Forced Proximity Interview | Bri Castellini (Rehabbing the Billionaire)
I'm publishing a book, this is my newsletter, so I'm doing my own interview series!
My book comes out today! That I wrote with my own fingers and brain! I hope you love it as much as I loved crafting these chaotic characters.
You can read it for free on Kindle Unlimited, or buy a copy of the eBook on Amazon Kindle!
If you want a signed paperback, click here!
And when you’re done, I’d love if you left a review on Amazon and Goodreads!
Forced Proximity: Thanks so much for agreeing to doing an interview! Please introduce yourself, in as much or as little detail as you would give a new friend.
Bri Castellini: I have a very busy schedule, as you know, but of course I’m delighted to give you, a person who is definitely not me, a few minutes of my time. My name is Bri, short for Brianna, and I’m a writer and filmmaker from Colorado but currently based in California who dreams of someday having a career successful enough to move to Oregon without fearing I’ll lose out on professional opportunities. I’ve spent the last decade or so writing, directing, and producing independent short films and web series, and getting paid to help people do that. I’m currently a freelance indie film producing and crowdfunding educator and consultant, although I’ve tip-toed back to prose recently after falling ass over head into romance novels, and I’m so excited to be releasing my first novel, Rehabbing the Billionaire, today!
How would you explain your latest book to a non-romance reader?
Rehabbing the Billionaire follows playboy CEO Nick Hartshorn and his executive assistant Ellie Kerr, who get married because Nick needs a new reputation to land a business deal and Ellie needs money to finish her physical therapy doctorate. What begins as a simple arrangement of sex and lifestyle support becomes far more complicated as these two very different people discover what they were actually missing all along was each other.
How would you explain it to a regular reader of romance?
Rehabbing the Billionaire is a spicy boss/assistant, one night stand, marriage of convenience contemporary romance between two physical therapists; Nick, a billionaire, and Ellie, who demands that by the end of their temporary union, he can’t be anymore.
What’s something you wish you knew at the beginning of your writing career?
That you have to get good at the “boring” stuff sooner rather than later. Blurbs, summaries, artist statements, etc; all that logistical supplemental content is a major piece of submitting for contests, literary representation, film festivals, etc. If I hadn’t fought doing the clerical stuff so long, I’d probably be further along than I am now.
What’s your writing routine, if you have one?
I’m on the record as being a momentum-based person. If the first thing I do in my day isn’t get to work, I’m almost certainly losing the whole day. So my routine is usually: wake up and immediately head to a coffee shop. I’ll get a cold brew and some kind of breakfast, scarf it down while catching up on social media and YouTube, then sprint to work before my laptop dies. I can get more done in a three hour session if there’s a ticking clock and strangers around me than if I have complete silence in the comfort of my own home. Sometimes the productivity vibes will be so strong that I continue my work after heading back to pajama pants and free outlets, but I’ve learned not to push myself if my brain decides it’s Done For The Day.
What hobbies do you have outside of work that aren’t literature-related?
I love playing video games (favorites include Fallout 4, Stardew Valley, and Wildermyth), crafting (painting, crocheting, and embroidery in particular), windowsill gardening (because I’m still an apartment renter without a yard and also am allergic to the outdoors), and board games with friends and family. I either want to be creative or I want to win something. Inside me are two wolves, etc etc.
Which of your protagonists would you least like to be forced into proximity with? Why?
Honestly, Ellie. I think she and I would kind of just sit quietly, which would be fine but it’s not very interesting. Nick I would have fun with because I am immune to (but delighted by) his whole deal, and I think that would drive him slowly insane. I would find that satisfying, and then I would rob him blind because billionaires should not exist.
How do you find new authors and books to try? Are you a casual browser, or do you have a network of trusted recommenders?
I originally got back into romance (I’d sporadically read it without really realizing it in the past) in 2022 because Yulin Kuang, a fellow indie web series creator and now romance author herself, posted a bunch of Instagram stories about romances she’d been reading. I read all her recommendations, felt my brain chemistry shift gears, and immediately had a new problem: I’m a very fast reader and I tend to hyperfixate, which meant I was going through 10-15 books a week.
I started just by exploring the backlists of the authors Yulin had originally recommended, then scoured their Acknowledgements sections for other authors, then used one of those “If you liked this book, you’ll like…” websites until it started just recommending the same books I’d already read, then started listening to the excellent Fated Mates podcast and just randomly browsing Kindle Unlimited. Nowadays, I follow enough authors and romance readers that it’s rare I run out of books to try (and am, myself, a recommendation hub!), but it took about six months to build up that network.
Is there a romance trope that’s an auto-read for you? What about one you’re suspicious of unless a favorite author tries it out?
Auto-read is anything that sounds like a genuine enemies to lovers story rather than a limp misunderstanding that’ll get resolved within the first few chapters, and I’m a sucker for a juicy marriage of convenience or fake dating story. Add in a road trip or a strong epistolary element, and I’m done for.
I’m not a fan of accidental pregnancy books (either as the inciting incident or a climactic, hah, twist); in a world where abortion access is getting more and more restricted, and as a person who’s seen a lot of people who shouldn’t have been parents become them, I’m sensitive to storylines where people have to race to get their shit together before being responsible for a whole-ass human being with (usually) a relative stranger. I think it’s irresponsible and narratively frustrating on many levels. It’s even worse when the pregnancy is what spurs the final act of the book, because now it’s a thing where I’ll rarely believe that these two characters actually want to be together versus having their hands forced. I’ve read several good accidental pregnancy stories, but it’ll never be my favorite so my rule is only picking up this trope if it’s by an author I already know/trust.
Also, hilariously, I’m not really a billionaire girl. I’ve read a bunch, both for research and because authors I really enjoy write them a lot, but it’s never my first entrypoint to an author’s backlist. Eat the rich, redistribute the wealth, down with CEOs, etc.
What else do you want readers to know about you and your work, if anything?
I have a tendency to be a little chaotic when it comes to my creative brand. For the first 2-3 years of my filmmaking career, I was the zombie girl (my first web series, where I learned the ropes of indie producing and marketing, was a zombie found footage comedy that, looking back, was 1000% a romance in disguise).
Then, I was the mental health asexual comedian girl (back to back projects involving silly nonsense as a framework for deep-dives into living with mental illness).
Then I made a locked room horror/thriller.
Then I spent three years making a Burn Notice podcast and pivoted to writing mystery TV pilots. Then I fell headfirst into romance and, while working solo on wrestling my brain back into prose, started co-writing comedy feature films with several different friends.
All this is to say: while I like to think there’s a voice and a sensibility that you’ll find as a throughline in everything I make, if you like Rehabbing the Billionaire, please don’t expect me to write another book exactly like it, because that’s not how the ol’ brain works. My other manuscripts in progress are: 2 Hollywood/filmmaking romances about the patriarchy and the encroaching threat of VCs and AI, respectively, a homecoming story about falling for your high school bully’s ex and setting boundaries, a road trip meditation on failure and expectations, and a inheritance home renovation mystery about familial trauma and what it means to find home.
Will I explore self-publishing again? Time will tell! This is all a bit of an experiment for me, but the best way to read another book of mine is to read and review Rehabbing the Billionaire!
Buy, read on KU, and review Rehabbing the Billionaire on Amazon
Review Rehabbing the Billionaire on Goodreads
Tomorrow, I’ll be recommending books about protagonists with daddy issues. If you’ve read my book, you’ll see the throughline ;)
What should I be reading next? Let me know in the comments!
Congratulations!!
I completely agree with everything you said about accidental pregnancy tropes! And as someone who lived through "staying together for the kids" and would have preferred that they hadn't, I don't find it compelling at all in a romance.