Literary Spotlight: Anthony Capella

Anthony Capella is a British author whose novels, The Wedding Officer (now being made into a film by New Line) and The Food of Love have been translated into 22 languages. He also writes travel and food articles for the Sunday Times. The Various Flavors of Coffee is his latest novel.

Q: How did you choose to write culinary/romances?

A: I’m not quite sure. I’ve always liked food, and I spent some time working with Jamie Oliver, the British chef who’s done so much to make people aware of what they’re eating. But the truth is the idea for The Food of Love seemed to come out of nowhere for me. I realized that I liked setting books in that world, and it just took off from there. It isn’t some kind of genre I’ve invented – I just happen to have written a couple of books with the same theme.

Q: Respond to the comment that your works blend exotic adventure and erotic passion.

A: I guess that’s true to some extent. I think of my writing as being about sensuality – both in the way they’re written and also in their subject matter. Food isn’t just about pleasure; it’s also succor, and love, and tradition, and family. Most of my books are about having to make a choice between sensuality and duty in some way.

Q: You have said you made a conscious decision when writing Food of Love, not to write a literary book but instead an enjoyable comfort book. Explain your reasoning.

A: I wanted to write the kind of book I like reading. It’s very much like going to restaurants; I admire Michelin-award-winning places, but I don’t enjoy them and I almost never go back to them a second time. I like good food in pleasant surroundings: places that make you feel good, rather than dazzle you. And that’s the way I am with books, too. I like the kind of books that you reread when you’re in bed with flu, not books you have to work at or feel impressed by.

Q: What is the secret of a male succeeding in the mostly female written romance genre?

A: I’m not sure! (Have I succeeded?) Again, I think love is a universal subject. On the stage or in cinema, romantic comedy isn’t considered a female genre – no one thinks of Cyrano de Bergerac, which The Food of Love is based on, as a girlie play, or Twelfth Night for that matter, or Shakespeare in Love or Four Weddings and a Funeral. I write about love, certainly, but I don’t think of my stories as romance – I think of them as stories about people who discover the truth about themselves. Love is simply the catalyst which shakes their world upside down.

The Various Flavors of Coffee, for example, is the story of a young man who needs to grow up. His particular journey to adulthood is traced through his relationship with various women, but gaining the ability to love is the result of those experiences, not the whole focus of the story. If you like, it’s a story about romance, rather than a Romantic novel.

Carlotta Holton is the author of Salem Pact and Touching The Dead, and is a member of the National Federation of Press Women and an affiliate member of the Horror Writers Association.

Carlotta Holton has just received her second award for Touching the Dead from the National Federation of Press Women Communications Contest. Click here to purchase the book.