The time it was about Anywhere You Go

Posted April 21, 2025 by Stacee in Interviews | 0 Comments

When I got the invite to do an interview with Bridget Morrissey for her upcoming release Anywhere You Go, I couldn’t say yes fast enough. I had just finished the book (spoiler alert: I loved it) and couldn’t wait to talk about it.

Before we get to Bridget’s answers, let’s check out the book.

Title: Anywhere You Go
Author: Bridget Morrissey
Pages: 352
Pub Date: April 22, 2025
Publisher: Berkley
Find it: PRH | Bookshop | Goodreads

Synopsis: Tatum Ward and Eleanor Chapman lead totally opposite lives. Tatum’s never left her Midwestern hometown. She resides in a quaint guest cottage on her parents’ property while working part-time as a waitress, where she spends most shifts ignoring her feelings for a beautiful regular named June. Eleanor dedicates every waking hour to her high-profile press career, sacrificing personal relationships for professional success, save for the occasional hookup to fight off her loneliness. When both women’s lives unexpectedly blow up at the exact same time, they each need an escape, and fast.

In Tatum’s hometown, Eleanor expects a quiet hideaway where she can recharge. Instead she gets wrapped up in the family drama that Tatum left town to avoid, pulled in by Tatum’s charismatic older sibling, Carson, who charms Eleanor at every turn. Tatum ends up in Eleanor’s New York high-rise apartment with June. One week together in the big city might make it impossible for Tatum to avoid not just her true feelings for June, but her real dreams for her life.

Amid a friendship with a reclusive Hollywood actress and a complicated family reunion, Tatum and Eleanor each discover much more than they bargained for away from home. Their house swap won’t last forever, but it might be just long enough for both women to surrender their defenses and finally fight for the life—and love—they deserve.

Sounds good, right?

1. Please give the elevator pitch for Anywhere You Go.

A small town waitress and a Broadway press agent swap homes to escape their personal problems, each finding love in the process.

2. Which came first: the characters or the plot line?

I first got the idea to do a The Holiday type house-swap romance from my friend Alex, who happens to be a Broadway press agent in real life. That gave me a headstart on both the plot and the characters. I knew if I did a house swap, I wanted my take on it to feel very independent from the movie while also paying homage to the essence of the film. It was important that both main characters have contrasting jobs and lives, so I gave my big city character the same job as Alex—she is a Broadway press agent! And then I pulled on my three years as a diner waitress for my other main character, who works at a small diner in her hometown.

3. Why do you love Tatum and Eleanor and why should readers root for them?

I think both women are fiercely loyal, and that’s one of the best traits any person can have. They are also very protective of themselves and their hearts, and as a reader, there are few things more satisfying than watching someone’s walls come down for love. We get to watch them fight back against the loneliness that has plagued them both, and that’s really beautiful!

4. Were there any weird things you googled while researching?

There’s this extended bit in the book about the theory that the artist Edgar Degas might be Jack the Ripper. I can’t say I’m a believer, but it was very interesting to read up on it!

5. Without spoilers, which scene was your favorite to write?

There are a few that come to mind, and since this is a book with two romances in it, it’s only fair if I choose one scene for each couple! For Eleanor and Carson, there’s a scene where Carson teaches Eleanor how to drive, and I had a lot of fun balancing the humor of the situation with the emotional intimacy they are starting to build with each other. For Tatum and June, they end up doing karaoke together, and it’s always very satisfying to get to use song choices and crowd energy as a way to up the tension between two characters.

Speed(ish) round:

1. You find out you’re being published for the first time. Describe the next 5 minutes.

It was 2016, and I was getting out of a matinee showing of Bridget Jones’s Baby at the AMC 16 in Burbank, California when I found out I was getting published, so I pretty much just skipped down the large set of stairs that lead to the theater and basked in the California sunshine, excited for my publishing journey to begin.

2. What 3 things would you take to a desert island?

My baby blanket, a copy of Catching Fire, and a portrait of my cats, assuming they are not also on the island with me.

3. You can only read one book for the rest of your life. What is it?

Probably Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins. I already reread it once a year as it is. The entire tapestry of the world she’s created is so rich and emotional already, but coming off the heels of devouring Sunrise on the Reaping and learning Haymitch’s backstory, I would be able to continuously find new meaning in that book and all the layers Suzanne packed inside it.

4. What is the one thing about publishing you wish someone would have told you?

No one else ever—and I really mean ever—works on your clock. Not a single thing will take the time you assume it will take. Anywhere You Go is my seventh published book, but I have books eight, nine, and ten currently in active stages of publication, and I can tell you with confidence that there is no consistency in the timelines ever. For anything.

5. You wake up and discover that you are Bella in Twilight. You know how it plays out. What do you do differently?

You know what? I think I ride out the journey as intended. If I know I’m her, and I’m simply a vessel to experience her story, I want to see it through her eyes. Changing her decisions makes it no longer hers, even if that means letting Jacob imprint and eventually pair up with my daughter. Not a decision *I* would make, but that’s the interesting part of being Bella and not Bridget!

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Bridget Morrissey lives in Los Angeles, California, but hails from Oak Forest, Illinois. When she’s not writing, she can be found cradling one of her cats like a baby or headlining concerts in her living room.