It's my end of the year newsletter :)

Hi everyone,

Happy Friday and Happy December! I’m starting this newsletter with some fun news. The Neighbor Favor is on sale in e-book format for $2.99 until Dec 22nd! You can find the ebook links to various retailers here.

There’s also a giveaway for advanced reader copies of The Partner Plot happening over on Goodreads, which ends on December 20th.

Lastly, The Partner Plot preorder campaign is live! If you preorder from Inkwood Books by February 20th, you will receive an art print and bookmark. :)

I can’t believe it’s mid December already. I literally feel like it was just October. (I got to see Usher at his Vegas residency in October and it was amazing.) I’ve spent the last few months writing the first draft of my 2025 romance novel, and then revising that draft. Before I send a first draft to my editor, I like to do a big self edit, where I print out the book and edit it by hand. For some reason, I’m better able to visualize the beats of a story that way. While re-reading this draft, I realized that I’m going to need to write majority of the third act (womp, womp lol). Thankfully I got a deadline extension from my editor, so for the next couple months I will work on trying to get my vision for the story in place as much as possible.

A couple days ago, I looked over the goals I’d made for this year back in January. They’d ranged from personal (continue exercising and reading for fun, etc) to professional (get a new book deal, etc) to financial (spend less money on things I don’t need!!). I achieved most of my goals, but instead of feeling proud about that, I spent a lot of time feeling really bad about one of the goals I didn’t achieve, which was finishing the draft of what would have been my fourth YA novel. When I say finish, I mean seeing the book through the entire process of drafting, editing, and then being sent off to copyedits. I wrote a draft for a book that I soon realized was not going to work. Then I tried to redraft it and realized that direction wasn’t going to work either. Thankfully, my team was very supportive when I decided I wanted to write an entirely different story, but missing that 2024 pub window really hung over me, and it was a thorn in my side as I switched gears to writing my 2025 adult romance novel. I’m not afraid of failure, but I sure do hate it! I like to blame this on being a Capricorn (I blame lots of things about my personality on being a Capricorn lol), but one of my 2024 goals is to be more intentional about turning lemons into lemonade. For example, I sort of had to write the failed book in order to realize that I wanted to write something else. This other YA idea is one I’m genuinely excited to write in a few months, but because I’m lowkey superstitious, I will literally never talk about this book again until it’s off to copyedits lol. I am so serious.

2023 was my first year of writing full time, and because I had a more flexible schedule, I found myself at the movie theaters a lot. There are few things better than sitting in a nearly empty movie theater with a friend at 2pm lol. My favorite movies that I watched this year were Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret (I also highly suggest the documentary about Judy Blume on Prime, Judy Blume Forever). Joy Ride and Bottoms were hilarious, and I also really loved Past Lives (I hope this one wins some Oscars) and A Good Person (I feel like I didn’t see people talk about A Good Person enough! It’s an indie film starring Florence Pugh and Morgan Freeman!) I watched some good movies on streaming too. My top faves were—to the surprise of no one—romantic movies: Rye Lane and Love at First Sight (based on The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith).

I read some really good books this year too. I enjoyed every book I read this year—I sincerely mean this. My one rule is that if I’m not enjoying a book, I allow myself to stop reading it. I think everyone should adopt this rule! Even if it applies to one of my books lol. Because I genuinely enjoyed every book, it’s hard to narrow down the list to my absolute favorites. I wish I had the brain space/time to write about every book I read this year, but for the sake of time and our ever dwindling attention spans, I’m going to highlight the books that stayed with me the longest after reading.

Throwback by Maurene Goo and Woke Up Like This by Amy Lea both played with time travel and romance in really fun and inventive ways. While Throwback was more reminiscent of Back to The Future (a girl travels back in time and meets her teenage mom) and Woke Up Like This was more in line with 13 Going on 30 (a 17 year old girl wakes up at 30, engaged to her nemesis), I thought each book still felt like its own thing, and while I, of course, knew that the main characters would eventually return to their original timelines, the stories still kept me on my toes and the romances in each book were so sweet.

I read With Love, from Cold World by Alicia Thompson in August, but it’s a holiday book, so prime time reading for this one is right now! I have a soft spot for stories with main characters who are straightforward, serious, and often highly organized earth signs (mostly Capricorns and Virgos) because I relate to them very strongly. Lauren, the main character in this book, is truly a woman after my own heart. I loved seeing her open up to Asa, and for Asa to accept her exactly as she is. While Lauren definitely comes out of her shell more, she doesn’t have to change her entire personality for Asa, who is relaxed and fun loving, in order for him to want to be with her, and I really appreciated that.

Yours Truly by Abby Jimenez has one of the BEST book boyfriends I’ve read in a long, long time. I tip my hat to Abby for writing Jacob, the sweetest, most empathetic and earnest love interest, and I loved seeing him interact with Briana, who is outspoken with a good heart. Briana and Jacob are doctors working at the same hospital, who begin writing notes to each other (we all know I love a good epistolary romance) and they later agree to fake date in order to convince Jacob’s family that he is over his ex (who is engaged to his brother!!). This book literally had me smiling and kicking my feet while reading.

When I went through a bit of a reading slump in September, I combed through Beverly Jenkins’s back list to find a book of hers that I hadn’t read yet, and that’s how I discovered Prisoner of Love, which is a book about a woman who was abandoned by her husband, and as she is in need of help on her farm, she agrees to marry a former prisoner, who actually used to be a lawman. I read this one in an afternoon and it pulled me out of my reading slump with the quickness! The marriage of convenience trope is always going to do it for me, especially in historical romance.

I’d say about 90% of the books I read are romance novels, but I did read a few literary fiction novels this year. I really loved This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub. The audiobook was fantastic, and it’s actually the only audiobook that I listened to this year. I also finally read Pachinko by Min Jin Lee after I watched the television show adaptation. (The book and show are quite different, FYI.) In terms of the book, I loved the multiple perspectives and timelines. It gave the story an expansive feel. Similarly, this is why I enjoyed The House of Eve by Sadeqa Johnson. It’s hard to write about this one without spoiling it, but essentially, it’s a story about two young Black women in the 1950s and how their life choices entwine their stories together.

Right now I’m in the middle of reading two books: Sunny Disposition by Deanna Grey, which I’d categorize as new adult, and The Kiss Countdown by Etta Easton, an adult romance that pubs next year, and I’m enjoying both! So far this month, I’ve watched three of my favorite Christmas movies, While You Were Sleeping, The Family Stone and Home Alone 2, and I still need to watch my other faves, The Preacher’s Wife and The Family Man.

Before I end this newsletter, I would like to say thank you to everyone who has read The Neighbor Favor this year, or any of my books (I’ve recently been tagged in a handful of posts about Now That I’ve Found You, which has been a nice surprise). I am very grateful to be able to have this job and to be able to share my work with all of you.

Happy Holidays and see you in 2024 <3

xoxo, Kristina