Photo courtesy of Tori Ford.
Pitched as Gilmore Girls meets The Notebook, Lake Highlands author Tori Ford’s newest novel, Fallin’ Tides, brings small-town romance, family drama and a little spice to the page.
Fallin’ Tides follows Alice Sinclair, a young woman raised in a demanding and privileged household who dreams of turning her family’s home in Holly River into a bookstore. When Colt Mitchell, her childhood friend, returns to town, he offers to help with the construction. As the town’s Fall Festival approaches, the two find their friendship beginning to turn into something more.
After a 12-year hiatus from publishing, Ford is returning to the literary world with a different perspective on writing, success and her own expectations. The Lake Highlands author spoke with the Lake Highlands Advocate about her return to publishing, the inspiration behind Fallin’ Tides and how Dallas made its way into the novel.
Twelve years ago, the Advocate featured you when your first book was published. Looking back, what stands out most about that time in your life?
Oh gosh, you know what’s funny? The first thing that comes to mind is, “I don’t know how different it is now.”
I remember I was stalking Goodreads to see what an early reviewer was saying about the book because your publisher sends out ARCs, advance reader copies, before the book comes out. And then you go to Goodreads. If you’re not smart like I was, you go to Goodreads and read every single advance review to see what people are saying.
What’s changed, I think, was really just the fear and the uncertainty. I think back then I had the very delicious delusion of believing — you don’t say it out loud because it would sound very egotistical — that you hope and believe you’re going to hit the ground running with your debut book. You’re going to be a household name. You’re going to be the next Stephen King and J.K. Rowling.
And then you get a career as a writer and you realize that you’re actually just really lucky to have a career as a writer.
So, I think I am more patient. I would love for this book to be a breakout blockbuster, but I think I’m realistic and know that it takes time for readers to find you, and for some readers to read your book and say, “That’s not for me.”
I know you touched on this briefly, but what made now feel like the right time to return to writing?
Yeah, so I hadn’t written really seriously as a career for many years. It’s funny, I started playing tennis again. I’d like to have a more interesting story that is more profound than this, but the truth is, I started playing tennis, and my coach was so impressed by the fact that I had written books.
I think it took standing across the net from someone to remind me that just the sheer fact of writing a book was impressive.
I had gotten into this space where, to be impressive, I needed to get starred reviews from all these literary critics, right? And when you don’t meet these lofty goals that you have as a writer, you lose the perspective that the fact that you sit down to write a book and you start it, and you get to the end and you release it, and you find a publisher and an agent — that alone is worth celebrating.
It was just a nice reminder of that. So then I wrote a nonfiction piece that was about 55 pages about some of the stories from my own personal life, and that felt good.
During your time away from writing, you built and sold your literary company. How did that experience change you?
I am approaching writing as an artist. Yes, you always kind of have to, but I’m more business-minded about it this time.
Even the sheer idea of saying, “I need to pick a genre and stick with it,” and create a name taught me to be more business-minded and to make decisions quicker.
My real name is Tori Scott. Tori Ford is the name I chose as a pen name.
What pushed you to transition into romance?
I would say mostly my husband and my daughter. Actually, I was playing with different genres. Satire. Horror. Adventure novels.
I knew I liked romance, and I had actually tried to write a book right before this one. Well, I didn’t try. I wrote it. And afterward, I couldn’t figure out what genre it fell into.
I went into it fully thinking that it was kind of a horror-adventure novel about an AI-powered robot. But instead, the robot that was supposed to want to kill the main woman the whole time ends up falling for her in his own twisted way, and they kind of have a relationship of their own twisted way.
My husband pointed out as he read the book and he was like, “This is not how you pitched it to me. I think you always do that. It’s impossible for you to keep a relationship out of a book.”
And I started reflecting back, and then I started thinking about movies that I watch and books that I read, and everything that appeals to me is really about the relationships that we have.
I really like romance because it’s the ultimate spotlight on human nature and how we are and our trauma.
Can you tell me about Fallin’ Tides?
It’s officially out on Aug. 25. It’s essentially a small-town romance with heart, humor and heat. It has open-door spice. That is very important to romance readers, which means there are explicit scenes on the page.
But it’s about a girl who’s growing up in a house, and she comes from a privileged background. Her older brother is a little bit of a wild card. He’s not really focused on his studies. But he makes a friend, Colt Mitchell, who is our main character.
Colt is from a completely opposite situation. His mother is an alcoholic. He has an older brother and his dad ran off. So when Alice’s older brother befriends Colt, the parents, because Colt is such a good influence on their older son’s life, end up allowing him to come and live in their house.
Alice is much younger than Colt, but they still become friends. And when Colt ultimately goes off to the Marines, Alice ends up writing him lots of letters for like eight years, but Colt doesn’t always write her back.
Alice wants to build a bookstore, but she’s very scared and she kind of still has her parents’ voices in her head. But with Colt back in town, she feels that confidence starting to build in her again.
Of course, because he didn’t write back to all these letters when he was in the military, he offers to do the contracting work for free on her house that will become the bookstore, and a relationship starts to form while they’re building a little bookshop in this small town.
Tell me about the cover.
Austin Drake is the illustrator on it, and she’s a very well-known illustrator. I’m not gonna lie, she was a big catch. A big win because she has a very long list of people trying to get her to do illustrations for books.
Bird’s Bookstore served as an inspiration for a key setting in Fallin’ Tides. What about that bookstore sparked your imagination?
It’s just beautiful. Randomly, I always wanted to open a bookstore like every writer on the face of the earth, and I wanted to name it Bird’s Bookstore because I’m obsessed with birds.
I have a billion bird feeders around my house, and I feed these crows, and now they come to get food outside my house every day. So, I love birds.
Then Bird’s Bookstore opened just, like, I think a year ago in my neighborhood, and I was like, “You’ve got to be kidding me! That’s so wild!”
When I was writing the story, Bird’s Bookstore was an inspiration in the story.
Are there any other Dallas places or experiences that found their way into the novel?
Humble Pie. I ate so much of their cherry pie while writing this book that I ended up naming the bakery, which is one of the main character’s friend’s stores. I ended up naming her bakery Humble Pie just because I love Humble Pie and I love their cherry pie.
So they’re in the acknowledgments, too, for that reason.
What inspired the name of your novel?
There’s a river that the town is built on, which is why the series is called the Holly River series. So, I played with a bunch of different ideas for something that was kind of water-akin or holiday-akin or feelings-akin, and then I finally was getting to “rising tides,” “falling tides,” but I just got nothing.
Then, finally, it just popped in my head to do “Fallin’” and do the little apostrophe. Once I had that, I was like, “Oh my God, it’s done!”
Where will the book be available for readers to purchase?
Oh gosh, so that’s the biggest challenge of being a self-published writer. This is my very first one that I’m putting out myself.
So it’ll be everywhere that you can buy books online. So everywhere from Barnes & Noble to Waterstones to Amazon. It’ll also be in select independent bookstores like Bird’s Bookstore and other bookstores.
What do you hope your readers will take away after finishing your book?
I would like the takeaway for this book to be just believing in yourself. It’s the whole theme of the book.
Colt, the main male character, has struggles with self-worth and believing in himself. Alice is trying to build a bookstore. I hope that readers possibly see a little of themselves in that.
Knowing that they have something in their head that they would really like to try, and knowing how scary it will be and how hard it will be. But however much you imagine the end result and that moment of triumph, however big you’ve built it up in your head, it’s tenfold.
