Get your blanket, your mug of tea and light that candle, girl. We’re getting into cosy season by chatting to the queen of romantic comedies, novelist, podcast host and broadcaster Ash London to talk about writing her debut romance novel, why romance is having SUCH a moment and why the new generation of rom-com movies understands that life only gets better after 40.
They say write what you know, and that’s the reason that the main character of Ash London’s debut romance novel, Love On The Air, is a successful radio presenter who disappears off to a tropical island after a break-up. Because that’s exactly what Ash herself did, when she was 29.
“The boy I thought I was going to marry dumped my ass – twice, because I took him back, and he dumped me again,” she laughs. “And we were on air one day, and a love song was playing, and I was like, ‘… I hate this.’ So, I literally left and ran away to a desert island and escaped.”
Working as a music and radio presenter since her early 20s over in Australia, Ash had often been told that her life was like a novel. “I knew one day I would turn it into something, because eventually I was lured back to the same radio station for a new job, and I came back with my tail between my legs, thinking I’d fucked my life up. But I ended up having the job of my dreams and meeting my future husband two weeks later.”
Love On The Air is a love letter, Ash says, to both the radio industry and her husband, radio exec Adrian Brine. The pair shifted to Aotearoa earlier this year, along with their young son, and are now based at Mediaworks, with Ash presenting on The Ash London Show and running the podcast Hopeless Romantics, which deep dives into pop culture’s long-running obsession with romantic comedies.
The podcast itself started as a side job to her novel, because Ash knew that her left turn into romance novels was going to be a bit of a surprise to her audience. And then after starting it, she realised it “scratched an itch” she’d had for a long time, as a huge fan of the romance genre. And both the book and the podcast came out just as what seems like the entire world also fell back in love with all things romance.
“The planets just aligned because I started writing this book maybe as it was all kicking off, and by the time the book was out, I feel like it was crescendo-ing,” she says. She wrote the book when she was on maternity leave with her son, Buddy, and says it was an incredible way to stay creative during the early ‘what the f—k have I done with my life’ months that can come with early motherhood.
“I feel very lucky, because 10 years ago if I’d written a romance novel, people would have been like ‘what? Shouldn’t you be writing some high-brow, introspective look at what it means to be a woman in media?!’ And in a way, that’s what this book is but it’s done in a way that is a bit more fun, a bit more digestible and a bit more escapist.”
The appeal of the romance world is not hard to understand – whether it’s dragons, fairies or office romances, who wouldn’t want to escape into fantasy as the real-life world gets darker and darker. It’s the same reason that so many of us are returning to our comfort watches – Ash admits to watching the 2005 adaptation of Pride & Prejudice the night before our chat, just because.
“The world is so scary and unpredictable and terrifying and shitty at the moment that I think these comfort watches more than ever are what we need.”
But in the film world, at least, there is a marked difference with the romantic comedies of yore and what’s being made now. There were two rules for the rom-coms of the 90s and early 2000s: everyone gets a happy ending and turning 30 is the most terrifying thing that can happen to a woman. The entire plot of My Best Friend’s Wedding is that Julia Roberts’ character made a pact with her best friend that if they had never been married by 28 (!) that they would marry each other (!!) to avoid, I guess, dying alone (!!!).
“If we look at the rom coms in the 90s, these people were in their 20s – they didn’t know shit!” Ash says. “They’re going to break up as soon as the film is finished.”
But now? Now we have Anne Hathaway at 41 falling for a 20-something (and looking unbelievably hot as hell while doing it). Babygirl’s Nicole Kidman having a sexual revolution in her 50s. The romantic comedy series Nobody Wants This, which is about child-less people in their late 30s, and even the recent Netflix release, Four Seasons, which looks at mid-life marriage. Suddenly, there’s a realisation that life only gets more interesting as you hit 40 and beyond.
“Women want to see ourselves reflected in these stories – not in the way of ‘I want to imagine I’m fucking some young guy’ but we want these stories to include the lessons we’ve learned,” Ash says. “The fuck-ups, the ways we see our bodies now, the idea of romance when you have kids… all these things that feel so much more real, now.”
“Yes, we can still have the elements of fantasy and the elements of escapism and romance, but now it’s with the foundation of these women who have seen some shit, yeah? I can’t wait to my 40s, I just know I’m going to be my baddest bitch in my 40s. It’s only going to get better and better, and I want to keep writing these stories well into my 40s.”
Ash’s first novel being so openly based on her own life made writing the sex scenes, um, quite tricky, and she says she’s having much for fun with the new novel she’s working on, because “no one’s reading this book imagining me fucking, so that’s opened up the options,” she laughs.
Her next big aim is to move into screenwriting in the same genre; there are plenty of wonderful examples of novelists who have done just that, such as Capsule favourite Dolly Alderton, who recently announced her adaption of Pride & Prejudice will appear on Netflix.
This news has been extremely enthusiastically received by Ash, a die-hard Jane Austen fan. “I’m on the brink of orgasm about Dolly Alderton being even remotely involved,” she jokes.
As we head from autumn into cosy season, it’s a great time to plunge back into the world of romance. Ash says viewing wise, she’ll be returning to cosy favourites like Sleepless In Seattle (‘it’s always raining and they’re always in jumpers’) and The Holiday (‘not just for Christmas!’). But it’s any and all Jane Austen adaptation that is her top tier of cosiness.
“It’s all about the comfort and the predictability and the wonder,” she sighs happily. “If I could choose only one thing to be able to watch, it would be any adaptation of a Jane Austen book. We deserve it. We deserve it!”
Love On The Air is available now in all bookstores. You can catch Ash on the radio on The Ash London Show on More FM, 7-9pm Monday-Thursday nights and check out her podcast Hopeless Romantics (including an episode with Capsule about Love, Actually) here.
