oh, haven't you heard the news?

"wednesday the third" by saves the day & a tour announcement

The song this week is based SOLELY on the fact that it is, in fact, Wednesday the Third. Sometimes I like to get literal with it.

It’s a great song, though. I love the way the verses climb up and down, I love the falsetto in the chorus, I love how moody it is.

Last week’s newsletter was a lot of fun because wow, I did not expect that response tbh! I am so excited for this year of baseball romances, and have directly contacted the winner of the three ARCs of The Art of Catching Feelings, The Prospects, and You Should Be So Lucky. Congratulations, Gretchen, and thank you to everyone who entered!

Since “Wednesday the Third” happened to give me the perfect lyric title to share some news with you, I wanted to tell you a BIG one, which is that I’m going on tour! It’s only a few stops, mostly in cities where I really wanted to try to take in a baseball game at the same time, but I’m excited to take this show on the road, especially since being on the road is so important to the book itself (IYKYK).

The tour stops planned are:

• Thursday, June 20 at 7:00pm ET, Tombolo Books (St. Petersburg, FL) - in conversation with Carmen Alvarez;

• Saturday, June 22 at 5:00pm ET, Spellbound Bookstore (Sanford, FL);

• Friday, June 28 at 7:00pm ET, East City Bookshop (Washington, DC) - in conversation with Nikki Payne;

• Monday, July 1 at 7:00pm ET, The Ripped Bodice (Brooklyn, NY) - in conversation with KT Hoffman; and

• Thursday, July 11 at 7:00pm CT, The Novel Neighbor (St. Louis, MO).

If you are local to any of those places and want to come out, I would love to meet you!! I’m looking forward to talking with so many smart people at bookstores that I’m either already in love with or have had on my bucket list; I’m thinking of ordering a custom Carolina Battery baseball uniform to wear because I think it would be cute/would love to take the guesswork out of what to wear; I’ll sign all your books and if you bring a baseball I’d even sign it as Chris Kepler #15.

Talking about this book more inevitably means sharing more of its writing notebook with you (one of my favorite parts), so please enjoy this selection from April 3 of last year:

What it says (since I don’t expect you to be able to decipher my handwriting lol):

I’d hit 58,001 words at this point (I finished the draft about a month later, so I was GRINDING).

A favorite quote from this section: “But she was also scared to make more out of it than it was. She didn’t want to be the person face-planting in center field thinking she was going to make the catch.”

My “notes” and “next” sections are redacted because they’re a little spoiler-y :)

I wrote a lot of this book, fittingly, with the Rays game up on the TV at the same time, and I started including notes at the bottom of each page about how that day’s game went. This one says: “Rays first road trip of 2023 fitting given this scene! Rays won 6-2. Rasmussen pitched lights out. Raley w/ 2 HR’s, Faucher wore black shoes that made him look like he worked McDonald’s drive-thru.”

I keep feeling like I have some other news I wanted to share, but I can’t think of it. I’m not being coy; I really just can’t think of what it would be. I spent a mere 45 minutes cleaning up in the kitchen today and felt SO accomplished SO powerful a veritable domestic GODDESS . . . and all because I just finally took care of pile of stuff that had started collecting around the stove, cleared the area in front of the coffee maker, and did a round of dishes. That feels like news. To me. I’m also in the Duolingo Diamond League tournament and spent about five minutes thinking I could grind my way to the top until I realized that I’m pulling ONE THOUSAND XP a DAY and I am still WOEFULLY BEHIND. People just go so hard on Duolingo! I don’t have it in me. Call me a fourth place loser, I’m fine with it.

(btw if you really want to tag me and drag me in an Instagram review, post one in Spanish because I read all the way through those ones! Quiero practicar! Sometimes to my chilling chagrin lol)

Currently reading . . . I feel like lately all I do is read darkly comic books that feature ghosts in some way. Which, to be clear, I’m not mad about! I’m in the middle of A Grim Reaper’s Guide to Catching a Killer by Maxie Dara and really enjoying it. I also recently finished You’d Look Better as a Ghost by Joanna Wallace, which is an April B&N pick and GUESS WHO’S TALKING TO JOANNA for a B&N virtual event this very afternoon!!! (It’s me.) I’m a little nervous, actually, because when I originally agreed to do it I was like, sure, why not! The book sounds good, I love talking about books, let’s go! And then they sent over all the various links and questions and instructions and things and I was like . . . oh, this is . . . kind of a big deal? Anyway, if you’re free this afternoon at 3pm ET, come join us and you can hear me talk to Joanna about her fantastic debut thriller. (I think this might’ve been the news that was tickling my brain, so that’s a relief.)

watching . . . ahhhhhh baseball is back, which means I may as well rename this category because that’s all it’s gonna be about for a while. I went to the Rays Opening Day game in person and enjoyed the experience, if not the outcome. We saw this woman who was draped head-to-toe in this luxurious cream fabric, wearing a wide-brimmed hat, a dark blue scarf her only slight nod to team branding. My husband and I called her Carmen Sandiego. And at one point she kept wandering up and down the aisle, obviously looking for her seat, and I was like, “Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego going to SIT?” I’m still laughing about that tbh.

listening to . . . Partially because of this song, I’ve been listening to Saves the Day some. Music is very important to my 2025 romance (which I can’t wait to tell you about, despite being in the middle of trying to tell you about a book that’s not even out yet lol). I’m not big on filling out character sheets or anything like that, but I can tell you both main characters’ favorite songs on Saves the Day’s Under the Boards album, and that feels right.

preordering . . . GUESS WHAT TIME IT IS!!!!!!!!!!! THE PROSPECTS WEEK IS UPON US!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

• You can preorder KT Hoffman’s The Prospects from the Brooklyn Ripped Bodice and get a signed copy with some delightful art created by Sarah Corrente. I’ll be the conversation partner for KT’s event there on Friday, April 12, and I’m very excited!

• You can also preorder Yulin Kuang’s How to End a Love Story, and I’m really hoping to be in attendance at Yulin’s Brooklyn Ripped Bodice event on April 11, because hell, when in NYC, right?

• Okay, last but not least, there’s The Kiss Countdown by Etta Easton, an absolutely charming romance debut featuring fake dating, forced proximity (she moves in!), he’s an astronaut, she’s an event planner . . . it was really fun, and you can get a signed book and some swag through Kindred Stories, the local Houston Black-owned bookstore Etta partnered with for her preorder campaign (the link included here).