The Summer of Broken Things: Frequently Asked Questions

Note: My answers may contain some spoilers for the book—please don’t read this if you haven’t finished the book!

Why is Spain the location for Avery and Kayla’s trip together? 

I started thinking about writing The Summer of Broken Things while on a family trip to Spain, so the association was there for me from the very beginning. That particular trip was full of problems (delayed/canceled flights, lost/delayed luggage, etc.) along with the beautiful scenery and fascinating culture. Fortunately, all our problems fit in the category of “merely annoyances” rather than any life-changing tragedies. But it left me thinking about how people cope when their expectations and reality don’t match up. (And that of course is a big part of the problem for Avery’s family in general.)

Another reason I picked Spain was because of the role that country plays in American history. Every time I’ve been to Spain (and I did go back a second time to do additional research) I’ve thought about how intensely I’d been taught as a child about one sliver of Spanish history—the part where Spain went out and explored/conquered large swaths of the rest of the world—but how ignorant I was of most other aspects of their past. I didn’t emphasize this a whole lot in the book, but it felt comparable to me of how Kayla and Avery are so ignorant of important aspects of their own family histories.

What gave you the idea for the surrogate mother part of the plot?                   

It came to me in a dream.

In all my years as a writer, this is the only time that’s ever happened to me. I had been thinking about two kids on a trip to Spain together, but I was getting frustrated with the idea because I couldn’t figure out the connection between the two characters. They felt flat and lifeless to me. Then one night I had a very bizarre dream about two teenagers I knew and their mothers—in the dream, one of the mothers casually mentioned to me that she’d been a surrogate mother eighteen years earlier, and she’d actually given birth to both girls. As soon as I woke up, I immediately thought of all the reasons that particular relationship wasn’t possible in real life—but I was also certain that that was the connection between Avery and Kayla and Kayla’s mom. And then I felt like I knew and understood both fictional girls and their families exactly.

How much research did you do for this book?

A lot! I wanted to make sure that I was accurately representing surrogate motherhood, families facing infertility issues, and the psychological impact that would be likely for Avery and Kayla when they found out what their families had kept secret. I read as much as I could about all of those issues, and I was very grateful to the experts who agreed to answer my further questions.

I also did a fair amount of extra research about Spain. During college, my daughter spent a semester studying in Spain, and she served as a consultant of sorts for the book. When I went back for a very focused trip to go to specific places I wanted to feature in the book, she accompanied me as both informal tour guide and translator (because her Spanish skills are far, far superior to mine!)