Episode 589 || Summer Readings: Abby Offsides
This week on From the Front Porch, our Summer Readings series is back! In this series, Annie introduces you to one book you should read this summer by reading an excerpt (with permission from publishers).
Today, Annie reads a passage from Anna McCallie’s new book Abby Offsides. Use code SUMMERREADINGS at checkout to get 10% off Abby Offsides this week.
To purchase the books mentioned in this episode, stop by The Bookshelf in Thomasville, visit our website (search episode 589) or download and shop on The Bookshelf’s official app:
Abby Offsides by Allie McCallie
Conform by Ariel Sullivan
Liar's Dice by Juliet Faithful
Into the Blue by Emma Brodie
Summer Fridays by Suzanne Rindell
Play It Again by Georgia Clark
Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes
From the Front Porch is a weekly podcast production of The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in South Georgia. You can follow The Bookshelf’s daily happenings on Instagram and Facebook, and all the books from today’s episode can be purchased online through our store website, www.bookshelfthomasville.com.
A full transcript of today’s episode can be found below.
Special thanks to Dylan and his team at Studio D Podcast Production for sound and editing and for our theme music, which sets the perfect warm and friendly tone for our Thursday conversations.
This week, Annie is reading Garden by the Sea by Mercé Rodoreda.
If you liked what you heard in today’s episode, tell us by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts. You can also support us on Patreon, where you can access bonus content, monthly live Porch Visits with Annie, our monthly live Patreon Book Club with Bookshelf staffers, Conquer a Classic episodes with Hunter, and more. Just go to patreon.com/fromthefrontporch.
We’re so grateful for you, and we look forward to meeting back here next week.
Our Executive Producers are...Ashley Ferrell, Beth, Cammy Tidwell, Gene Queens, Jammie Treadwell, Joseph Shorter IV, Kimberly, Linda Lee Drozt, Nicole Marsee, Stephanie Dean, and Wendi Jenkins.
Transcript:
Annie Jones: [squeaky porch swing] Welcome to From the Front Porch, a conversational podcast about books, small business, and life in the South. [music plays out]
“Your team is part of your identity, fiercely protected because there's comparatively so little grounds to give, and God, can you feel it.”
-Allie McCallie, Abby Offsides.
[as music fades out]
I'm Annie Jones, owner of The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in beautiful downtown Thomasville, Georgia, and this week I'm back with our Summer Readings series. Have you ever wondered what The Bookshelf actually looks like? Consider following us over on Instagram @Bookshelfttville. We post behind-the-scenes pictures and give important updates on store hours, events, and special promotions. We'd love to see you over there.
Now, back to the show. Last spring, when I finally came to terms with the fact that I was pregnant and a baby was actually coming, I brainstormed ways to keep the podcast episodes coming throughout my maternity leave. We rarely even run "reruns" on the show, and even though I'm not opposed to taking a break, I simply haven't taken many. Last summer, though, with Olivia and I both down for the count, I knew something had to give, so we launched our Summer Readings series. I fell in love with the format, so this summer, even though I'm not pregnant and neither I nor Olivia is on maternity leave, we're bringing the Summer Readings series back.
These episodes are short and sweet, much like our traditional "Yes, Virginia" episodes, but they'll provide you with a taste of some new summer books I think you'll really love. Each book featured can be found on our store website, Bookshelfthomasville.com, and each week you can receive 10% off that week's featured title. Use the code SUMMERREADINGS, that's plural, make sure to add the S, at checkout. Each week for the rest of July, I'll tell you a little bit about a featured summer book, then read an excerpt, and close with some comp titles so you'll know if the book is for you. The comp titles will be 10% off in the shop as well.
I hope these quieter episodes will give you a respite and a reprieve this summer, that you'll like the feeling of being read to as much as I do. First up this week is a new romance novel that released a couple of weeks ago on June 23rd, Abby Offsides by Allie McCallie. I was curious about Offsides the moment I spotted it in the summer catalog. The cover is super fun. It's a paperback original, and it's part of Jenna Bush Hager's relatively new publishing imprint, Thousand Voices, which has thus far produced an eclectic catalog ranging from Conform by Ariel Sullivan, to Liar's Dice by Juliet Faithful, to Into the Blue by Emma Brody. Abby Offsides has a traditional rom-com premise, a woman's life is a mess, so she moves to the UK to start over, as everybody does.
But it immediately felt more like women's fiction to me, meaning it didn't feel solely rooted in the romance, at least not at first. The first pages felt more like a Ted Lasso-inspired work. Abby is reeling from a breakup. She quits her job with the Red Sox to become a social media coordinator for an English football team. So it's, I don't know. What is that? It's like An American in Paris. It's a fish out of water story. So that honestly would have been enough for me. I loved reading about Abby making her way in the UK, trying to fit in with the football team, trying to adjust to a British culture, recovering from the loss of the life she thought she was going to have.
But, of course, Abby immediately meets Lachlan. He's a Scottish midfielder who's the star of the team, and whose marriage, if he's even still married, is on the rocks. Abby and Lachlan have stellar chemistry. Their romance is very believable, though readers will have to get over the fact that Lachlan actually is, yes, in fact married. I did struggle with that, actually, and Abby makes decisions that repeatedly were confounding to me, especially given what we knew about her past life in Boston. But, and this is important, I could not stop reading. I loved this dang football team so much. I loved it. I loved the sporting aspect of it. So with the World Cup being hosted, at least in part, by the US this summer, I think Abby Offsides could be on your nightstand or in your beach bag.
It's been well reviewed on Goodreads, and I suspect it's probably getting some buzz here in the weeks after its initial release. Give these first few pages a listen and see if the book could be right for you. This is an excerpt from Abby Offsides by Allie McCallie:
“I never thought anything could top the feeling of walking into Fenway Park, coming up the stairs and seeing the perfect green of the outfield, the diamond, the green monster, all of it. It was a ritual in my family for my dad to take my brothers and me to opening day the season we turned six, and I remember it vividly. My sweaty little hand clutching his, the smell of sizzling sausages on the carts outside the park, the sheer joy of emerging from the darkened interior concourse into the light of the stadium. I thought nothing would ever be better. And then I stepped into Knowles Lee Stadium. American fans are passionate, no doubt. There's nothing quite like a tailgate in American football with the face paint and boom boxes, the chants and whistles, that bubbling cauldron of pre-game excitement. But football, this football, is more than a game. These are more than fans. There are sixty-eight million people in the UK, all crammed into a country about the size of Oregon. Rival teams in the US can be separated by hundreds of miles. Here, it may be more like hundreds of feet. Your team is part of your identity, fiercely protected because there's comparatively so little ground to give. And God, can you feel it. As I climb the stairs, I see seas of people, tens of thousands of them, on their feet, chanting and singing and stomping. They wave giant flags with club slogans I don't yet know the meaning of. Huge section-spanning banners crawl around the stadium, borne upon thousands of hands passing the fabric along like a slow-moving wave.
They're belting songs I only catch snippets of, but what I do hear is hilarious or filthy or heartfelt or buoyant, and I'm trying hard not to get whiplash from all the emotions ricocheting around the stadium. But that's nothing compared to the roar when the players take the field for the first time. I know my mental state is precarious at best these days, but still, I actually tear up as the whole stadium starts singing the club anthem. The social media team are gathered in a box halfway up the pitch. We've drilled for this, and as soon as the whistle blows, we kick into gear, making sure we're updating all our feeds with every significant action of the match. About 20 minutes in, I can't believe I ever thought football was boring. Okay, yes, if you don't know what you're looking for, it can seem like a bunch of dudes just running back and forth failing to kick a ball into a net. But now that I've actually started to learn what makes a team, a player, a formation great, it's awesome. The speed, the stamina, these things don't come through on TV, but you can't help but be impressed at how maniacally they all run for 90 minutes, and also how well orchestrated it really is. Between my work responsibilities and the fact that I'm still learning where everyone goes, it's often hard for me to find Lachlan. When I do manage to watch him for more than a few seconds, I'm impressed. The assumption I made that first time I saw his Wiki page seems bang on. He's out there in the middle of it all, directing everyone with a steady hand. He's like a fulcrum in the middle of the pitch, and everyone pivots around him.
Mersey scores two in the first half and passes from Lachlan set up both goals. Then near the end of the second half, Nando Herrera is fouled and Mersey have a free kick not too far away from the other team's goal. To my surprise and delight, Lachlan is the one to take it. He rearranges some Mersey players, then looks cool as you can at the goal, calculating the angle and how he's going to kick the ball. After a little run-up, he blasts it with his right foot. We all watch as the ball soars through the air, bending around a wall of defenders before barreling through the outstretched hands of the goal and swoosh, into the back of the net. I scream and clap and jump out of my chair alongside everyone else in the box, allowing ourselves a second or two of celebration before tweeting out the update. I smile as I see the post go out. It's the little video we shot on media day after I sassed Lachlan back into happiness. Now, video Lachlan beams back at me and Mersey's 18 million Twitter followers, thumping his chest with a look of unbridled intensity. Real Lachlan down on the pitch is doing the same as his teammates surround him, chest bump him, and climb up for a piggyback, and the fans go wild. They start singing a song to the tune of The Boys Are Back In Town, except they change the lyrics to Our Lachlan's Back In Town. Tens of thousands of people are singing, and I can't help but wonder how they all know the new lyrics. Like, is there some sort of email distro they're all on? A TikTok that escaped my notice? Maybe it's just a simple, catchy song. After all, by the second chorus, I'm belting along like a tween at her first Taylor Swift concert. It's all over after Lachlan's wonder goal. There's no way our opponent can come back, not with how well we're playing. Soon, the ref blows the final whistle, and that's that. Mersey is off to a perfect start. Even an hour later, as we're headed back to the team bus, the energy remains electric. I'm thrumming with excitement like I was the one who scored all the goals. How must the actual players feel? My brain can't comprehend that kind of elation. The lads are all chatter, comparing notes with each other, rehashing plays, sharing headphones like they're coming home from summer camp with new best friends.”
If you liked Summer Fridays, Play It Again, or Evvie Drake Starts Over, I think you might enjoy Allie McCallie's debut, Abby Offsides. The book released on June 23rd as a paperback original. You can purchase it and the comp titles from the Bookshelf website. Receive 10% off this week by using code SUMMERREADINGS. Make sure you include the S at checkout. This week, I'm reading Garden by the Sea by Mercé Rodoreda.
Annie Jones: From the Front Porch is a weekly podcast production of The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in Thomasville, Georgia. You can follow The Bookshelf’s daily happenings on Instagram at @bookshelftville, and all the books from today’s episode can be purchased online through our store website:
A full transcript of today’s episode can be found at:
Special thanks to Studio D Podcast Production for production of From the Front Porch and for our theme music, which sets the perfect warm and friendly tone for our Thursday conversations.
Our Executive Producers of today’s episode are…
Cammy Tidwell, Linda Lee Drozt, Martha, Stephanie Dean, Ashley Ferrell, Gene Queens, Beth, Jammie Treadwell…
Executive Producers (Read Their Own Names): Nicole Marsee, Wendi Jenkins
Annie Jones: If you’d like to support From the Front Porch, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Your input helps us make the show even better and reach new listeners. All you have to do is open up the Podcast App on your phone, look for From the Front Porch, scroll down until you see ‘Write a Review’ and tell us what you think.
Or, if you’re so inclined, support us over on Patreon, where we have 3 levels of support - Front Porch Friends, Book Club Companions, and Bookshelf Benefactors. Each level has an amazing number of benefits like bonus content, access to live events, discounts, and giveaways. Just go to:
We’re so grateful for you, and we look forward to meeting back here next week.