Buffalo Books: WNY librarian-turned-novelist injects her insights on love and rock bands into unforgettable tales of romance

(Above: Jessica Topper. Photo by Kristy Tasca)

This month’s local author spotlight is Jessica Topper. Jessica has been in love with the beauty of the written word ever since she memorized Maurice Sendak’s Chicken Soup with Rice at the age of 3. After earning a B.A. in English Literature and her master’s degree in Library Science from the University at Buffalo, Jessica went on to work as a librarian in New York City before trading in the books for bookkeeping. For 17 years, she worked in the production office of an international touring rock band. 

Jessica broke the rock romance mold with her 2013 debut Women’s Fiction novel Louder Than Love. Her follow-up romantic comedy, Dictatorship of the Dress, was named one of Publishers Weekly’s Best Books of 2015. 

She lives in Western New York with her family — including two cats that love to walk across her keyboard. You can visit her at jessicatopper.com

PAK—Louder Than Love is the first book in a four-part series chronicling the lives of Katrina Lewis, her adorable 4-year-old daughter Abbey, and former metal guitarist Adrian “Digger” Graves. In the most recent book in the series, Get What You Need, Abbey, now a teenager, is troubled and not so adorable. Did you have the series mapped out in your head from the start? Or do you make it up on the fly? What is the process of writing a series like this? 

JT—The book that became Louder Than Love was a story I told myself like a fairytale each night to fall asleep for years, before I actually started writing it down. I honestly saw the world of those characters as a family saga, more than I saw a series spinning out of it. My goal was simply to write one novel from start to finish, for myself, to see if I could.

Having been a librarian, I knew a bit about the traditional publishing route for a book — querying agents, etc., but not so much about marketing or series potential, or even about the romance genre or its “rules” at that time. I just knew it was a love story about a musician and a librarian, and it was the book I wanted to read. So I put my head down and just wrote, telling myself I’d figure out the publishing side later.

Little did I know, a huge trend in “rock romance” was emerging, and even though my book didn’t neatly fit into that category, it got swept up in it. I landed an agent, who sold Louder Than Love to Berkley/Penguin as a standalone. But the world I’d built was bigger than one book, and so two more followed over the next three years. It wasn’t until all the rights reverted back to me (meaning the publisher’s contracts had run their course and ownership of the books returned to me as the author to re-publish) that I wrote Get What You Need as a “10 years later” bookend to the series. But yes, the teenage character of Abbey had been in my head almost as long as the 4-year-old version of her.  

So a little of both — some mental mapping, but also some flying by the seat of my pants. I’d plan more strategically now, and save myself a lot of time, stress and re-writing!

 PAK—You do a really nice job in the novel with friend relationships. The back-and-forth with Marissa and Liz is really seamless. How do you make it so authentic? Do you work at it, or is it drawn from the way you might talk with your own friends? 

JT—A lot of writers like to say they talk to characters in their heads, and the characters miraculously talk back … myself included! I do hear a bit of myself and my college friends in Marissa and Liz — they’re like that core group you might only see once a year now, but can pick up right where you left off, like no time has passed, and just be your zany selves. But crafting it takes work, too — using dialogue just enough to establish dynamics and move the story along, without dumping a lot of backstory on the readers all at once.

PAK—The excitement of Kat’s new relationship with Adrian seems to consume her. Yes, she is still a responsible functioning adult, but Adrian is never far from her mind. Was that a conscious decision on your part to portray Kat as a bit of a starry-eyed girl, or maybe that’s just one of the immutable truths of a new relationship? I’ve been married for a million years, 30-something years, so I have no perspective.

JT—That’s a really interesting question — I don’t think anyone has ever asked me anything quite like this! I’ve always stood strongly by the “love/loss/love again” nature of the book. The idea that Kat didn’t have just one great love in her life, and even after becoming a mom and then a widow, she could still experience something as passionate and intoxicating as that first big love, but differently, because she herself is different. It had more to do with rediscovering identity beyond the labels of “widow” and “young mother” and getting back to the passion of who you were before all that weight settled on you. And I think the same could actually be said for Adrian. He, too, had to rediscover certain truths about himself that had long been buried — as a father, a musician, a partner.

I don’t think it was entirely conscious — it may have been what I was feeling about myself at the time the story first came to me, as a young mother who was also something of a “road widow,” which is a music industry term for a spouse holding down the home front.

PAK—In the novel, when Kat and Adrian are getting to know each other in an intimate way, how do you know where to draw the line between graphic and too graphic? Hot, but not too hot?

JT—I like to focus on the vibe and chemistry between the characters, more than on how many body parts I can creatively name! And I try to avoid having them say or do anything too cliché in that moment.  Heat level in romance can vary widely, from “closed door” fade-to-black scenes all the way up to the door-wide-open, five-chili-pepper steam. I’d like to think I crack the door open and let readers have a peek, but leave the rest to their imagination.

PAK—How do you view romance writing? Is it escapism? Is it a meaningful way to explore human relationships? Is it about defining the overlooked struggles women face?

JT—How do I view it as a reader, or as a writer? I think romance readers enjoy all the different journeys a romance can take to arrive at the same destination: the HEA (Happily Ever After) or even the HFN (Happy For Now). There’s some comfort in knowing that they can escape into a story, go on a wild ride emotionally and trust that, by the end, love always wins. But I don’t think escapism and meaning are mutually exclusive. Romance lets writers explore real emotional truths — grief, identity, belonging, vulnerability — through the lens of love. And while the genre has historically been written by and for women, that’s evolving. Romance readers, writers and characters today span all genders, and I think that says a lot about how universal the desire for connection really is.

PAK—Why did you choose metal for the genre of music in the novels? Is it the genre you most relate to, or is it because it has such potential for high drama with all the missing bat heads and the dismembered body parts?

JT—I grew up in the ’80s MTV era as an avid, unapologetic fan of heavy metal — especially the bands that were part of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal: Ozzy and Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest. I’ve seen Iron Maiden perform in countless states and five different countries, as recently as 2022, so I am still a metalhead at heart! I’ve had to defend that at every stage of my life: as a young girl, as a librarian, a mom and now as a gray-haired lady.

But beyond my personal love of the genre, there’s always been a rich dichotomy between the persona on stage and the person offstage, and that fascinated me as a writer. Who are these guys, once they’re out of the spotlight, or after the fame has faded? That was the character of Adrian: a recluse when the book first opens, literally and figuratively burned by the industry. The fact that he’d recorded an obscure jingle for a kids’ program as a lark and through a case of mistaken identity, falls into the path of a widowed librarian and her 4-year-old daughter — that collision of worlds was the seed of the whole story. He admits he finds it “tough to be tender” at times, but he really is a heavy metal hero with a heart of gold!

PAK—At one time, you were also the bookkeeper/office manager/social network admin/HR specialist for the rock group, moe. (Who knew there was more to rock ‘n’ roll than 8 balls, STDs and bail money). Do you still have any affiliation with the band, and how did that experience influence your writing?

JT—I wore a lot of hats on the business side of moe. for almost two decades, but my friendship with them goes back even further, to 1992 and the sticky bar floors of Broadway Joe’s during college. And they were a big part of my formative years in NYC.  Having that insider view of the day-to-day of a touring band that, at its peak, played over 150 shows a year definitely made an impact on my writing. A little-known rock and roll secret? There’s a lot of sitting around backstage and killing time before and after shows. Plenty of time to plot scenes and notice the mundane nuances: like why is there always salsa in a certain venue’s green room but never chips? Or the not-so-mundane: what happens when a musician gets “oil spotted” (left behind by the tour bus) at a rest stop? That insider texture is what I love bringing to my fictional rockers. There’s a lot more to the rock and roll machine than just sex, drugs and bail money, and it’s fun to give readers a glimpse of that life.

PAK—In addition to the Katrina and Adrian saga, you have another series called the “Much I Do About Nothing” novels, which includes Dictatorship of the Dress and Courtship of the Cake. You’ve also written a series of holiday books with Amanda Usen. Give us a flavor of what readers can expect from these other works.

JT—Dictatorship of the Dress was my second novel, written right after Louder Than Love, and was almost like a detox. It’s a cross-country wedding adventure rom-com that unfolds in less than a week. The “Much I Do About Nothing” premise is that the couples who seem headed to the altar when the stories open don’t necessarily end up there with each other … but in the most humorous ways possible. I’m very proud of that first “Much I Do” book — Publishers Weekly named it a “Best Book of 2015,” and the series has had TV producer interest over the years. Maybe someday we’ll see it streaming somewhere!

The collaboration with my writer BFF Amanda Usen is an 8-book Hanukkah romance series, The Matzo Ballers, adding a little blue-and-white to all the red-and-green holiday romance books of the season! Again, readers can expect a little humor, a little heat, but a lot of heart. Amanda is a trained pastry chef in her day job, so she dreams up all the amazing food for our characters over the holidays. The series seems to be read by people all year round, which is amazing, and by people of all different faiths. One of the things I love hearing most is when non-Jewish readers tell us they’ve come away learning something new. And for Jewish readers, the goal has always been for them to feel genuinely seen. We try to weave the cultural details in naturally enough that everyone feels welcome to celebrate.

PAK—What are you working on now, and when can the world expect to see it?

JT—I’ve been working on a novel titled Pretty Wreck, set on the Niagara wine trail, over the last decade, with a lot of starts and stops along the way. I’m hoping this is finally the year I finish it. Also, my final book in the Hanukkah series, Four Chuppahs and a Shiva, releases November 17!