Hello friends, and happy almost-summer!

Spring has, like every other season, been busy. I don't know why I always think each season is going to be quieter than the last. That's almost never how it goes, and yet I continue to stubbornly hold out hope.

I continue to be utterly obsessed with my plants (I actually think I have some arriving in the mail later today!), and may have gotten slightly carried away, but also who cares. Every day, I kick off my morning with a little plant walk where I check on all of the returning perennials, see what new buds have developed, what needs deadheading or pruning, see which seeds are germinating... you get the picture. Every day it's a little bit different, and every day it brings me joy. I started on my journey to turn our overgrown and extremely boring front beds into colorful perennial beds a couple years ago, and this year things are finally starting to fill out.

That said, the cicadas may be the death of me, but I don't want to talk about cicadas now. They do not bring me joy, and this is a happy newsletter. Here, look at some of my plants:

Another thing that has made me happy this week, albeit in a more bittersweet way, is that our foster pup Bonnie finally got adopted! As you may remember, Bonnie came to us on New Year's Eve, and while she has the sweetest personality we've ever had in a foster, finding a forever home for her has been a challenge due to her high energy level and sense of mischief. But this week, she finally found her family! We will miss her, and hope that her new humans love her at least as much as we did.

Busy busy busy

Over the past few months, I've been doing a fair bit of travel. In March, I traveled to Utah to present a workshop at Teen Author Boot Camp (rebranded StoryCon for 2025), an absolutely fabulous one-day writing workshop for close to teenagers in Provo, Utah. It was my first time visiting Utah, and I could not get enough of the gorgeous mountains.

The workshop I presented was called "Roll Call: Tips and Tricks for Writing From Multiple Points of View," since if I'm going to be allergic to writing books from a single perspective, I may as well lean in. It was an exhausting but fabulous day, and I'm so glad I got to participate. Even though my books are not technically classified as YA, I love writing teenage characters, and I really love talking to young writers. It's such an awesome age, where the creativity is teeming and the possibilities are endless.

In April, I headed to Washington, D.C. for ApollyCon, which was gigantic extremely overwhelming. I panicked and brought way too much stuff for my table (jewelry! candles! stickers! art!), especially since I realized once I was there that the vast majority of the attendees were 1) mostly interested in romantasy, which I do not write, and 2) meticulous about their scheduling and budgeting and didn't necessarily plan for a lot of impulse buys (fair, since books are expensive and there were a ton of options). Plus, most authors there had a several titles available, with many even offering exclusive editions just for ApollyCon, while I just had my one book. So I was a bit out of my depth. But honestly, it was all fine, and I still had a lot of fun, and even made some new friends!

Once I get my act together, I will open up a shop on my website where folks can get some of the fun merch my friend Sarah and I created to tie into my books, but until then, you can find some of the jewelry at Sarah's website Star Fox Jewelry.

Then at the beginning of May, I flew to Seattle for Cavalcade of Authors West, another conference for teen writers. Since it was a new audience, I presented the same workshop as I did at Teen Author Boot Camp, which seemed to go over really well. As a bonus, two of my good friends were also presenting at the workshop, and we were able to grab a couple meals together, walk across the Chihuly Bridge of Glass (so so cool, I'm a little obsessed), and spend some quality time catching up and hanging out.

This weekend, I head to Maryland for the annual Gaithersburg Book Festival, which will be celebrating its 15th year! Find me on the Dashiell Hammett Pavilion at 11:15 am where I'll be in conversation with Tara Laskowski, author of The Weekend Retreat. If you're in the area, come see me!

And then I'm done with travel until the end of summer... except for my family's trip to Italy in June. But that's for fun, not for work, so I'm not counting it. Even though work trips are fun too! (More on that in a minute.)

You Shouldn't Be Here: the launch!

So we've had a number of updates on the You Shouldn't Be Here front, with the largest one being that the release date has changed! Instead of July 9, the book will now be releasing on August 1, 2024, in all formats.

HOWEVER, if you are in the Nashville area (or would like to travel to the Nashville area), you can actually get the book a week early! Because August is a bit wild for me this year (I've got two conferences, one kid starting college, and another going back to high school), I've gotten permission for my publisher to have the local launch party a little bit in advance of the publication date.

So I'd be thrilled if you'd join me at the You Shouldn't Be Here launch party at Parnassus Books in Nashville on July 24, 2024, at 6:30pm. I will be in conversation with fellow mystery author (and also a good friend) Court Stevens. This launch will be a bit more chill than the madness that was the I'll Stop the World launch (debuts are kind of their own weird beast), but will still be a fun time! Advance registration is required for this (FREE) event, and you can sign up HERE.

You Shouldn't Be Here: the audiobook!

As I've mentioned before, You Shouldn't Be Here will release in all formats on August 1, 2024, including hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audio. I think I've mentioned before that my favorite way to experience books at this stage of life is via audiobooks, since physical books started making me drowsy sometime in my 30s (I blame eye strain), and also I love the ability to multitask while I read. As someone with a very neurospicy brain, I've found I can focus on a task a lot better if I can keep all of my senses occupied while I complete it, and listening to an audiobook allows me to engage the rest of my body in doing chores, driving, taking a walk, playing in my garden, or even playing a game on my phone while I listen. While I still do enjoy physical and ebooks as well, audiobooks are how I read the vast majority of my books.

While the product page on Audible hasn't been updated yet, I'm excited to reveal that the audio version of You Shouldn't Be Here will be narrated by Christina Ho. Christina has a lovely voice, and I can't wait to hear her bring Angie and Madelyn to life! You can preorder the audio version of You Shouldn't Be Here now, and the file will be available for you to listen to on August 1!

And just as a reminder, if you preorder the book in ANY format from any retailer, you're eligible to receive some extra goodies from me! Simply fill out this form before August 1, and I'll send you a set of stickers!

You Shouldn't Be Here: the tour!

I saved the most exciting news for last — I'm going on tour!

This is just a regional tour which will take me to a few cities/states within easy driving distance from my home in Nashville, TN, but I'm so excited to travel around and see you! I've had some absolutely incredible author friends agree to join me for my tour stops, and each of them will also be signing books at their stop.

Not all bookstores have event pages up yet, but here are the details:

As I mentioned above, the whole shebang will kick off in Nashville, TN on Wednesday, July 24 at 6:30pm at Parnassus Books, where I'll be in conversation with Court Stevens.

In August, I'll be making stops at Joseph-Beth Booksellers locations in Cincinnati, OH, and Lexington, KY. Gwenda Bond will be joining me for the Cincinnati stop on Wednesday, August 7, and David Arnold (who some of you may remember was also my conversation partner for the I'll Stop the World launch) will be chatting with me in Lexington on Thursday, August 8. Both of these events will be at 7:00pm.

Then in September I'll be headed to Virginia Highland Books in Atlanta, GA, where I will be in conversation with Becky Albertalli! We'll be there on Thursday, September 12, at 7:15pm.

From there, I'll be headed to Asheville, NC, where I'll be in conversation with Beth Revis at Firestorm Books on Saturday, September 14, at 3pm. You can register for this free event HERE.

I'm still working on a couple more potential events within that time frame, but those aren't nailed down yet, so I'll hold off on talking about them until they're a sure thing.

I honestly don't know what I'm more excited about; going on a book tour (a thing I've dreamed about since I went to my first book event over a decade ago), or getting to hang out with all of these amazing authors at these fantastic stores. I cannot overstate how grateful I am to everyone involved for helping make this possible.

In the interest of full transparency (since I know we can all have a tendency to make our lives seem a little more glamorous on the internet than they really are), this is a tour I'm organizing and funding by myself. My publisher and publicist (the fabulous Megan Beatie) are absolutely wonderful, but when I floated the idea of a physical book tour, they paddled quickly in the opposite direction. Which is totally fine; most publishers are moving away from physical tours and focusing much more on digital marketing efforts, mine included. I was not in any way discouraged or surprised that they weren't inclined to focus their efforts on in-person events.

I just really love bookstores. And chatting with other authors about books. And I'm a wee bit stubborn. So I decided to do it myself.

I'm also doing some non-bookstore in-person events in August and September outside of the You Shouldn't Be Here tour, but they haven't all been announced yet, so I'm keeping those to myself for now.

You Shouldn't Be Here: the preorder campaign!

As a reminder, if you preorder a copy of You Shouldn't Be Here in any format, from any retailer, and fill out this form, I will send you a set of character stickers from the book! If you would like your copy to be signed (and personalized, if desired), make sure to order from either Parnassus Books or The Bookshop here in Nashville.

All copies purchased through either store will be signed. And if you can attend the launch party at Parnassus, you can even pick up your copy early! (I believe that any preorders not picked up at the launch will ship out on the pub date, but I need to double check that.)

If you order from somewhere else and would like a free signed bookplate, just fill out the form on my website and I'll send you one!

I'm sure I have more I could talk about, but I think this is already a lot of information for one newsletter, and past-me was a jerk and booked a 7am flight tomorrow (have I packed? No I have not.) so I'm going to wrap this up.

Thanks as always for being interested in my little ramblings, and if you'd like to drop me a note, just hit Reply!

Until next time, here's to fresh flowers, sunny days, and cold drinks with old friends.