Exclusive Interview

Inside Becka Mack’s ‘Breathe With Me,’ Her Most Emotional Novel Yet

[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for Breathe With Me by Becka Mack.]

Before Becka Mack closes the final chapter of her viral Playing for Keeps hockey romance series, she’s going back to where it all began.

While Cara and Emmett enter the spotlight for the first time during Breathe With Me, fans have adored the married couple since Book 1 in the Playing for Keeps series, when their best friends fell hard and fast for each other. Now, Mack gives fans a look back at their first encounter and early days, all while telling the poignant story of their present-day struggle to have the baby they so desperately want. Ahead of the release of Breathe With Me, the Consider Me author sat down with Swooon to discuss Cara and Emmett’s steadfast love story, the important message behind their infertility struggles, and answer the question on every reader’s mind: Will there be any more books set in the Playing for Keeps universe?

Right off the bat — or should we say faceoff? — Mack made it clear that she knew, if she were to write a full book about Cara and Emmett, their relationship needed to be tested. She admitted, “I’ve already described them in this story as having such an easy fall into this relationship, where it was sparks and everything worked for them.” Knowing she didn’t want to break them up for a second chance romance, Mack searched for other narratives and, ultimately, found her own experience seeping into the couple’s story.

“At the time, I was going through infertility,” she revealed to Swooon. “I don’t think I knew that I was going to do a fertility storyline for them. I was just kind of [thinking, I do think I could write a story for them, but what would I do? And it was after I had my first [kid] that I kind of just felt a little bit outside of infertility myself, that I was feeling a little brave and thought I might be able to do this. I’d love to see my story somewhere, and I just felt like they were the perfect couple to really show not just the struggles of infertility, but working through it and coming out the other side of the mental battle of it.”

Ultimately, writing about such a personal topic, Mack had two hopes for readers. She revealed, “I hope that those readers who haven’t gone through infertility will gain a better understanding and be able to walk away with a renewed empathy towards those people. Because if you haven’t gone through it, if you won’t go through it, you’re so lucky, and I’m happy, so happy for you, because I wouldn’t wish it on anybody. But guaranteed there’s somebody that you love that is going through it, whether you know about it or you don’t.” As for the readers who have gone through their own battle with infertility, she explained, “I just hope that they find a little bit of peace and a little bit of healing. I hope they feel seen, and I just hope that they remember how worthy they are.”

 

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While Breathe With Me brings the emotion, it isn’t as devastating as the subject matter might entail. As readers know, Cara and Emmett are a very intimate couple, especially during the flashback scenes. From when the guys crash their first date to when Olivia meets Emmett while he’s handcuffed to the bed, unmentionables on full display, Mack knew going into the novel that she needed to take readers into those hilarious early moments. However, for as much fun as the beginning of their story was, Mack knew that the whole book couldn’t be written as a prequel because she didn’t “want to see Carter back in his old days, pre-Olivia.” Looking back at the days when Carter was “getting around quite a bit,” Mack joked, “I don’t want to see that. I don’t want to put that on the page. I don’t think anyone wants to read that.”

Heading into Breathe With Me, Olivia and Carter were definitely fan-favorite characters. However, in the eleventh hour of the series, it’s clear that if anyone could steal that coveted title, it’s Cara and Emmett’s adorable and anxious 3-year-old foster son, Abel. “He was just this little boy, so innocent, but who kind of wasn’t sure that he was enough, and needed to feel like he was loved and accepted for who he was,” Mack explained. “He needed to be wrapped in so much love. Cara and Emmett just felt like the perfect people for that. That’s what they do with all their friends.”

From Consider Me to Breathe With Me, Mack has followed the same cast of Vipers hockey players and their respective WAGs, so naturally, she joked that the hardest part about saying goodbye to the series that started her career was “everything.” She explained, “I can’t believe that these characters that I made up in my head, who all have so much of me in them in different ways, have brought me this. And how do I say goodbye to that?” That being said, Mack gave us hope for more Playing for Keeps content in the future, she teased, “I think it’s just… It’s not really goodbye.”

In fact, Mack let us in on two ideas she’s already flirting with that would expand the universe. First, there’s Abel’s biological mom, Catharine, who is just starting college. “I want to see her happy ending play out,” Mack admitted. “She’s still such a big part of [Abel’s] life, and I like that dynamic. I would love to read that in a story and see how she brings somebody into her life and her world, and how they handle that and what roles they take on.”

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On the other hand, Mack has already started thinking about a second-generation series, which she teased during Hunter and Lana’s cute moment in the epilogue. “It’s not like on my immediate list, but I did already kind of plan out, like who’s with who and some rough storylines for some of them.” However, if she does end up writing a second-gen series, the first book would be about Carter and Olivia’s daughter, Ireland. She teased, “My plan for her book is that Carter is coaching, and he’s a player on Carter’s team.”

Regarding that “immediate list” of future projects, Mack was able to spill a bit about her future plans. She told Swooon, “I’ve got so many things I want to write. I have a baseball series that I started in 2021 or 2020. I started updating it a while ago, but put it on pause as I was finishing this series. I would say the overall storylines are heavier, but still have so much humor and spice. The first guy’s from Georgia, so he’s got a southern accent, and we all love that, right?” Outside of the baseball series, Mack also revealed she’s excited to head back to the ice. “I have a hockey stand alone that I started for an anthology [“The Turnover”],” she revealed, “and it was supposed to be a short story, and as I was writing it, I was like, ‘Well, I don’t do short stories,’ so I ended up ending it on a cliffhanger, and it was a one night stand turned surprise pregnancy. I need to finish that at some point because I loved it.”

Sound off in the comments below with which one of these love stories you hope Becka Mack will publish next!