Is Abby McIntyre based on you?

As farfetched as it may seem, I swear I did not notice the similarity between “Abby McIntyre” and “Anna McCallie” until my agent pointed it out, and by then, it was too late to change it because that just was her name and I couldn’t imagine her being called anything else.

I will grant you that the contours of our lives are very similar: American women who move to the UK without knowing anybody and wind up falling in love with the country, the people, and the sport of football. However, we are quite different people beyond that. For instance, no one would ever have to drag me up on stage to do karaoke — you’d have to drag me off of it because the bar had closed.

Is Mersey FC real? And is Lachlan Ramsay based on a real footballer?

Mersey FC is a fictional team that wears red and is located in Liverpool, England. As a truly wild coincidence, the real Premier League team that I support — Liverpool FC — also wears red and is located in Liverpool, England.

Lachlan Ramsay is entirely a product of my imagination. However, if you want to know what kind of midfielder he is, his playing style is most comparable to Liverpool legend Xabi Alonso (which is why I gave him Xabi’s jersey number, #14). If you’re interested in learning more about real Scottish footballers I admire, I would suggest starting with Andy Robertson, John McGinn, and Scott McTominay.

Will you write a book about Bashie and Sadie next?

I love Bashie and Sadie with my whole heart, but I think writing Bashie’s accent for an entire book would drive me — and you — crazy. But I have a few ideas for one-off scenes for them, so maybe I’ll write those up and send them out via my newsletter? Let me know if this is something you’d be interested in!

Are you writing something new? Is it another sports romance?

I am currently working on my second book alongside my fabulous editors! I hope to share more about it with you very soon. I will say that it is not another sports romance, because I can’t imagine caring about another fictional team as much as I care about the lads of Mersey FC, and I’m not ready to do a spin-off for any of them… (yet?)

Where is that header photo from, of the mountains and the lake?

Squarespace.