happened.
[8:43]So Finn's mum was a very troubled soul.
[8:46]She, you know, she does, you, you find this out very, very soon.
[8:50]As you know, you meet Finn really live remembers that he had to go and live in LA because his mother had, you know, jumped from the cliffs when he was 15 and he has two younger half brothers.
[9:01]And a really sort of, you know, bit of a traumatic childhood.
[9:04]So he's a troubled soul.
[9:05]And then lives mother is a GP and she was actually Finn's GP and the family when they were growing up their doctor.
[9:12]And, and so when the mum sees that live is, you know, with Finn, she's like, just be careful.
[9:19]You know, I can't, obviously I can't talk about my patients, but, you know, you don't go through something like that and come out of it unscathed.
[9:26]And she, and, you know, I mean, it could have turned Finn into a totally different person to what he is so sweet.
[9:34]And he's so supportive of live.
[9:37]And he's very sexy, you know, like I love the history between them two, you know, he's absolutely gorgeous, but he's not like your typical bad boy rock star.
[9:46]However, emotional damage that did that his, you know, upbringing did pass onto him means that he feels he can't stay in some Agnes ultimately.
[9:55]Like I come back for this brief period of time, but this place is still.
[10:00]So full of darkness for me.
[10:02]And what I went through with my childhood
[10:03]that I will not live here.
[10:05]And so Liv has the situation where she can't leave.
[10:09]And it just, you know,
[10:11]I think as you're reading,
[10:12]you just, you will get the sense of foreboding.
[10:14]Because, you know, ultimately,
[10:17]these two people are in this kind of impossible situation.
[10:20]As it turns out, maybe it's not as impossible as if things
[10:24]kind of come to light, but obviously when you meet Liv
[10:28]in the pretty, like the present day,
[10:30]she is still in St Agnes.
[10:32]Finn is very much not there.
[10:33]And, you know, and she's in this,
[10:35]in this situation where she's basically drawn a line
[10:39]under the relationship.
[10:40]But she's a bit, you know, jumps to, you know,
[10:43]jumps to doing that a little bit too soon.
[10:44]And she's like, yeah, look, you know, effectively,
[10:48]you know what I'm going to do.
[10:50]You're going to have to jump.
[10:50]Jump.
[10:51]So funny too,
[10:53]because I'm totally one of those people
[10:55]who always calls her tells and is like,
[10:56]okay, I'm going to be early,
[10:58]can I get early check it?
[10:59]Like, I do that every time.
[11:00]And Liv, you know, runs this hotel situation
[11:04]on a hotel, you know, like,
[11:05]manages its properties.
[11:06]And that she's like so annoyed that this man Tom
[11:09]is doing the same thing.
[11:10]And I was like seeing myself in there and cringing.
[11:13]I know, gosh.
[11:15]So basically, the place where Liv, where she own,
[11:18]like the house that she owns, her family home,
[11:20]she divides it up and she turns it into two separate apartments
[11:23]so she can rent it out and still live as apartments.
[11:26]So that's how you find her in the present day.
[11:29]And Tom is the character who arrives on the Friday,
[11:32]early in the morning, says any chance, you know,
[11:34]being here for a while, any like getting early.
[11:36]And the thing is, that house that she stayed in
[11:38]is the very house that I stayed in
[11:40]when I went down to do the research with my family.
[11:42]So to say, and I did the same thing.
[11:46]So I was like, the owners of this cottage are going to be like,
[11:51]oh, yeah, you know, she literally did that.
[11:53]I'm sure like everybody does like,
[11:55]even when I feel four of there's a chance you can get in at two.
[11:58]And she goes and get the house ready for him and jump.
[12:03]I also feel like, what's the deal with like four o'clock
[12:06]checking 11 a.m. check out?
[12:08]That's not even a day.
[12:10]Like, you know, what is that?
[12:12]Like, crazy, exactly.
[12:15]She definitely, you know, get in and get out.
[12:18]Give us like, give us at least like 23 hours or something.
[12:22]Clearly not like cleaning us about houses, too.
[12:26]Yes, no, I understand.
[12:27]I'm just, you know, from the consumer standpoint, very, you know,
[12:31]right, to banding and whatever else.
[12:34]This notion of sort of waiting or separating your emotions by time,
[12:39]like the confines of time themselves has to, you know,
[12:44]be inserted into something that could go on and on.
[12:47]And the notion of having to wait or are you going to wait?
[12:51]I feel like this is something so many people think about when jobs take them
[12:55]to new places or the military or, you know,
[12:58]just there are so many reasons people have to be torn apart.
[13:01]And I guess it makes everybody who reads it think like, what would I do or how
[13:05]long would I wait or is this healthy or, you know, what should I do?
[13:10]What's your general take on this?
[13:12]Personally, I think every, you know, every day as it comes,
[13:15]like ultimately, you know, live and fin say to each other at the end of the first
[13:20]summer, like we're not going to be in touch because, and, you know,
[13:22]and even going forward, they know that it's unhealthy to put their lives whole
[13:26]lives on hold, you know, and especially in your 20s when you are likely to meet
[13:31]the person that you might, you know, spend the rest of your life with to just
[13:34]be putting your heart and hold for a year.
[13:37]And she doesn't feel like they both say to each other, you know, like, yeah,
[13:40]but there's a cheating involved here.
[13:42]You know, like there's sort of very much like you go and live your life.
[13:45]And if you, if we're both single, then we'll come back together again.
[13:49]And ultimately, that breaks down at some point because, you know,
[13:52]neither of them want to be with anyone else.
[13:54]And they both make it that very clear.
[13:55]And so they try to sort of have a long distance relationship for, you know,
[13:59]a couple of years.
[13:59]But that is just so hard in itself.
[14:02]So I think, you know, you just wouldn't know when she was in that situation,
[14:05]would you, you know, at some point you might just think, okay, enough enough.
[14:09]And certainly, you know, by a few summers in, quite a few summers in, you know,
[14:14]like Finn's starting to really want to live to be with him.
[14:17]And she's unable to be with him.
[14:18]And he's like, you know, going to have to choose.
[14:20]Yeah.
[14:21]And then, you know, she obviously makes her choice as well to,
[14:24]to, you know, pursue something with somebody else.
[14:26]And yeah, oh, God, this book broke my heart.
[14:32]Honestly, it tore me into, like, I don't know if you've seen like,
[14:36]I actually did like an Instagram live when I finished writing this book,
[14:40]because my family had all gone away.
[14:43]I knew, you know, that I was going to have to write the ending to the story.
[14:48]And my computer, it just looks so dark and on.
[14:51]And it's on the day that I was due down and finished writing,
[14:54]because I just knew I was going to have my heart broken.
[14:56]And I wanted to have my heart broken and advanced.
[14:58]You know, like, I'm always inspired mostly by the emotions that I want to feel
[15:01]with a particular novel.
[15:02]And so this one, it was like, I want to feel like, I want to feel torn into.
[15:06]I want, I really want to feel this heartbreak.
[15:08]And then sitting down to actually know that you have to put yourself through that.
[15:10]when you feel all of your characters in motion so deeply.
[15:14]And I do, you know, I'm like inside this character's head for so long.
[15:17]And, you know, I've learned all of her loves and all of her passions.
[15:20]You know, I know all about sculptor now and everything that she loves.
[15:23]You know, and then to sit there and fall in love with these two characters
[15:26]and then have to sort of take her in one direction or another and then go through
[15:29]everything else that happens, you know, especially in the epilogue and stuff.
[15:33]I was just, I was in bits, like my husband had taken it in the way,
[15:37]just so I could lose myself in writing for that last weekend.
[15:40]And it was like one o'clock in the morning.
[15:42]And I was just like, I felt so alone of like, no one to tell and I suddenly.
[15:46]I know, I'll tell my readers.
[15:49]And I just went on into this Instagram live,
[15:53]woke up the next morning was completely horrified by what I'd done.
[15:57]And the face sobbing, you know, like,
[16:00]absolutely look like the biggest mess imaginable and went on to delete it.
[16:05]But, you know, had so many readers had already watched it like thousands and, you know,
[16:08]so many comments and they were just like, you know,
[16:11]this is how you make us feel like so, you know,
[16:14]it's nice to see that you actually put yourself through the ring or two.
[16:17]Oh, it is.
[16:18]It is.
[16:19]I think so many people wonder how, how the production of these emotions, right?
[16:23]Because it doesn't, it doesn't feel manufactured, right?
[16:27]You feel like you're riding this wave and it's inevitable that you have to
[16:30]pull it down that way.
[16:31]Absolutely.
[16:32]I mean, I know that, you know, I know that, you know, I have spoken to some
[16:35]authors who were kind of like, I think to myself before I write a book,
[16:38]how can I make my reader cry?
[16:40]I was like, oh, that's not like that for me at all.
[16:43]I just, for me, it's like, it's what do I want to feel.
[16:47]I'm living with these characters for so long.
[16:49]How do I want to feel?
[16:50]Because I love writing.
[16:51]Like, I love love.
[16:53]There's nothing I love more than sitting down and actually getting lost in the story
[16:57]and feeling like I'm living inside this movie, inside my head,
[17:00]is my absolute passion in life.
[17:02]Apart from being a mother, that's my number one passion.
[17:04]But in terms of, you know, everything else I would do,
[17:06]I would choose to sit down and write and to just be fully invested.
[17:09]And it's about going on that emotional journey with the characters, you know,
[17:14]I love to put myself through all these emotions and things, you know, so,
[17:18]yeah, I absolutely love it.
[17:21]And how did you get your start writing?
[17:24]How did you always know you wanted to be an author?
[17:26]And how did you build your career to where it is now?
[17:29]Well, I did always know, like the first job I ever wanted to do was to be an author.
[17:34]I don't know how young I was, but I was really young.
[17:36]Then I went on to see when I was a teenager, I was reading magazines and I was thinking,
[17:39]actually, what I'll do is I'll go and work from magazine and then when I have kids,
[17:43]I'll become an author and I'll work from home.
[17:46]That's my exact thinking, by the way, just FYI.
[17:49]Things never work out that way, but that was my original plan at age 12 or something.
[17:53]Yeah.
[17:54]Well, I was thinking, okay, good, I actually managed to, like it did happen.
[17:57]You know, I went experience for a magazine, but I was in my early 20s and then I went
[18:02]and, you know, as I became reviews editor of this super successful British weekly celebrity
[18:07]magazine called Heat.
[18:09]And at the time that I was working there, it was selling like 600,000 copies a week.
[18:12]You know, and I was just reviews editor.
[18:14]It was a really great time to be working there.
[18:16]It was just a moment, really.
[18:17]And I had this idea for Lucy in the sky in my first book for a few years,
[18:23]kind of this girl who was torn between Australia and England, which are two places.
[18:27]I also grew up in America.
[18:28]So I could have easily said it in America or in England or America or in Australia, but
[18:33]I chose England and Australia.
[18:35]And she's torn between these two countries and these two men,
[18:37]you know, this lawyer and the surfer and one's old and one's young girl.
[18:41]You know, one's kind of like anyway.
[18:43]I had this idea and I just felt so scared.
[18:47]I think of the fact that it had been my lifelong dream up to that point.
[18:51]I was in my early 30s and I still hadn't managed it.
[18:54]And I just, I felt so full of fear.
[18:57]And then it just happened to be that one,
[18:58]this publicist who I'd become friends with said to me, you should write a book,
[19:01]you know, you'd get a book deal working in heat.
[19:03]And I'm like, I have an idea.
[19:05]And he said, tell me five minutes after I got back to the office after this lunch,
[19:08]I had an email from him saying, I've told, you know, the managing director,
[19:11]Suzanne Babano from Simon and Shuster.
[19:14]She loves the idea to get an email from her saying, can we meet in a week?
[19:17]Now, over that week, I wrote the first three chapters of 5,000 words and
[19:21]opposite.
[19:22]We met within two days.
[19:23]I had a two book deal.
[19:25]And I just said, why don't I write it by Christmas and we'll have it out next April.
[19:28]And this was a set 10.
[19:31]And at a full-term job, what we did, you know, and I basically,
[19:34]that was in September 2006.
[19:37]And, you know, I released this in the sky in April, 2007,
[19:41]because of that, though, because of this tight turnaround and writing a book a year,
[19:46]I never stood a chance of having an American book deal, because of American publishers
[19:49]alone for a year in advance.
[19:52]And so that just wasn't happening.
[19:55]And I basically sort of after 15 years of being with the same publisher I did
[19:58]decide it was time to move.
[20:00]to see if somebody else could take things to the next level
[20:03]and so I moved to Penguin.
[20:04]And now I do have this amazing, you know,
[20:08]Putnam Penguin, US book deal.
[20:10]So I'm super excited for Seven Summers
[20:12]to reach American North American readers.
[20:15]Oh my gosh, so exciting.
[20:17]Amazing.
[20:18]Well, Paige, thank you so much.
[20:19]Thank you for the joy of your characters
[20:21]for putting me in the sculpture studio
[20:23]and inspiring me to make lots of sand art
[20:26]and to be aware of who shows up on your porch.
[20:29]So thank you all.
[20:30]Thank you so much.
[20:32]It's like seven.
[20:32]Okay, bye.
[20:34]Bye.
[20:36]Thanks for listening to moms
[20:38]don't have time to read books.
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