the dog days of podcasting
Cecily Foster is an audio producer. She’s the one who takes all the recordings for a podcast and puts it together in a way that makes people want to listen. She takes out the coughing and the ums, smooths it all out with clever narration and the right ambient sounds, and finds the thread of the story that links it to the episode you listened to last week. She is very good at her job. She is less good at her life.
Cecily is a workaholic, acting as a mentor to other producers in the office, encouraging them to find balance in their lives and to chase joy however they can. But she hasn’t been in a romantic relationship in years. But her boss has a new assignment for her. There is an influencer named Eliza Cassidy who wants to add relationship expert to her brand, and the idea for this new podcast is for Eliza to learn more about Cecily, help her decide on what she wants from a relationship, and set her up on 20 blind dates. It would be a chance for Cecily to be the on-air talent for a change and could help save the company, which is struggling in the cut-throat world of podcasting.
Cecily agrees to the podcast, on the condition that she chooses her producer and, once its done, she can make a pilot for a podcast she would be genuinely happy to be a part of. In exchange for that, Cecily agrees to try everything that Eliza says and be honest about her dating experience. Big sponsorships are already on board, and they have a tight timeline, as they want the final episode to drop on Valentine’s Day. But before her first date, she meets Buddy.
Buddy is a Great Dane, and as Cecily was standing outside, he went flying past, his leash flapping in the wind behind him. Shortly after Buddy came a man in a cape, calling after him. Cecily helped the man catch the dog, and that’s when she noticed that his cape was actually for his haircut, which was only half done. He introduces himself as Will and thanks her for her help with the dog, which isn’t his. He had seen a woman calling after him and decided to be the hero and catch him.
He and Cecily exchange phone numbers so he can update her about Buddy. In the days that follow, he texts her updates. His name is Gideon, not Buddy. The woman wasn’t his owner. He’s actually up for adoption. And not surprisingly, Will is the guy who decides to adopt him. Cecily enjoys their text chatting, but she still has 20 blind dates to go on. And before she can do that, Eliza is insisting she get new photos. When Cecily shows up at the photo studio to get her picture taken, she finds the dog. The photographer is Will, and for once Cecily doesn’t hate the photo session.
On her first blind date, they go to a nice restaurant, and their waiter is none other than Will. Cecily had told her friend—who is also the show’s producer—about the dog incident. She hadn’t told her that Will was also her photographer and now the waiter on her date. So when her producer gets a quote from the cute waiter about what he thought about their date, she doesn’t realize that Cecily and Will had been flirting. But the listeners immediately choose the hot waiter over the date.
As the weeks go by, Cecily goes on 19 more dates, some more successful than others. She finds herself drawn to Will, but he’s told her that he wasn’t planning on staying in town very long, so she’s torn. She likes Will a lot, but she’s looking for someone who’s going to stick around. Plus, it’s possible that not just her career but her entire company rests on the success of this podcast. As the final episode gets closer, Cecily has to decide what she wants her future to look like, and who she wants to share it with.
Linda Holmes is back with another novel about a whip-smart woman trying to live her best life. Holmes is a podcaster for NPR, one of the hosts of the Pop Culture Happy Hour, as well as a writer, so when she talks podcasting, she knows her stuff. She says that these characters are not based on real people, so it’s not a hidden tell-all about her own podcast, but it is filled with a lot of insight about how much work goes into a single podcast episode and how exacting the producers and editors are. I’ve been listening to podcasts for years, so I found that especially interesting.
I loved this book. It brought back memories of the Janeane Garofalo film The Truth About Cats & Dogs, without all the messy Cyrano stuff. The best scenes of that movie are between Garofalo and Ben Chaplin and his dog, and the same goes for this novel. Buddy steals all his scenes (when Will adopts him, he chooses to call him Buddy over Gideon), and the dialogue between Cecily and Will just sparkles. This book is so much fun. It’s the perfect read for stressful days, or for when you’re craving a well-written rom com.
Egalleys for Back After This were provided by Ballantine Books through NetGalley, with many thanks.
