Happy spooky season - bookish and life updates!

So the biggest update from me is that I got married :)

Y’all, I feel like it’s been ages since I wrote my last newsletter. But I do have a good excuse for the delay. I got married! And then I went on my honeymoon for two weeks! And then I moved!! And in the month leading up to the wedding, I was on a really tight, intense deadline for the revision for my next YA novel. I literally handed in the revision four days before the wedding. It was a lot, but it got done!

Our wedding was one of the best days of my life. I was so happy and at peace! I loved getting to see all of our loved ones together in the same place. I also loved the way that my dress, hair and makeup looked lol. My dress came with a slit (a big reason as to why I chose it—I wanted to be able to dance!). My veil had a very pretty shimmer that was visible in the sunlight.

We spent the first half of our honeymoon in Albania and we spent the second half in Greece. It was a really beautiful, relaxing trip. After we returned to the US, I had to start packing to move with my husband, and I’m finally officially unpacked. Honestly I could have been completely unpacked at the beginning of the week, but it took me forever to gather the willpower to organize all of my books lol.

Books wise, I want to remind you that my next book The Love Lyric publishes on February 4, 2025! It’s currently available for preorder and signed and personalized copies can be ordered from my wonderful hometown indie bookstore Inkwood Books. I’m partnering with Inkwood again on the preorder campaign and I can’t wait to show you the beautiful art print and bookmark that will come with any books that are ordered through Inkwood. I’m planning to announce the preorder campaign in early November. I’ll be doing a couple ARC giveaways soon too. I plan to do one for newsletter subscribers, at least one giveaway on Instagram and at least one giveaway on TikTok. I’ll also be doing some events to celebrate The Love Lyric when it publishes in February, and I’m really excited to share more info about that when I can!

With Halloween fast approaching, I’ve been trying to think of what my next costume will be. Halloween is my second favorite holiday after Christmas. I love dressing up. But my costume will have to be something simple because I didn’t have much time to plan this year. I have a few ideas, but if all else fails, I can throw on a black turtle neck and my trusty cat ears lol. We don’t even have plans this year, really. But I still like dressing up anyway!

Before our honeymoon and during, I read the first two books in Nalini Singh’s Psy-Changeling series. I’m lowkey mad at myself for waiting this long to read them. They’re so good and compulsively readable! I also read Intermezzo by Sally Rooney. I liked this one a lot! I think that Sally Rooney does a great job at fleshing out a character’s inner thoughts and illustrating how they see themselves and their place in the world. Her characters always feel very real to me. Toward the end of summer, I read Between Friends and Lovers by Shirley Obuobi and BOY did I love this one!! It’s one of the best books I’ve read all year. It’s about a doctor turned influencer who is involved in a love triangle (sort of) with her childhood best friend (a famous actor) and a charming, sweet (literally the sweetest!!) new guy. Please pick it up and give it a read if you haven’t already!

Right now I’m reading Till There Was You by Lindsay Hammeroff. Lindsay and I met serendipitously at the airport while waiting for the same flight to the book festival where we would be on the same panel. We happened to sit right next to each other lol. I am not surprised that her book is as charming and funny and insightful as she is! It’s a story about a young chef (the food descriptions are amazing) who has a one night stand with a musician. Then he writes a song about her and becomes a huge star. It’s so good!

I have many, many books on my TBR. On my new bookshelf, I actually have a space dedicated to my TBR pile so that I don’t forget which books I haven’t read yet lol. I’m looking forward to reading Whenever You’re Ready by Rachel Runya Katz, The Truth According to Ember by Danica Nava, Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors (her first novel Cleopatra and Frankenstein is one of my favorite books), Love Requires Chocolate by Ravynn K. Stringfield and The Prince of the Palisades by Julian Winters. I also have a handful of books I’ve been sent to read for blurbs that I need to read as well!

One book that I blurbed which publishes very soon is The Jewel of the Isle by Kerry Rea. If you loved the movie The Lost City with Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum, this book is for you. I really love reading adventure romance. The high stakes! The fast paced plot! The “omg we might die so let’s kiss in case we never get the chance to do it again”! Kerry’s book delivers on all of that. Here’s my official blurb: “Kerry Rea’s The Jewel of the Isle is an action packed, hilarious and absolutely swoon worthy novel that had me hooked from page one. Fans of adventure romance will love this book!” As you can see from my blurb, I highly suggest this one!

Next week I’ll be diving into another round of revisions for my next YA novel. I’m excited to talk more about this one when I can! But what I can say for now is that I am 99.9% sure that this will be my last YA novel. The remaining .1% is for the “never say never” of it all lol, but I do feel pretty firm about this. After I finished the most recent revision of this book, I realized that I’ve told all the stories that I want to tell in the teen space. I’m very proud of the work that I’ve done in YA Romance, and I feel fulfilled and ready to move forward into the next phase of my career. I will always be writing romance—I can’t see myself doing anything else! And I’m excited to be fully in the adult space. (I do have a couple college-ish ideas. But they’re late college, like junior/senior year so I’m not sure if that falls into adult or new adult. I think publishing just needs to firmly embrace new adult and make it easier for the rest of us lol.) So yeah, that’s something that I felt compelled to share in this newsletter lol.

I think that’s it from me today! I’ll be back with my December newsletter, which will include the ARC giveaway. And actually you’ll probably hear from me again before that to let you know about the TLL preorder campaign. Until then, take care of yourselves! Happy spooky season!

xo, Kristina