Interview with Isabel Keats, Author of More Than Neighbors

First I would like to thank you for the interview, and warn everybody about something: I’m from Spain so if I make a lot of spelling or grammatical mistakes, please, bear with me. But don’t worry, More Than Neighbors has been translated by a great professional!

More Than Neighbors is a simple story about two people who are afraid to admit that what they feel for each other is much more than a friendship. It is very easy to read, so I recommend it for those moments that you need to have a break from denser books or even from life. My heroes are quite normal human beings (on the other hand, Leopold is very rich and that is not so normal) and they don’t have big infancy traumas (although Leopold’s mother is quite a handful). It has a touch of comedy but, most of all, it is 100% romantic.

What’s your favorite song lyric?

I like very much the chorus of Maldita Nerea’s songs No pide tanto, idiota:

Tú no lo entiendes,
Ella quiere que le escribas su canción,
Que la escuches, que le prestes atención, 
Que la invites a tocar tu corazón. 
No pide tanto, idiota.

You just don´t understand it
She wants you to write her song
She wants you to listen to her, to pay attention to her
She wants you to invite her to touch your heart.
She isn’t asking for much, you idiot

If you could have dinner with anyone, alive or dead, who would you choose and why?

Jane Austen, of course, and although I know there is not one, I’ll ask her her secret recipe to write a story as fabulous as Pride And Prejudice. Also I would like to ask her what was like to be a female writer or just only a female during that period.

If you had an extra hour each day, how would you spend it?

Laying on my sofa with a book in my hands

Name a book that you feel has impacted your life significantly. Why was it so impactful?

Well, maybe not my life, but there is a novel that has impacted my way of appreciating the structure of a book. It is Silk by Alessandro Baricco.

Where is your happy place? Why does it bring you joy?

There is a little place in the mountains, an hour’s drive north-west of Madrid. I spent there my childhood summers. The landscape is beautiful and I love to go for long walks, breathing that thick air full of the smell of pines and rockrose.

What’s your favorite quote or scene from More Than Neighbors?

(…) He held her delicate chin between thumb and forefinger, and tipped her face up toward his as he slowly tilted his head down.
“You’d better not”, Catalina warned him very seriously.
“Why? I can’t imagine it’s the first time you’ve been kissed.” His face stopped a couple of inches from hers.
“I should warn you of something.”
Curious, Leopold looked into her brown eyes sprinkled with gold, a glint belying her apparent gravitas. “That sounds ominous. What should I know?”
“That anyone who kisses me falls hopelessly in love with me”(…)

Do you have a motto, quote or philosophy you live by?

Not really, although I like very much this maxim from San Agustin:
“Love and do what you want”, the bad news is that I’m afraid this is harder than it sounds.

Isabel Keats is the author of the new book More Than Neighbors.

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