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If I Ever Wrote A Book
Excess Baggage follows a baker engaged to her childhood sweetheart, as a cross-country trip with her sister and a writer forces her to confront whether the safe life she planned is still the one she wants. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
I never imagined myself as a writer, but did have that typical “if I ever wrote a book, this is the plot” in the back of my mind that I had thought about for years. I was interested in a man and woman meeting by chance on a train and having that spark of attraction. As the journey continued, so did their growing interest. In my original idea, by the end of the train ride, it would turn out they were both going to the same place—a wedding, where she was the bride. This book is not exactly that, because I didn’t want the devastation of an interrupted wedding to be the start of their romance, so I reworked my original idea, where they each had time to think about their time together. Of course, it turns out in my book that these two people are already connected, so I needed a “why” for why they didn’t recognize each other, and thought a lot about what circumstances they had met under previously and how they had changed since then.
What were some driving ideals behind your character’s development?
It was important for me to think about why Tess and Sam fell for each other, and what made them attractive. Tess has felt like she had to become someone else to be with her fiancee, but when she meets Sam, he is instantly into her. She has a passion for life, baking, and music that appeals to him. Tess sis attracted to Sam’s good looks, but more than that, she is taken with how he sees her, and how she sees herself through his eyes. She doesn’t want to be drawn to him, but she is.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
Insecurities, about the way we see ourselves vs how others see us. Growing up and growing apart in relationships. Sisterhood. Commitment to ourselves vs someone else.
What is the next book that you are working on, and when will it be available?
The 4th book in my series, Second Chances, will be available August 3rd, and the MMC is Henry, the father of Tess’s rejected fiancee from my 1st book, Excess Baggage. I am currently writing the 5th novel in my series, titled Falling Slowly, that will be released sometime next year.
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Tess has spent twenty years believing she already found her forever. With her wedding to Josh only months away, a cross-country train trip with her sister is meant to be a carefree bachelorette getaway—wine country, laughter, and one last adventure before the aisle. But when Tess meets Sam, a charming, thoughtful traveler headed west on his own journey, everything she thought she knew about love begins to shift.
What starts as friendly conversation quickly deepens into an undeniable connection—one Tess can’t ignore, no matter how hard she tries. As miles blur and emotions intensify, she finds herself torn between the life she planned…and the love she never expected. But Tess isn’t the only one keeping secrets. Their pasts have crossed before in ways neither of them realizes, and the truth could shatter everything they are building together.
Set against the sweeping backdrop of a romantic train ride across America, Excess Baggage is a heart-stealing story of second chances, soul-deep chemistry, and the courage to choose the life you truly want.
Excess Baggage
Jodi Culliney’s Excess Baggage is a warm and emotionally tangled romance about Tess Lefferts, a Brooklyn baker on a cross-country train trip with her gloriously blunt pregnant sister Ruth, and Sam Charles, a writer trying to finish the third book in his series while avoiding airplanes and his own loneliness. Tess is engaged to Josh, her childhood sweetheart, but the farther the train carries her, the more her old life starts to feel like a dress that no longer fits. What begins with lost glasses, monster cookies, a missing engagement ring, and a too-charming waiter named Todd slowly becomes a story about desire, timing, family, and the hard, frightening work of admitting when the safe choice has become the wrong one.
I was surprised by how much I liked the book’s messy emotional honesty. Tess could have easily become a simple “woman torn between two men” heroine, but she feels more bruised and specific than that. Her panic isn’t just about Sam. It’s about being unseen by Josh, being edited down by the life she thought she wanted, and still feeling obligated to honor the girl who once loved him. The train setting gives the romance a lovely sense of suspension, like Tess and Sam are living inside a pocket of borrowed time. Their conversations over tea, wine, Van Morrison, and Sam’s writing have that dreamy almost-unreal quality travel can create, but the book is smart enough to let reality rush back in. I especially liked the ache of Sam’s lost letter, because it turns a romantic misunderstanding into something sharper than a gimmick. Both of them are waiting, wounded, and misreading silence as rejection.
The writing is at its strongest when it leans into intimacy and familial texture. Ruth is a scene-stealer, profane and tender and meddlesome in ways that made me laugh even when I wanted to shake her. Her hiding of the ring and later the invitation is not exactly defensible, but it feels rooted in fierce sisterly terror rather than plot machinery, and that gives the story some bite. I also appreciated how food, music, and books keep threading through the emotional life of the novel. Tess’s baking, especially the monster cookies tied to her grandmother and childhood kitchen, gives her softness and history. Sam’s writer’s block breaking open after meeting Tess is a little grand, but it works because the book is so sincerely interested in how love can reawaken a person’s voice. At times, the prose can run hot, with repeated intensities and a few moments where the longing circles the same feeling, but I didn’t mind much. The excess is part of the book’s unique feel.
The novel isn’t really arguing for impulsive romance so much as it’s arguing for self-recognition, for the courage to stop performing gratitude for a life that’s quietly draining you. I closed the book with affection for its big feelings, its sisterly chaos, and its belief that sometimes the person who helps you lose your baggage is also the one who sees you most clearly. I’d recommend Excess Baggage to readers who enjoy emotional, character-driven contemporary romance with family drama, slow-burn yearning, fated timing, and a heroine who has to break her own heart a little before she can choose joy.
Pages 274 | ASIN: B0D6DWKSLN
