Jo Thomas writes funny and sunny best-sellers about food, love and family. Books that wrap their arms around you and give you a “great big hug.”

And her latest release Countdown to Christmas is billed as “the most uplifting and feel good romance of Christmas 2023.”

Hi, I'm your host, Jenny Wheeler and on Binge Reading today Jo talks about her own love for books that take you somewhere else, and her ambition to leave readers with hope and a smile on their faces.

This week's Giveaway

Our Giveaway this week is a Deck The Halls BookSweeps bundle of historic holiday romances. Enter the drawer for a library of 20 plus historical romances, including Tangled Destiny, a New York Christmas novella, which is the prequel to my own Of Gold & Blood historical mystery series.

The BookSweeps draw is valued at $250 and includes a new E reader.

Enter the draw here: https://www.booksweeps.com/giveaway/dec23-historical-holiday-romance/

ENTER BOOKSWEEPS DRAW

Now do remember you can support the production costs of the show by buying me a cup of coffee at buymeacoffee.com/Jennywheelx.

And if you enjoy the show, don't forget, leave us a review, so others will find us too. Word of mouth is still the best form of recommendation for people to hear about the show and great books they will love to read.

Items mentioned in this episode

Books Jo is reading

Katie Fforde: https://katiefforde.com/,

Jill Mansell: https://jillmansell.co.uk/

Milly Johnson: https://millyjohnson.co.uk/

Jilly Cooper: https://www.jillycooper.co.uk/

Galway Bay: https://www.galwaytourism.ie/galway-bay/

Pulia:  https://www.traveldepartment.com/travel-blog/10-reasons-to-visit-puglia-region-in-italy

Where to find Jo Thomas online

Website: JoThomasauthor.com

Instagram: @jothomasauthor

Twitter: @jo_thomas01

But that's enough of the housekeeping, as you can probably tell, I've got a real frog in my throat, so I won't keep talking. I'll introduce Jo.

Introducing romance author Jo Thomas

Jo Thomas Best selling author of feel-good fiction featuring food, love and family...

Hello there Jo, and welcome to the show. It's great to have you with us.

Jo Thomas: Jenny, great to be here.

Jenny Wheeler: You say up front that the sorts of books you write are about food, love, family, and fun. You like to have happy endings. And they are for people who like sunny and funny. Is that's how you started out your writing?

Jo Thomas: It's really yes, because they were the books that I loved to read. And I would read authors like Katie Fforde, Jill Mansell and Milly Johnson.

I wanted books that would take me to somewhere different where you felt that you would join in old friends?

Like in the evenings, I can remember reading a Jilly Cooper and getting into bed at night and thinking, ‘I'm going to visit old friends down the pub.’

And it's a nice place to be. I want people to feel that they care about the characters in my books and that they're with them through adversity and that they leave with hope and a smile on their face.

When you start writing, people say, oh, write about what you know, and I thought, I don't know about anything.

The only thing I like is food really. But I'm not a chef. I'm just someone who's interested in where their food comes from and then I thought why not write about the thing I'm interested in?

I was in a restaurant in Galway, in Ireland with my husband and I was like, ‘I dunno what I'm gonna write about.’

A perfect setting for Jo's first best seller

I'd ordered some oysters and they put down this platter of oysters in front of me. And just for a moment, it stopped raining for a while. And I looked out the window and I was looking out over Galway Bay and the moon came and shone silvery shadow across the water and the candle was going in the window and it was like being in someone's front room eating these oysters.

And I thought, this is sexy.