Below, you’ll find the full transcript of today’s episode, in case you prefer to read or want to reference something we talked about.

“Fifty-three weeks is plenty of time to find a wife. One week to plan, fifty-two to execute.”

Career-obsessed Mark is history. From now on, my heart is open and ready for a family. No more fifth wheel. No more working alone through dinner in restaurant booths.

Solo Mark is out. Family man is in. As with every challenge, I’ve divided the task into a step-by-step process. While on holiday in Hadley Springs, Nebraska, I drafted the twelve-month plan. I included a detailed description of what I’m looking for and a spreadsheet for the expected timeline. Project: Find-A-Wife will commence as soon as I return home to Phoenix.

It’s all well and good until I join my cousins on a blizzard walk for a few donuts.

Who knew a chance encounter with a scrubs-wearing, sweet-smiling, schedule-wrecking woman would derail my life so efficiently?

To Do:
1. Drink coffee
2. Review the plan
3. Find a wife

Tasha Hackett enjoys a cup of coffee flavored creamer each morning. She still folds the laundry and unloads the dishwasher, but her favorite thing is creating characters that come alive. Most of her time is spent with four chatty children and an incredibly supportive husband. They give her the kind of love people write books about.

Welcome to A Spot of Story with Danielle Grandinetti. Cozy up with your favorite beverage as we chat about sweet romance, thrilling suspense, and fascinating history. Perhaps you’ll find your next read in one of these stories.

Danielle Grandinetti: On this episode of A Spot of Story, I’m chatting with Tasha Hackett about Planning for Nickie.

Tasha Hackett: Hello.

Danielle Grandinetti: It’s wonderful to have you here. Tasha Hackett enjoys a cup of coffee flavored with creamer every morning. You have a book, but do you have your cup of coffee? That is the bigger question.

Tasha Hackett: No, I had that an hour ago, so we’re good.

Danielle Grandinetti: Oh, perfect. You still fold laundry and unload the dishwasher, and your favorite thing is creating characters that come alive. Most of your time is spent with four chatty children and an incredibly supportive husband. They give you the kind of love that people write books about. I love that. Tasha, I’m so glad you’re here to talk about your book. This is the second in your series?

Tasha Hackett: Yes. This is the second in my contemporary series. I have a historical series with two books, but I got a little overwhelmed with all the historical details. You write historical, so you know—you can’t even say they got into the car because you have to wonder if it’s a car, or a Ford, or what. I thought contemporary would be easier. I thought I could just write a quick 10,000-word story to entice people to my newsletter, but then I started writing and it turned into a full 60,000-word novel. Now there’s book two and book three. I titled it Holidays in Hadley Springs [affiliate]. I have two right now.

Danielle Grandinetti: I love it. Before we dive into more about Planning for Nickie, I’d love to know what you’re reading right now.

Tasha Hackett: I actually just started a nonfiction book by Donna Otto again. I recommend her to any Christian woman. This one is Finding Your Purpose as a Mom [affiliate]. It’s one of her books that I’ve never actually finished, but I keep starting it over because it really encourages you to make your home a heaven—beautiful, peaceful, and welcoming. I’m also slowly reading through Love a Beast [affiliate] by Karen Witemeyer. And City Spies, which is a children’s book my kid brought home. I try not to let them read anything I haven’t read first because the world is crazy!

Danielle Grandinetti: Excellent options. I have Love a Beast on my TBR shelf! I met Karen recently and got a signed copy. Well, let’s turn to Planning for Nickie. Speaking of characters we love, what is a day in the life like for one of your characters?

Tasha Hackett: Mark is pretty easy for me because he is a man of planning and structure. He gets up at four in the morning. He is an editor for a traditional publishing house, which makes me laugh because I’m an indie author—what was I thinking? He was a side character in Waiting for Gilbert [affiliate] who lived in Phoenix and worked as an editor, and then he became so important I had to know more about him.

He does his best work from four to eight in the morning when no one is calling or texting. Then he works out, gets ready, and goes into the office around nine or ten. He does office work and sprints until two o’clock. Then he plays racquetball with the guys from church, goes to Bible study, and he’s in bed by seven.

Danielle Grandinetti: Getting up that early, that makes sense.

Tasha Hackett: Right. But he also lives in a hotel by choice. For a single man in a city, it is efficient. He gets free breakfast, internet, utilities, and a cleaning service. He doesn’t even have a car; he just uses rideshares. In his mind, why pay for maintenance and insurance when you can just pay someone to drive you? Readers were like, “What? He lives in a hotel?” and I said, “Don’t knock it until you try it!” I’ve done the math; for a single person, it’s a good deal.

Danielle Grandinetti: You can’t rent an apartment for that much.

Tasha Hackett: Exactly. Mark has it all figured out—or so we think. In Waiting for Gilbert, he’s the businessman who tells you how to fix your problems. In Planning for Nickie, we get inside his head and realize he structures his life this way because he emotionally can’t handle feeling out of control. It’s where his anxiety and panic come from, which I didn’t even know about him until I started writing.

Danielle Grandinetti: I love when that happens. Do you have a favorite scene?

Tasha Hackett: Probably the pool scene. I’m a Christian author writing from a Christian worldview, but this is also adult romance. I believe human characters have the greatest impact when they are real, and humans have bodies. In Waiting for Gilbert, I purposely avoided descriptions of muscles or “dreamy looks,” but in this one, there’s a very funny line where he mentions liking a woman’s figure. It works because it’s honest to the character and it’s a silly joke, even if some people were a bit upset by it.

In the favorite scene, they are by the pool. She pushes him in, and then he gets out and “stalks” her in a menacing but playful way. He smacks his hand against the wall by her head—it’s a move called Kabedon in Japanese manga. It’s very romantic. She says she’s never been so close to swooning, and then he just picks her up and throws her in the pool! He walks away because he says he “can’t handle the heat.” I love that scene because 30-year-olds are allowed to flirt and play without anything inappropriate happening.

Danielle Grandinetti: Flirting is a lot of fun! It’s that emotional romantic tension—that’s why we read and write romance. You mentioned switching to contemporary for less research, but was there any unique research for this one?

Tasha Hackett: I researched hotels in my location because I loved the idea so much. I always put in just enough facts to make it believable—like my “pilot” example. We need to believe he’s a pilot, but we don’t need to teach the reader how to fly the plane. I researched hiking spots and restaurants in Scottsdale. I did have an editor tell me there are no squirrels in Phoenix, so I had to fix a scene where a squirrel was being attacked by geese!

Danielle Grandinetti: That’s awesome. What was the inspiration behind this story?

Tasha Hackett: Mark and Nickie ending up together was actually set up in the epilogue of Waiting for Gilbert. In chapter two of that first book, the heroine, Cordelia, asks what would happen if Mark ever met someone as smart as he is. She joked, “What if he married a doctor?” Well, Nickie is a doctor.

Nickie is an ER doctor who also works in a clinic. I did a ton of research for that, interviewing doctors to make it real. In this book, I’m tackling the idea of control and anxiety—the idea that our story has already been finished by our Creator. Nickie is a caretaker for everyone, including her grandparents, and now she’s dating Mark, who is also struggling with his own need for control.

Danielle Grandinetti: I love when characters challenge one another in their similarities.

Tasha Hackett: I have a habit of writing characters with control issues—it’s a pattern in all four of my novels. Maybe those are “Tasha issues!”

There is a car accident in the book where Mark has an out-of-body experience. My original plot was an amnesia story for Nickie, but as I researched it, I realized the kind of amnesia we write about in books has only happened to like one person in history. I couldn’t do it because it wasn’t “real life.” Nickie basically told me, “I’m not doing that.” So Mark got the injury instead, just a concussion, and the out-of-body experience.

Danielle Grandinetti: What encouragement do you hope readers take away?

Tasha Hackett: Stop striving so hard thinking you have to get there by yourself. I cry a lot when I write because I feel the Holy Spirit telling me things I need to hear while I’m trying to give advice to my characters. You don’t have to do this alone. God is with you, but you also need to reach out to people. We need to be okay with saying, “I’m not okay.”

Danielle Grandinetti: When we are honest, we realize we aren’t suffering in silence alone. You mentioned this might be a series. Do you have a third book?

Tasha Hackett: I don’t have anything for John, Nickie’s brother, yet. But the character David K, the home inspector from the first book, keeps talking to me. He pops up in Planning for Nickie as a volunteer paramedic. I have an idea about a bodyguard falling for a nanny while working in Japan. I brought all four of my kids to Japan by myself once, and it was a lot! So I’m thinking about that, but check back in a year.

Danielle Grandinetti: We’ll hold out hope! Where can we find you?

Tasha Hackett: I’m on Instagram as TashaHackett.author, though I’m taking a break from it right now. I have a private Facebook group called Tasha’s Book Brigade. I’m also all over the internet—just look up Tasha Hackett, author in Nebraska.

Danielle Grandinetti: I’ll link to your website so they can find you. Tasha, thank you for joining me today and talking about Mark and Nickie’s story. It was so much fun.

Tasha Hackett: Fantastic. Love being here!

Danielle Grandinetti: Thanks, Tasha.

Thank you for listening to A Spot of Story with Danielle Grandinetti. Let us know what you thought by leaving a comment and be sure to subscribe. Discover more about today’s book at daniellegrandinetti.com/podcast. Happy reading.

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Until next time, may your reading bring both light and encouragement.

Happy reading!
~ Danielle.