Who hasn't had fantasies about taking revenge on someone who's done you wrong? Especially when that someone has just broken your heart?

In Valerie Frankel's new novel "I Take This Man", a jilted bride-to-be, with some help from her formidable mother, does just that - kidnapping the runaway groom and holding him captive until he coughs up some answers about what exactly happened to the road to matrimonial bliss.  Here's our interview with Ms. Frankel:

1) How did you get the idea for this book? 
The basic idea for I Take This Man was cranked out on a typical day in the life of a working mother. My daughter came home from school, and announced that some little girl in her first grade class made her cry. A flash of anger flooded my brain. After a minute or two, I calmed myself down. Lucy and I discussed what had happened, and worked out an appropriate response. But that flash of maternal rage got my meat grinder going. Any intense emotion is a kick-start. It made me wonder: What offense against one of my daughters would actually move me to lash out with violence against another human being? I fixated on the question, lay awake in bed, wondering what indeed would make an otherwise controlled, rational woman thirsty for blood? I imagined being the mother of a jilted bride who, in a fit of vengeance, attacks the runaway groom. From there, I asked more questions: Why did the groom cancel the wedding?What did the mother do with the groom after she bashed him? How would the bride find out what happened?
Five hours later, at three o clock in the morning, I had the framework of a plot. 


2) Tell us how about the publishing process: how you got an agent, how you sold your book, etc.?
I got my first agent through a friend at the magazine I worked for at the time. I told her I had a manuscript for a novel, and she asked her own agent to read it. I stayed with that agent for six books. I've since had two other agents (one for fiction; one for non-fiction), women I met through my magazine jobs, or people who approached me. My book deals now are with editors who are familiar with my books. But that first deal was done the hard way: My agent sent out copies of the manuscript to editor after editor until someone (number 13), wanted to publish it. With major revisions, of course.

3) Are you working on another book right now?
I've just finished the third novel in my YA series. It's called American Fringe, following Fringe Girl and Fringe Girl in Love. I adore this series and hope it takes off so I can write many, many more.


4) How does writing for YA differ from writing for adults?   The biggest difference is that my adult novels are in the third person (we, she, he, etc). and my YA titles are in the first person (I, me, mine). That makes clear tone distinctions, and sets precident. In first person, my main character has to be in every scene. In adult novels, I can shift from character to character. In I Take This Man, I shift between three characters, the bride, her mother, and the groom. Nice to mix it up.

 

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