Alessandra Ranelli

I gave myself a year to try and get it together.

But when that year came up, I still didn't have an agent.

I still hadn't quite finished the book, but I had just published an essay in the New York Times.

So I felt confident enough at that point to take the risk, but it was the biggest gamble I've ever taken in my life.

Yeah.

How do I love all of that?

No, I really thought it might.

But my modern love essay, which I'm very proud of, is autobiographical.

It's closer to the work I'd been doing as a storyteller.

And it's obviously a more moving subject matter.

But I think Murder at the Hotel Orient is what I call a spicy whodunit.

And it's deeply unserious.

It's humorous.

It's over the top.

It's reality amplified and put in a vintage soft focus glow.

And so the Modern Love piece did earn me one agent who requested the full.

But when I sent it, it was A, an early draft.

But B, I think if you came into the project from reading the essay...

The book was not, was always going to disappoint because the essay was seven and a half years of a marriage boiled down into 1500 words and confronting mortality and what it means to love someone and be married.

Like it was a huge thing in a small amount.