Ghanaian American cardiologist, cartoonist, and author Shirlene Obuobi joins Zibby to discuss her powerful, sexy, and emotionally brilliant new romance, BETWEEN FRIENDS AND LOVERS. Shirlene describes her protagonist, Josephine Boiteng, a former medical resident turned influencer who struggles with mental health, burnout, and an unrequited crush. She also delves into the novel’s medical and social media elements and the themes of love, vulnerability, and personal growth—revealing that she wrote this during a challenging period in her own life and used many of her experiences as inspiration.

Transcript:

Zibby: Welcome, Shirlene. Thank you so much for coming on Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books to discuss between friends and lovers. Congratulations. 

Shirlene: Thank you so much for having me, Zibby.

Zibby: I was just raving before we started about how much I'm loving your book, so this is such a treat to get to discuss all the details. Tell listeners what Between Friends and Lovers is about, please. 

Shirlene: For sure. So Between Friends and Lovers is about my main character, Josephine Boiteng. She just finished her medical residency and is unable to move forward with a Typical job, uh, because she's dealing with a lot of mental health issues and burnout.

And so instead kind of sustains herself through a career as an influencer. She's also very much enmeshed in a family of wealthy socialites and his best friends with the, one of the male leads, Ezra has been in love with him basically for the last 10 years, but it's been, seems to be unrequited. And in the beginning of the book, she kind of decides that, you know what, I really need to move on, um, from this.

And she moves right on, right into the male lead, Malcolm, who is kind of everything that Ezra isn't, but probably everything that Jo actually needs. 

Zibby: Love that. Oh my gosh. And Malcolm, of course, is a, is a novelist, bestselling novelist who you do such a good job of, A, you know, physically, I feel like I can see him in my head in every scene, like the way you describe him, B, like his whole sort of personality and, you know, by alternating the points of view in the book, I feel like you're really letting us, you know, get this backstage view.

Like, I feel like it's mostly Joe's book, but with Malcolm where like you get to see, you know, all the things that she doesn't get to see. It's like this, which I love and develop like so much affection for him too. Right. And seeing, because you wouldn't know, I'm sorry for rambling, but like, if you were just reading Joe's point of view and like in a scene where he decides not to kiss her right away, you might not know why he was doing that.

But now we know completely why and respect it and all of this. So, um, so tell me a little bit about choosing how, how to tell the story. 

Shirlene: Oh, for sure. So it has a little bit of a different structure that I think a lot of other romance novels in the genre, first of all, it's a dual point of view, which might confuse people who walk in thinking it's going to be a love triangle.

I tell people it's not really a love triangle. If you, they have to focus on what's important for Joe and Joe's growth and her journey. And Joe's point of view is in first person. past, and Mal's is in third. I did that very intentionally as well to just kind of direct people to the point that, you know, I know Mal is, Mal's perspective is here, but it's there to help inform, as you very astutely picked up on, inform readers that this is really still about Joe, right?

And we're getting background on Mal, specifically because Mal's personality is, I call, he's, he's a lot more understated. He's very, anxious, he's introverted, right? Um, he's keeps to himself. He's undergone a growth arc himself off page. He's a little bit older than Joe by like, I think three years or so, and he's already kind of gone through what Joe is going through right now.

And so he, is not someone who would otherwise be very loud and seen, especially when compared to Ezra, who, who takes up as much space as possible every time he shows up. So I think I did that so that you could see a little bit of Mal's interiority as well and kind of understand why he is the one who's good for Jo.

And also to kind of make people focus and remember that this is, it's a romance, but I always write women's fictiony romances. It's still about her. 

Zibby: Yep. Yeah, I could see that. Well, it's also interesting, even with Mal's backstory, which you referenced, even his past relationships with women and like sort of the toxicity of some of his choices and all of that and like really going into that.

With the point of view of his friends as well, like sort of showing him and pointing out like, okay, you know, beware and you have a type and, you know, like look before you leap and all of that. Then we get even more of an insight into, into that, which I also found fascinating. So. 

Shirlene: Yeah. Yeah, I know. I think that, um, it would be really easy to read Mal as, I, I've seen people be like, oh, he's so perfect.

I'm like, he is not perfect. Jumping in is actually, the way that he even is jumping in with Joe is not necessarily, it's a little ill advised, right, um, especially considering his history. He just trusts himself a little bit more and also. Has gotten to the point where I think several times in his narrative, I have him directly say, like, if this doesn't work out, I will be okay.

I will go home. I will lick my wounds. I've been by myself for a while. I will be fine, right? Like, just kind of, like, that is, he hasn't changed dramatically from who he was, right? Um, but he does know how to recover. 

Zibby: And I love that you made him a novelist who's like getting a film deal and that you have the whole like we're reading a book but it's about a novelist and you know all that so that was also very fun.

Shirlene: It's so fun to include. I always say that I, because I'm a physician and I'm a writer, and so my, my characters are often what I do. 

Zibby: Well, I love the, the medical stuff in here as well. You know, even the scene in the zoo where, you know, the man falls off a carousel and not only does, not you, but Joe and Mal, you know, help in trying to save this man and having to break the ribs, break his ribs and saying like, you know, sometimes you have to hurt people to save them.

And I feel like that's like a metaphor also for the whole story. 

Shirlene: Ooh, yes, yes. I'm so glad you picked up on that. It's one of my favorite scenes. 

Zibby: It's awesome. Not to mention why they're even in the zoo to begin with, which is like one of the more outlandish social media. You know, situations as well. I'm like, they're not really doing this, right?

Wait, tell me more about Jo as influencer because she was a doctor, is a doctor, but was dissatisfied, emotional, like was not working from a mental health standpoint. And, you know, she's feeling conflicted even with these job offers that keep coming. Should I go back? Should I not go back? And is being an influencer enough?

But I didn't want to earn money, but blah, blah, blah. So tell me a little bit about that. And as a physician yourself, like, are you given opportunities to, you know, you, you said like, what's the word, like promoting snake oil and basically different things. So tell me about that point of view. 

Shirlene: Yeah, for sure.

So, um, I draw comics and I have a large platform that I talk about, um, comics and, and it's called graphic medicine basically. Right. And then I have a large platform. So I do sometimes get. Offers from different companies. And most of those offers indeed are from supplement companies, um, things that aren't really tested that don't have rigorous science behind them, but they offer me a lot of money, right?

But they offer a lot of monies because having like you being able to say, Oh, cardiologists, you know, It says that this, this supplement will save you from XYZ, um, has a lot of power behind it and you can drive a lot of sales. But there are a lot of physicians, a lot of people in the healthcare spaces and a lot of people who are on professions with some degree of power that a lot of companies are kind of trying to engage with in order to sell products.

And there's questions about the ethics behind that, right? And for Joe who, Jo went into medicine, uh, for several reasons. One of those, like, one of the prominent ones was that because, you know, she has to rely on herself and it's a reliable source of income, but that's a very slow way to get there. It's also because she really cares, and that's a central part of her character.

I think when people encounter her at first, they might think she's very brash. She's extremely blunt. Uh, she gets to the point, but she's She's quite compassionate as well. And so she goes into this field for this purpose and then can't quite hack it. And doesn't, isn't really able to dive herself back into it.

So, the influencer thing is kind of her way to still keep her foot in the door, right? She still gets to do the stuff that she likes. She still gets to do the education about health, but she does also feel a lot of guilt about that because it's not a lot of, it's not very patient facing. And, and in a lot of ways, I think in the story, I'm trying to show kind of this new, this other lens, right, where.

Yeah, like someone, she tells somebody she's got an MD, but all she's doing is, is content creation. People are probably going to judge her for that. She's going to judge herself for it. She's going to feel like she's not using her talents or her skills to the greatest, uh, degree and she struggles with that.

There's, you know, on top of that, there's the insecurity that comes with that, right? Because you make, you may make a lot of money when you have a deal. But if you go a long stretch of time without one, then, uh, she, you kind of lose your stable ground, which is, uh, she has several conversations with her agents, for example, um, that are kind of around that.

Zibby: So do you have an agent for social media for your platform? 

Shirlene: I only recently got one and it's really funny. I got one. A lot of what I've done on my platform was kind of, were things that I was writing this book and was like, I should probably do that. 

Zibby: No, I was reading it and I was like, am I supposed to be doing any of that?

Like,.. 

Shirlene: It's really funny. Like a lot of her health education, because I started writing this book in 2022 and I used to draw exclusively comics and then I started writing Joe making these videos where she's educating people about things. I was like, that is a good idea. And same with an agent. I did not have an agent until like a month or two ago.

Um, and I'd had a friend who had been offering to represent, like, share me with a representative. And I was like, it's fine. And then I wrote this book and I was like, oh, maybe I should just talk to them. 

Zibby: That was funny. Did she read the character? What's her name, Olivia? Is that right? 

Shirlene: Denise. 

Zibby: Denise. 

Shirlene: No, no, no, no.

I don't, I don't know whether any of them have ever read or intend to read this book. I'll keep it that way. 

Zibby: Okay, okay. Well, I did really enjoy that whole, that whole thing and having to, you know, constantly be thinking about how to turn your life and work into content. And yet, maintain some sort of barrier between your private life and not.

I also really appreciated that with Jo. And I really liked Renata, the older, you know, the mom, Ezra's mom, who you also develop as a character and there aren't often moms in like rom coms and books like this and I feel like we got to know her and how important Jo is to her, but have things happen with her professional and her personal life.

And tell me about that character and, and the decision to sort of make her, I mean, she could have easily been just like in the background. 

Shirlene: Oh, yes. I, I love Renata. She's one of my favorite characters. And I think, um, I was thinking about a few things with her. Number one, um, I think that the wealthy white mom was usually going to be the villain character, right?

The one who's like, stay away from my son or, or like is very snooty and looks down on Joe. But I really wanted her to be Joe's mom, basically. She's her maternal figure, right? She's full of love, right? She's feisty. She has this own career of her own, but she's also made her own choices and almost her own mistakes.

See her in those moments. I, I, I. One of my favorite things to do with Renata is show her in those moments of vulnerability, you know, where she is not just this superstar, supermodel project runways. Right. Um, and she's also not just Ezra's mom, Joe and Joe and Renata have their own completely separate relationship.

Right. And I, I just wanted to put that, put that there. I also felt that it was really important for Ezra and Joe's relationship to be, to have more weight Joe would feel as though if she were to lose Ezra, she may also lose his mom, right, and lose the one family she sort of has. And so I wanted to maintain that, no, like this fan, like this love that they have for each other is so genuine that honestly it was not ever going to be a possibility.

They were always going to have the bond that they do. 

Zibby: Did you know from the start, the emancipation sort of plotline that Joe has, has been on her own since age 16 and all that. 

Shirlene: Yes, yes. I, I always knew that Joe's would have come from an abusive household. I didn't exactly have the structure for what it looked like, but I always have the piece that she has not really, she's been kind of alone and on board for a long time.

That is her status quo. 

Zibby: Interesting. So how did this, idea come to you and how, what was going on with On Rotation when this, like, give me the timeline of everything. 

Shirlene: On Rotation was about to come out. So my first book was about to come out and we were, I sold Between Friends and Lovers on proposal. I call it my burnout book.

So, um, when On Rotation or when, when I sold Between Friends and Lovers, that was twenty, June 2022 just finished my first year of cardiology fellowship, and I had just also finished residency, internal medicine residency. COVID had, you know, I was an internal medicine resident during COVID, so that was very traumatic and the morale amongst myself and a lot of my friends was, you know, extremely low.

We were, there were running jokes amongst all of us about what kind of antidepressant we were using, you know, and we were just very burnt out. So I always, I call BFL my burnout book. Right. Which is like, if I weren't to do this, like what else could I do? Right. I also, I'm a big fan of love triangles, but I'm cursed with second lead syndrome.

That I always root for the second lead. I think the second lead is always healthier. Right. He always teaches the female lead something about herself. She always chooses the exciting one. And I wanted to turn that trope on its head because I wanted there to be, I wanted to really focus in a, in a romance on the female lead.

I wanted to be like, what does she actually need out of this? Right. And so, those two kind of ideas at the same time sort of melded into what we see now between friends and lovers, uh, with Joe's central conflict as well as kind of the relationship she has with these two men. 

Zibby: Wow. So interesting. Have you had anything like this in your own life?

Not that it's any of my business, but 

Shirlene: The center of a love triangle. 

Zibby: Yeah. 

Shirlene: No, I have not. I have had, I've had several friendships like the one with Ezra. I've also, I know a lot of men like Mal as well. You know, it was actually, that was another part of it too, is that like, I feel like a couple of things, you know, we'd rarely get to see black men depicted as kind of softer characters, empathetic characters.

And I know, I know like four males. I actually, one of my friends who I think in the back of the book, I had him opal sensitivity read for Mal to see whether I was getting him right. Right. Because he's very similar to him. Um, just very kind. Very keeps to himself. There's also always in the gym. I was like, I know these guys.

Uh, my little brother is a lot like Mal as well. So I, I did craft them based off of some familiarity with people like them, relationships like them, but not exactly. 

Zibby: Interesting. And tell me your whole backstory. Like where are you from and when did you decide to be a doctor? And then how did the writing come into it?

And like, what's your whole life story? 

Shirlene: My life story. So, so I was born in Ghana. I came to the States when I was six. We started off in Chicago, then went to Arkansas and Texas. I went to Wash U for undergrad and Chicago for medical training. And I've actually just recently moved to Providence, Rhode Island to start my job.

So I've, I've moved around quite a lot and my mom is a physician. My mom is a neonatologist. So I was exposed pretty early on to medical medicine. She did residency and fellowship while I was in elementary and middle school. So I saw her in training as well. And she. So, like, when we moved to Arkansas, we moved to a very small town, and that was part of, for part of a waiver job, right, for immigration.

You go to a place that's underserved for a certain number of years and so, because we were in this itty bitty town, Balfour, Arkansas, I was also helpful. It was all hands on deck in the, in the hospital. So, I kind of, like, lived there. And, you know, like every kid sees their parent and is like, I'm going to be like you someday.

Um, that was definitely me and then as I got a little bit older, I really started to feel, I think that the reality of it is that it's very hard to motivate me to do things. Um, it's hard to motivate me to get up every day without a very clear like mission or purpose. And within medicine, you're needed in a way that it's hard to be needed in other professions, right?

In a very visceral way. I think I really like belonging to, um, to a family network and being a part of a patient's care journey is almost like being like led into their family in some way. And that is something that was very appealing to me. And then I liked the sciences, but I've always written and I've always drawn since I was a child, my 10th birthday party, I, I, Um, I asked for a book signing event.

I have my parents. 

Zibby: I read that. Yes. 

Shirlene: Yeah. And I, when I was 14, I self published a book that is embarrassingly, very easy to find. Right. Um, and so it's something that I've always kind of done. Um, and in my meta in the time of right before on rotation, I wrote on rotation during the pandemic and kind of in the, my off times between stints in the ICUs and it really became especially romance in particular.

Um, It became a source of comfort for me, if anything, to be able to kind of dissociate from the horrors that I was like experiencing in real time and the exhaustion and everything, and to, and to a story that still used elements of it. And very much a way to process the things that I was seeing, the, and encountering, um, and these new 'cause.

You know, when you're, you're, one of the things about being in medicine is that you. You meet so many people on the worst days of their lives, you know, and you see so many different families, so many different people under pressure, and it really informs how you think about love, how it manifests in the hardest moments.

And so I felt like a very, when people are like, why do you write romance? I'm like, it kind of felt very natural because it's not necessarily the genre that I read the most, you know, but it felt very natural to kind of explore that and how people come to love to each other and how they show it. 

So that's kind of my, it's my feel.

Zibby: Wait, what, what genre do you like to read? 

Shirlene: I read a little bit of everything. I read sci fi fantasy. I read lit fic. I recently started dipping my toe into thriller as well. Lately it's been, I haven't read as much as I want to lately because I'm studying for exams as well. So, but, uh, but, but. I, I actually, before I wrote On Rotation, I didn't read much romance at all.

Zibby: So when are you, do you have any downtime where you're not working on something or other? 

Shirlene: I have a little downtime before I start my job. I do have an exam in a week, um, and so like a really big one, and then I have another one in October. So it doesn't feel exactly like downtime right now, just cause I'm, I'm grinding, but you know, I find my, I find my little pockets.

Yeah. Okay. Thanks. 

Zibby: Wow. Well, I'm very impressed. Do you miss these characters? Like, will there be a future life for them in other books or are you writing something new? 

Shirlene: I am writing something new. It depends on how BFL does. I would love to write an Ezra book because I, I love Ezra. I, he's meant to be, uh, I think some people will love him too and some people will hate him.

He's not meant to be a villain. And so I not. 

Zibby: I'm not rooting for him as much. I have to be honest, but okay. 

Shirlene: Which is, which is totally fine. I actually. It's, it's very interesting to see who roots for him and who doesn't. Some people really root for Ezra. They're like, I don't really see the chemistry with Mal and Joe, and I would rather have something with Ezra.

And I'm like, okay, that's interesting. I don't agree.

But I do like Ezra as a character, and I would love to explore him growing. And so I would write an Ezra book. I've already figured out how it would start. 

Zibby: Oh, interesting. Awesome. Wow. Well, what advice do you have for aspiring authors? And what advice do you have for time starved people who can't seem to be as productive as you?

Shirlene: I think for aspiring authors, I will say the cliché one first, which is that you just have to finish the thing. I think it's when, before I finished on rotation, I would always get into a cycle of going back and editing things I'd written, like chapters I'd written before to try to get everything perfect.

But you really have to move ahead before you can zoom out and see what you need to fix and move and where. And then the next thing is to really, really try not to be too precious because sometimes we get so super attached to the words themselves, the sentences, the prose, and they may not, they may be beautiful, but they may not actually serve the story the way they need to, or they may not even serve, um, the reading experience.

And learning, one of the big things I had to learn was how to write, how to cut, how to trim, how to, uh, think about my audience as I write, um, while still maintaining my own artistic integrity. Uh, so those are kind of the, the two things I'd say. 

Zibby: Amazing. Well, Charlene, so fun. Thank you so much. Really love this book, Between Friends and Lovers.

Congratulations. And yeah, I'll be following along. Can't wait. 

Shirlene: Thank you so, so much. This was such a delight, Zibby. 

Zibby: Okay. You too. All right. 

Shirlene: Bye. 

Zibby: Bye.