Hello my lovely bookworms, it’s ending the blog tour with an author interview with the perfect summer read go 2025, Summer Under the Stars by Kate Mallinder . This Summery YA Road trip adventure that’s not to be missed. I’m really excited for Kate to join me on my blog as I ask her some questions about her latest YA.
Under the Cover is where I interview some of favourite authors and authors I’ve recently read and discovered. I’m trying to refresh my blog and I love interviewing authors and getting an insight into their storytelling, hence Under the Cover was born.
First here is a bit more about the book.
Summer Under the Stars by Kate Mallinder Published by Firefly Press on June 12, 2025
Genres: Fiction, General
Amazon | Waterstones
Goodreads
Four friends drive across France in what should be the holiday of a lifetime. But Sasha’s struggling with her dad getting remarried; Cam is reeling from being rejected by her birth grandparents; Hetal’s terrified of letting everyone down; and Nell’s worried that while she’s away her relationship with Tom is falling apart. When things go wrong and emotions run high, will they have what it takes to rekindle their friendship?They need to remember why they’re friends. They need a road trip to end all road trips. They need a summer under the stars.
INTERVIEW WITH KATE MALLINDER
Can you pick a quote to summarise your book Summer Under the Stars?
‘I check my clothes and hair in the mirror, mussing up my hair and shaking back my shoulders. I am bigger than this. Today is going to be better. It can’t be any worse.’
It’s a classic question, but one I love to ask authors, what started your love for writing?
I bet the answer you get frequently back is that first I was a reader. As a child, I read so many books, and with me, that eventually spilled out as stories I created.
What was the inspiration behind Summer Under the Stars?
Lots of readers loved Summer of No Regrets and wanted to know what happened to Hetal, Sasha, Cam and Nell next. And I did too! So I allowed myself to daydream about them, what might happen over the following year as they went their different ways, and what that would then mean for a year later when Summer Under the Stars is set.
I loved the road trip theme to the book to explore so much vulnerability and healing amongst the characters. Did you draw on your own experiences or take your own road trip to create an authentic story?
I haven’t taken a road trip with friends, but I have been on holidays with friends, and I think it can definitely make or break a friendship. And that was what I wanted to do – put their friendship under a bit of pressure to see how they would get on!
I love the song that’s part of the blog tour, one of my favs. which I loved having accompanied the book. Do you listen to music whilst writing? Did this have an influence on this book?
I can’t listen to music at all while I write – I find it too distracting and end up typing out the lyrics! Sometimes when I’m editing, I can have music on in the background, but mainly silence is what I need. However, when I’m imagining a road trip, music plays a huge part in that experience. And I had loads of fun picking tracks for the playlist.
I love a summer YA novel – What are the best ingredients to make the summer YA?
I love summer YA novels too! These stories just wouldn’t feel the same if it was raining and cold! There needs to be drama in all forms, sunshine, swimming, those feel-good moments of a tune turned up, there needs to be interesting places and a general vibe of the reader feeling the sun on their face and wishing they were there too.
What message do you hope for readers to take away from your book?
Firstly, I’m hoping they’ve loved the experience of escaping into the story. But I’m hoping, subconsciously even, that they can see that there are different sorts of friendships in life – some for a season, some for a lifetime – and that’s okay. But if a friendship is worth keeping, it’s worth working at. Friendships, like other sorts of relationships, need tending to. It’s worth learning how to communicate well, so the friendship is an authentic one.
What were your highlights and challenges to writing this novel?
The editing for this one was hard! And with multiple viewpoints, as soon as you pull at a story thread, the whole thing unravels! But once it had been taken apart a couple of times, it was then really exciting putting it back together again and seeing how much better it worked as a story.
Did you have a favourite scene you enjoyed writing, without any spoilers. 🙂
There’s a scene, fairly early on in the road trip, where they get food poisoning. And the scene in the middle of the night, outside the campsite toilets makes me laugh. It made me laugh when I wrote it, and it’s one of the scenes that’s remained largely unchanged!
Finally, if you could recommend 3 books to read, what would it be?
This is such a hard question! And my answer to it frequently changes. But if I had to pick three I would choose We Were Liars by E Lockhart, Private Peaceful by Michael Morpurgo and anything written by Sue Wallman (I know that’s cheating!)
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