oh, a picture could not contain the way it feels

"crave" by paramore & tour wrap up

TWO Paramore songs back-to-back?! I mean, you had to know what you signed up for in this newsletter. But WOOOOF okay, I’m finally home from book tour and I wanted to give you my final wrap-up on everything!

On this road trip we:

• were gone 19 days

• drove 3,850 miles

• saw 4 major league stadiums

• saw 2 minor league stadiums

• passed through or stayed in: Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Washington DC, Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, and Missouri

I was trying to savor the moment as this Paramore song would say, but also very aware that the feeling will come to an end. I had a blast and also I maybe never want to do it again. Or, probably I do, but I just need some distance from it first — kinda like after you have a baby or write a book or move to a new place and are like ALL RIGHT ENOUGH OF THAT. It was exhausting but in a really good, I’ll-remember-this-for-the-rest-of-my-life kind of way.

I’m so grateful to everyone who came out to see me at any of my events or offered me hospitality in their city!! After this I’ll be back to my regularly scheduled programming (what Third Eye Blind video should I analyze next? Are you ready for more Alison Fraser Harlequin breakdowns? Do I still owe you a list of Things I Personally Find Very Cute About Chris Kepler?)

Cardinals Game (Busch Stadium)

The last game of the trip!!! Everyone kept telling me that St. Louis was a BASEBALL TOWN, and man were they right. I loved the whole area outside Busch Stadium with Ballpark Village and little shops and restaurants, and then I had such a great time in the stadium itself. An elementary school choir sang the national anthem, which was very sweet and cute, and there was ONE girl wearing a Royals hat in a crowd of the rest of the children wearing Cardinals hats and I found that hilarious for some reason. I could just see her parents being like, this is a Royals family and you *will* wear the hat tomorrow! Or maybe she was very stubborn and her parents were the ones saying, “Maybe we should get you a Cardinals hat . . . like all your friends are going to wear . . .” and she was like, “NO! It’s KC or nothing!!!” Either way I’m into the going-against-the-grain nature of it all.

I enjoyed some Dinger’s Donuts and frozen custard, which felt especially healing to me because we’d had a last-minute craving for mini donuts and ice cream at the Nashville Sounds game the night before (yes, I did end up going to TWO Nashville Sounds games), but we were too late and all the kiosks were closed.

My final road record, using the rubric of “did the home team win,” was 4-3.

(Winners: Durham Bulls, Baltimore Orioles, Philadephia Phillies, Nashville Sounds; Losers: New York Yankees, Nashville Sounds, St. Louis Cardinals.)

The Novel Neighbor (St. Louis, MO)

I rolled into the Novel Neighbor loving St. Louis, loving the vibes, loving LIFE. First of all, I discovered earlier that day that the Arch is not, in fact, solid, and you can take a tram up in it!!! Please don’t judge me for not knowing this before, but it blew my mind and of COURSE I was going to be on one of those trams! Someone had told me before I came to the city that the Arch was worth seeing, that it was so impressive in person that you’d be glad you went, and they were spot on because that’s exactly how I felt. What an engineering marvel.

The Novel Neighbor itself is the cutest, coziest bookstore, with so many little nooks and crannies and stuff to see. I’ve been low-key obsessed with their staff online for a while, so it was awesome to meet everyone in real life (hi, Maddie and Kassie and Haley!). The event was held in the space that will soon be converted to a romance-only bookstore, Open Door, which is SUPER exciting news.

My friend and fellow writer Sam Markum came out (her most recent YA Love, Off the Record is a USA Today Bestseller, which, hell yeah it is!!!). And standing with her in the signing line was YA author EMMA MILLS, who, I’m sorry for the all-caps but I am perhaps HIGH-key obsessed with her books because they are some of my favorite comfort rereads. I haven’t actually read all of them yet only because they are my “break in case of emergency” books, where I need to have a new one waiting for me at the time I need it most, and in the meantime I just reread First & Then and Foolish Hearts and This Adventure Ends over and over and over. (I know for a fact I’ve mentioned First & Then on podcasts several times, because it happens to have a certain microtrope I love in it.)

Anyway. I geeked out about that a little. Sorry to Emma if I was awkward at all.

Everyone I met in St. Louis was SO nice! Thank you for everyone who came out and wore their Beaverton jersey (made me feel at home), brought me friendship bracelets, showed me their hand-embroidered embellishment of the cover of my book (Nicole!!! the way you embroidered the little lights even, I’m not over it!), and talked to me about baseball and books and why there’s so much to love about both.

After the event, we went out to Imo’s for St. Louis-style pizza with a long-time listener of my husband’s podcast, which was cool! My husband and I were both still wearing our Battery gear, and the manager of the shop came out and was like, “Are y’all in some kind of softball league?” lmao. No, sir, just supporting a fictional team.

Eagle Eye Book Shop (Atlanta, GA)

My last stop was Eagle Eye Book Shop for an informal meet and greet, and it was a lot of fun! I’ve never seen my name on a marquee before! This was the perfect way to wind down the tour because I had a chance to just chill and chat with people for a while. It was a delight to see Liam again, who’d previously drawn some of my favorite Lauren + Asa fan art ever, and he drew a few little character pieces on the spot that were so impressive to me!! (Check out in the collage above, Lauren and Asa from Cold World and then Daphne from Catching Feelings lol).

Upcoming Events

I’m back home but still doing some events around the Central Florida area, which I’m going to go ahead and list here because . . . well, why not. Maybe you’re in Central Florida and would want to know!

• Saturday, July 20 at 6:00pm: Barnes & Noble at the Altamonte Mall (I used to live in Altamonte!!! when I was a kid lol)

• Monday, July 22 at 6:30pm: Book + Bottle in St. Pete (since it’s a wine bar and bookstore, I have SPECIFICALLY asked them to help pick what Chris should’ve paired with his chicken carbonara . . . although much like Chris I don’t know dick about wine, so whatever they suggest will be lost on me! I’d still like to have the information!)

I’ll have some swag with me at all these events btw! So if you want me to sign your book and get a copy of the art print, baseball cards, and sticker, you have more chances!

One final thing I did for this tour — I really wanted some kind of memento of every place I went and everyone I met, but I didn’t quite know what. I’ve seen authors have people all sign a copy of their book at an event, and I LOVE the idea and the way it looks, but . . . would that mean I’d end up with like 8 signed copies of my own book? I don’t know that I have the shelf space¹!

So my husband and I came up with something else — well, I thought of the idea and then he designed the cards, which sounds a little bit like I invented Post-Its and then he just thought to make them yellow but I PROMISE his part was harder because he did a lot of work to brand each card with the name of the bookshop and city, printed in the colors for their local baseball team (we printed two for NYC and then counted at the end of the night to see who won . . . it was Yankees by 1 which I DEFINITELY DMed my Mets fan friend who couldn’t make it at the last minute to give her shit for lolol).

It’s so special to see all the cards laid out, and I even bought a cute little organizer binder to put them in! (I originally wanted one for my fictional baseball cards I’ve been collecting for my book, KT Hoffman’s book, and Cat Sebastian’s book, and then I was like . . . well, you can’t have a whole binder for just six cards.)

Anyway, as Paramore might say, I can’t wait to memorize this day/Oh, a picture could not contain the way it feels . . . That about sums up the last month for me! Thanks to everyone who’s been coming to the events or reading this newsletter or reaching out about the book or whatever, it means a lot.

Currently reading . . . I just finished reading a friend’s manuscript, which always feels like such a special privilege to me — this chance to read someone whose writing I really love and admire in its earliest state, when I can see all that they’ve poured into the book and can participate in all the conversations around how they’re planning to revise to get it into its final form. I wish I could say more about what book I’m talking about, but I can’t right now! But it’s great and I’ll definitely be shouting about it once it’s out there!

In a complete 180, I’m ALSO reading an old battered paperback of Wild Orchids by Jude Deveraux I picked up at the library bookstore and! Wild indeed! Already there are so many plot twists and turns, I’m just settling in with my metaphorical popcorn and enjoying the ride. He’s a recently widowed bestselling author looking for his next book idea and she’s the young spitfire assistant he hired to help him and possibly just like, lead him right to the story? Because she tells some “devil story” that he overhears and he’s like goddamn, a ghost story is one thing, even a witch story, but a DEVIL story?!? I need to move to this small town in North Carolina and bring her with me and get to the bottom of it. So get to the bottom of it we shall!

watching . . . Tonight I’m watching the All Star Game and thinking of Chris Kepler, who is honestly having a terrible night tonight (IYKYK). I’m sorry, Chris!!! Things will eventually improve after the break, I promise!

listening to . . . I only have FOUR EPISODES left of my The Casual Criminalist podcast until I’ve listened to them all, which is important to me because I can be (unfortunately, to my detriment, to my chilling chagrin) quite the Completionist about things and it is very important to me that I can mark something as finished. And yes, I realize that there will only be new episodes added and my work will never be done. I will just go on EXTREMELY caring about how on top of it I am until one day, when something will make me fall off and then I will go months and months before thinking to myself, “wait, I wonder what happened to that podcast I used to compulsively listen to?”

preordering . . . I feel self-conscious about always leading with some “omg this week has so many” type statements, but . . . I mean, where’s the lie. Romance keeps delivering!

• You Had Me at Happy Hour by Timothy Janovsky (I LOVE Timothy Janovsky books — they’re so creative and always make me laugh, and he’s so goddamn prolific that he is keeping us FED with these fun, swoony romances)

• Do Me a Favor by Cathy Yardley

• The Ornithologist’s Field Guide to Love by India Holton

• Jewel Me Twice by Charish Reid (the tagline for this book is “The Ultimate Thief-Cute” I mean COME ON)

• Ne’er Duke Well by Alexandra Vasti

1. I do, arguably, have the shelf space. I just own wayyyyyyy too many books and have a hard time parting ways with any of them.