AUTHOR BIO
Meg Chronis writes fun, feel-good romcoms full of gorgeous cinnamon-roll heroes, hilarious
hijinks, and swoon-worthy happily-ever-afters that will warm your heart.
She has written two romcomsโThe Seven Day Switch, and Second Fiddleโboth set in South
Africa.
She is currently working on the follow-up to The Seven Day Switch, and the first book in a
new romcom series set on a modern-day dukeโs estate in England.
Meg lives in Joburg with her chemical-engineer husband and two young โvarsity-going
daughters.
She is an amateur violinist and lover of classical music, and is a huge fan of MotoGP
motorcycle racing.
MEGโS BOOKS
THE SEVEN DAY SWITCH
A hot wildlife veterinarian whoโs as prickly as a porcupine.
A hotel concierge who just wants to keep everybody
happy.
And the twin switch that will force them together for a
week of hilarious chaos and slow-burn chemistry.
With banter by the bucketload, hijinks, a supporting cast
of African animals, and a Labrador with a potato
obsession, this is a laugh-out-loud, twin-switch romp.
Available for purchase here: https://mybook.to/TheSevenDaySwitch
SECOND FIDDLE
What do you get when you bring together an intern wedding planner trying not to lose her job, a violinist with a secret, and a baboon playing Cupid at a glamorous wedding in the South African bush? A whole lot of hijinks and a happily-ever-after thatโll melt your heart!
This novella is available as a free welcome gift when signing up to Megโs newsletter, at
https://BookHip.com/VNLZZXF
Or it is available for purchase here: https://books2read.com/Second-Fiddle
ANSWERS
Tell me a bit about your road to publication in South Africa.
I owe a lot to ROSA, the Romance writers Organisation of South Africa. This amazing bunch
of local romance authors played a huge role in giving me the support I needed to become a
published author.
I wrote my first novel, The Seven Day Switch, while on ROSAโs Strelitzia Award mentorship
program, winning the Strelitzia that year for best unpublished romance novel. And my
romcom novella, Second Fiddle, was written for a ROSA anthology.
I am indie published, which is hard work, but thereโs a lot of freedom and control that goes
along with self-publishing.
I signed with a distributor this year, so itโs been amazing seeing The Seven Day Switch on
bookshelves in Exclusive Books, Bargain Books, and Wordsworth Books.
As for the future, I would still like to get a traditional publishing deal one day. Itโs no easy
task, getting picked up by one of the Big Four, but I have a literary agent, which is at least
one step closer to seeing the dream of โgoing tradโ come true.
Until then though, Iโm enjoying doing all the learning and upskilling that goes with being an
indie.
What inspired the idea for The Seven Day Switch?
Strangely enough, it came from a conversation I once had with a nursery-school teacher
whoโs an identical twin.
She told me how parents and kids would wave at her twin sister in the shops, thinking it was
her. And instead of just waving back and pretending, her sister would outright ignore them
and keep walking. The next morning, sheโd have to explain to a cross mommy whoโd been
given the cold shoulder that it wasnโt her, it was her twin sister.
And I had this thought of how strange it must be having someone else out there in the world
who looked exactly like you, but who didnโt necessarily act like you. It was just a seed, but
the novel began to grow from there.
Are any scenes in the book based on real-life events?
Not scenes specifically, but elements. Like the book dog Ellaโs habit of carrying around raw
potatoes and dropping them on peopleโs feet. Sheโs partly based on my own chocolate Lab,
Baron, who presented everyone he met with a scatter cushion from our lounge.
And the Drakensberg town of Winterberg where the wildlife sanctuary is located is a mash-
up of Underberg and Winterton, and situated somewhere in the Cathkin Peak/Champagne
Castle region of the Berg, which is my favourite part of South Africa. (On the bookโs cover,
you can see the silhouette of Cathkin Peak in the background.)
If your book were made into a movie, which actors would play your characters?ย
The Seven Day Switch would tick all the boxes for a Netflix romantic comedy! The casting
would be tricky though, since the book is set in South Africa, which means we canโt cast
Henry Cavill as Sully. Sorry, girls!
Because much as Iโd love to see him playing Sully, all gruff and serious and giving off Witcher
vibes, I donโt think heโd get the accent right. Honestly, who can?
So who would play Sully? Springbok Rugbyโs Malcolm Marx before he got quite so ripped,
maybe. (I mean, Sully is big, but heโs not quite Bomb Squad big!) And Becca? I donโt really
mind, ha haโฆIโm here for the book boyfriends!
What is your favourite childhood book?
I read mountains of books as a kid. Lots of reading under the duvet with a torch. If I have to
choose one book, or series, I was obsessed with Franklin W. Dixonโs Hardy Boys. Or more
specifically, I was obsessed with Joe Hardy, the younger of the two boy detectives. I guess
he was my first book boyfriend!
Tell me about your writing routine
I have a beautiful home office with all my treasures and books on display. But can I write in
my office? Nope.
Maybe itโs because drafting a new novel isnโt the easiest of pursuits, I let myself get totally
distracted at home. A beeping washing machine. A Yorkie wanting to go outside. The lure of
the kettle for tea.
So in the mornings I write at a coffee shop. Iโm a regular there; I donโt even have to ask for
my usual coffee (single shot, decaf, skim-milk grande cappuccino). I just hand my travel
coffee mug over the counter and the baristas know exactly what to make.
I donโt get distracted by the music and the chatter around me. In fact, I find it focuses me
more. And itโs good to get out into society every day; it stops me from going full hermit.
I go back to my home office in the afternoon to do all the other tasks that make up an
author career: marketing, making graphics, writing newsletters.
How do you celebrate when you finish your book?ย
Considering how long it typically takes me to finish a book, I usually just collapse in a
relieved heap and think โnever again!โ.
Iโm pretty bad at celebrating actually. I tend to think, โOh well, thatโs done. Whatโs next?โ.
How do you select the names of your characters?
Often I know the name of the character when they first appear in my head. Like with The
Seven Day Switch, I knew the MMCโs nickname was Sully, which originally was short for his
surname, Sullivan. And then Sullivan became his first name. But he was always Sully to me.
For Becca and Gemma, the twins, I wanted two names that either started with the same
letter, or that looked โtwin-likeโ. I went through online name sites. Baby name books. The
captions under the photos in my kidsโ school yearbooks. And eventually I found Becca and
Gemma. (Gemma also shortened nicely to โGemโ, which I thought was a good nickname for
a TV celeb.)
Being a novel set in South Africa, I was careful not to use local names which might be too
hard for foreign readers to deal with. Even so, I still had to change some in the end, when
my American agent felt they were still too unusual for the US market; names like โDewaldโ,
which I didnโt think was a particularly tricky name, but I changed it anyway!
If you could spend a day with another popular author, whom would you choose?
Marian Keyes, without even having to stop and think about it. Marian has been my literary
hero for as long as I can remember. I own everything sheโs ever written.
She inspired my desire to write books in my own South African voice, just like she does with
her Irish settings and characters. And sheโs blisteringly funny. I think sheโd be the most fun author to spend a day with (once Iโd got over the curtseying and starry-eyed gushing Iโd be
doing).
Would you be friends with any of the characters from your book in real life?
I would absolutely want to hang out with Sully at his wildlife sanctuary and play vet. In
addition to always wanting to be a writer, I thought Iโd like to be a vet too as a kid, but I
have a slight career-limiting problem of being rather allergic to cats and horses. (I only have
to smell a horse and Iโm staggering about with my eyes swollen shut!)
So Iโd get a total kick out of spending time with him while he treated all the animals he helps
in the book. A real live pangolin? A baby rhino? A giraffe calf? Yeah, sign me up
immediately!
Do you have a message for your readers?
Iโm so grateful to everyone whoโs read my books. Itโs a lonely job, sitting at a computer all
day with your head in a fictional world, and having readers reach out to me from all over the
world and tell me they got a whole lot of joy out of my words really makes my day!
Your support and reviews and messages make all the hard work worthwhile.
Also I know you all want Gemโs story nextโฆ Iโm a slow writer, but Iโm working on it.
Promise!
CONNECT WITH MEG
Iโm @megchronisauthor on Instagram (my favourite platform), Facebook, TikTok and
Pinterest.
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Join my newsletter and get Second Fiddle as a welcome gift: https://BookHip.com/VNLZZXF
Or connect with me here:
๏ท My website: https://www.megchronis.com
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๏ท Amazon author page: https://www.amazon.com/author/megchronis
๏ท BookBub author page: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/meg-chronis
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