Hi, friends! Happy Spring!
My last newsletter went out in February right before The Neighbor Favor published. I feel like an entire year has passed since then. First, I would like to say a HUGE thank you to everyone who read, bought, borrowed, and/or talked about The Neighbor Favor. It’s been so nice to see the wonderful posts on social media and to receive so many kind messages about Lily and Nick’s story. To celebrate the release of TNF, I commissioned art from Kwarateen (who also illustrated the art for the TNF preorder campaign). I posted the below illustration of Lily and Nick onto Instagram (and maybe Twitter? I can’t remember lol). But just in case you aren’t following me at either of those places, here is the beautiful art below.
Isn’t it so gorgeous??? I could stare at it all day. Kwarateen is such a talented artist and I definitely suggest looking at her Instagram page to see her other work.
So what have I been up to since TNF published? Well, I finished the first draft of my fourth YA novel. The draft is both clean and messy at the same time. Mostly clean on a grammatical/line level but the characters and the plot are messy lol. Some first drafts are better than others. But a completed first draft is better than no first draft at all. At least this is what I told myself as I cringed while sending the draft to my editor and agent. :)
Another thing is that I shared the title of adult romance number two: THE PARTNER PLOT, which will publish in Spring 2024. If you’ve read TNF, then you’ll remember Lily’s older sisters, Violet and Iris. THE PARTNER PLOT is about Violet and her high school sweetheart Xavier who happen to reunite one night in Las Vegas and find themselves entering a marriage of convenience. I LOVE this book so much. I wrote 26k words and realized the beginning was all wrong and I had to start over, which was a challenge, but all the hard work that went into this book only made me love it more. I can’t wait for you all to read it, seriously. And I can’t wait to share the cover too once I can! :)
Another update, which happens to be my favorite of all the updates, is that I got engaged! I felt like I was walking on a cloud for a good month, and then my fiancé and I realized how expensive it is to have a wedding lol. I have a serious bone to pick with the wedding industry because…so expensive for what??? What is the reason?! Never in a million years did it cross my mind that if I had a wedding, I might have to pay for table linens lol. The bright side of early wedding planning is that I’ve now become immersed in the side of tiktok that is all about how people have saved money on their wedding through various DIY projects. It has become my daily rabbit hole, right next to researching the best lip oils and glosses (IMO: Merit for lip oil, and Fenty and NYX for glosses. Although I do want to try Ami Cole’s lip oil too).
I also watched some good television over the last couple months. I have a free subscription trial of Apple TV that ends in May, so I watched The Morning Show, which I thought was pretty good. It was different than what I was expecting. I thought it was going to be a show about two tv anchors (Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston) who were competing against each other, but it was actually a pretty nuanced show about the US news cycle and what happens behind the scenes of the news corporations. I also watched The Last of Us, which was so stressful but good lol. Like many many people, I’ve been keeping up with Abbott Elementary. It continues to be the most charming show. Ava is hilarious. I literally laugh out loud at almost everything she says. I also watched the Brooke Shields documentary Pretty Baby on Hulu. Admittedly, I didn’t know much about Brooke Shields outside of her friendship with Michael Jackson, that she was in Blue Lagoon, and that she starred in a Netflix Christmas movie a few years ago that I really liked. I didn’t realize that she was the It Girl of the 80s or that she was so heavily sexualized throughout her career, beginning from when she was a child actor/model. She was very candid and open in her interviews. Overall, I found it to be very interesting and that it was handled in a thoughtful way. I also watched Rye Lane on Hulu, which I LOVED. It’s a Black British romcom about two people who meet at an art gallery and spend the day walking through London together. I highly suggest this one! I want to see more movies/original content like this. I’m trying to think if I’ve watched anything else, but I’m having a brain fart. After drafting two books back to back, lately I will lose my train of thought mid sentence, which lets me know that this current break between deadlines was much needed lol.
Reading wise, I just finished reading Erin Hahn’s latest YA romance, Even If It Breaks Your Heart, which publishes early next year. It’s about two Texas teens who unexpectedly bond while working at a ranch. (Well, Winnie works at the ranch. Case is the son of the ranch owner). It’s so good and heartfelt. Keep this one on your radar! I’ve also just started reading The Art of Scandal by Regina Black, which publishes this August. It’s about a politician’s wife who discovers that her husband has been unfaithful and she wants to leave him, but because he’s in the middle of his re-election campaign, they strike a deal that she’ll get one million dollars and their DC house if she continues to play the role of the happy wife. But then things get complicated when she meets a very sexy artist. I’ve really been loving it so far, and highly suggest you add this one to your TBRs as well! I have a handful of recently published books on my TBR that I’m looking forward to reading too, Throwback by Maurene Goo, The Build Up by Tati Richardson and The Plus One by Mazey Eddings.
Other than being incredibly excited to see my big sister Beyoncé on tour in three months (!!!), I think that’s all I have to share this newsletter! I’m planning to keep this newsletter bi-monthly, so I’ll be back again in June.
I hope everyone enjoys the rest of Spring!
xo, Kristina
1. CONGRATS on the engagement!!!
2. I am so excited about THE PARTNER PLOT!
3. I loved THE ART OF SCANDAL. One of my favorite books ever for real.