i survived my first book con
and i had so much fun that i decided not to go anywhere else this year
before we get started
I am so excited to have partnered with the charity VOW for Girls this month for their Every Girl Deserves Happily Ever After Campaign to end child marriage. 12 million girls around the world are affected each year, but we can help them write their own story. Donate here, and if you select my name from the drop-down menu you’ll be entered into a raffle to win an advance print copy of Finders Keepers! Ends on Friday, so don’t wait!
what’s on my mind
When I was in undergrad, I wanted to study abroad junior year. I’d run the financials, and even decided on a program: a semester in Osnabrück, where they had classes in English that would meet requirements towards my majors.
But then I didn’t go. Because my anxiety wouldn’t let me.
I went from excited about the prospect to dreading it. My brain focused less and less on the interesting and fun experiences I might have there and instead fixated on everything that would be difficult about it, everything that could go wrong. How would I get from the airport to the university when I didn’t know any German? What if something happened to my parents while I was an ocean away? What if something happened to me? What if my boyfriend—already long-distance—and I weren’t able to handle the time difference, despite his reassurance that it would be totally fine? And suddenly the idea of going through with it felt out of reach.
It wasn’t the first time having an anxiety disorder kept me from doing something I wanted to do. For most of my life, it turned things that initially excited me into ones I was convinced I couldn’t do, or maybe I didn’t want to do after all. I talked myself out of opportunities to travel, go to parties, try new restaurants, meet up with friends. It often felt so overwhelmingly more important to give into the fear and avoid the experience altogether than to risk it.
So it was kind of a big deal for me to have gone to Atlanta for Love Y’all Romance Book Fest this month. It was the first time I was flying since 2017, my first convention-style event, my first time meeting lots of people in-person, all in an unfamiliar place during a national spike in respiratory illnesses. In the past, I don’t think I could have done it. But I did. And it was so much fun.
What changed? Well, a few months ago, I finally started anxiety medication. It has been such an improvement to my life, and I can’t help but wish I had started sooner. Because now that I’ve experienced what it’s like not to let worry dictate what I do and don’t do, I get sort of sad thinking about all of the things I missed out on. Travelling to Atlanta was not only a great time, but it was empowering. It was me doing a new thing and having the confidence that, even if something went wrong, I could handle it.1
Also, perhaps it seems counter-intuitive, but it actually reaffirmed the decision I made a few weeks ago not to do a national tour this summer for Finders Keepers. So many readers and bookstores from all over the country have reached out asking about it, and I definitely wanted to make it happen. I know it would be a blast to meet more readers and booksellers, and to celebrate this book I love so much with all of you in-person. But I’m also aware of the resources it will require me to expend—money, energy, time—and that those are the very things that I need to keep available for my family, my community, and the causes that are important to me right now.
Basically, in the words of my daughter when she was about three and a kid asked her to play at the playground: “One day we will have so much fun. But not today.”
And while I’m sad that a tour isn’t in the cards at the moment, it also feels like a huge mental health win to have come to that conclusion not based on fear and a bunch of what-ifs, but on practical, reality-based considerations.
That being said, though I’ll be keeping a low profile, I’m not disappearing off the face of the earth. I look forward to celebrating Finders Keepers with folks at the Curious Iguana launch event here in Frederick, MD. More info on that to come in the next month or two! And while that’s all I currently have scheduled and don’t plan on doing any other “solo” events, who knows what the future holds?
Not my anxiety, that’s for sure! Thankfully, that asshole has been bound, gagged, and thrown in the back of a pickup truck like that music video with Sabrina Carpenter and Dolly Parton.
Okay, I think that’s as a good a visual as any to end this on! Moving on…
book stuff
See above about donating to VOW for Girls to win a print ARC of Finders Keepers!
I just finished drafting book 4. I hope you’re excited for it (but not too excited, since it won’t be out until late summer/early fall of 2026). I’m very tired and glad to be pushing it onto my editor’s plate for a little while before I have to worry about making it good.
Mrs. Nash’s Ashes is now out in Italian! That brings us to 7 languages, which is about 6 more than I ever anticipated. So thank you, world, for your support of Millie and Hollis.
what we’re reading at my house
me - This Much Is True by Vivienne Lorret (ARC); New Orleans Rush by Kelly Siskind2
H - Blood Over Bright Haven by M.L. Wang; Part of Your World by Abby Jimenez
me & H together - How to Forget a Duke by Vivienne Lorret
h - Mia Mayhem Steals the Show! by Kara West, illus. by Leeza Hernandez; Flat Stanley: His Original Adventure by Jeff Brown; various Narwhal and Jelly books by Ben Clanton
what i’m listening to on repeat
you should check out
Longtime readers know that I deal with horrifically dry skin that worsens each winter. This has been the worst I’ve ever experienced. I don’t know if my skin itself changed, if it’s been unusually cold/windy/dry, or what, but even slathering my face in Vaseline and sleeping with our humidifier on high hasn’t been enough to keep it from flaring up. The cream my dermatologist gave me? Honestly useless. And then I finally got fed up enough to search Reddit, where I saw lots of recommendations for the brand Vanicream. I immediately bought the face cleanser, the moisturizer, and the cream, and after just a few nights of use it has already helped so much. So if you are also struggling with a rebellious epidermis, I highly encourage you to give it a shot!
And handle it I did! I couldn’t find the taxi stand at ATL so hopped on MARTA (without even looking at a system map), didn’t freak out in the hour-long security line on the way home or when my flight was minorly delayed, and apparently I slept threw a tornado siren one night. Not to mention that between my husband coming down with a fever Friday night, the ice and the wind, and my mother fracturing a vertebra while trying to help my daughter pee outside (don’t ask), things, uh, weren’t completely uneventful back home.
This is a reread of the very first genre romance I ever read, part of my Origin Stories project I’m trying to do this year. I’ll also be chatting about it with my pals Katey and Abigail on their romance book podcast Fifty Percent Pod. I’ll make sure to share a link when available!