Dear Reader,
We are better than we think, and not quite what we want to be. – Nikki Giovanni
I think about this quote from the late and indisputably great Nikki Giovanni often. In context, she said this in 2007 at the memorial service for Virginia Tech, speaking about triumphing in the face of tragedy. But I think it applies to all of us, every day, in our extra, ordinary lives. And I bring it up now because that’s where this novel lives.
I wrote this book thinking a lot about that dance we all do between the best and the worst parts of life. The space between heartbreak and healing where we seem to spend most of our time. Because yes, it’s about the HEA, but it’s also about the excitement and uncertainty of the beginning, and the messy, beautiful, complicated middle. (Even though I hate writing the messy, beautiful, complicated middle.)
I like to believe readers connect most deeply with characters who are flawed and trying anyway, because they’re the closest thing we have to avatars of ourselves. We mess up and we make amends. We feel like too much and not enough, but somehow, never adequate. Most of us are carrying something heavy, and still, we get up, we keep going, we (hopefully) choose softness when the world wants us to harden.
At the heart of this novel are two people doing the same: a woman who’s trying to outrun her past, and a man who’s been forced to reassess his future. They unexpectedly collide in this tiny mountain town of Gatlinburg, TN, and what unfolds isn’t just a love story, but a story about the courage to be vulnerable, to be hopeful, and yes, to be messy.
I was especially deliberate in my rendering of my heroine, Eve, an accomplished Black woman who’s still so far from having it all figured out. She falls apart, she shuts down, she often says the wrong things—if she says anything at all. Because we live in a world that demands perfection from women, expecting us to hold everything together, without complaint, while carrying the weight of everyone else’s needs, I wanted to create someone who eschews those expectations, and still gets to be seen, chosen, and loved. Because women don’t need to be tidy or easy to deserve grace. None of us have to fit into anyone’s box to deserve joy.
So, with that in mind, I hope you’ll root for these characters as much as I did. I hope they make you laugh, cry, cringe, and swoon. And above all, I hope you leave this story reminded that you’re better than you think, even if you’re not quite where you want to be.
Thank you for taking a chance on a debut author. You are now part of my dreams coming true!
-Ashley
