Dear Reader,
When I was eighteen, I thought I had a clear vision of the person I would be by the time I turned thirty—the things I would have accomplished; the life I would have built. My teen mind was confident that within just twelve short years, I would truly come into myself. It was a degree of self-assurance I will likely spend the rest of my life seeking to rediscover.
Every Version of You is a romance novel about a woman who dies in her early thirties and is given the chance to relive a formative time in her adult life: her freshman year of college. Determined to get the “one who got away” to fall in love with her, she tries to undo her biggest regrets, only for new ones to pop up in their place.
The story came to me at a time when I was floundering in my career. I had goals I had been working toward for years and absolutely zero clue how to achieve them. My brain started down a thought spiral that many of our minds have traveled: If only I had worked a little harder; if only I had been more practical; if only I had known then what I know now.
I asked myself: what would I do differently?
I was surprised by the answer at which I arrived, because although my spiral had started from a place of career insecurity, my answer had very little to do with work. No, I hadn’t accomplished much. I wasn’t confident I ever would. And yes, that thought terrified me. But I realized that instead of making sure I didn’t become the failure I feared I was turning into, I hoped I would fail more. Fail bigger. Fail more audaciously. And then I hoped I would get back up faster.
The truth was, if I could go back and do it all over again, I hoped I would call my family more. Maintain friendships I had let fade away. Tell the people I loved that I loved them. Be quick to forgive and even quicker to apologize. I hoped that I would travel more, that I would allow myself to experience joy without guilt, and that I would read even more romance novels, because a constant source of regret is the fact that I will never be able to read all the books I hope to.
And so Joey, my main character, was born. She is in many ways my opposite: a professional success, but a personal disaster. The kind of daughter parents love to brag about—while conveniently neglecting to mention she hasn’t called them back in weeks. The kind of woman who doesn’t spiral, just keeps all her regrets bottled up inside until they boil over.
I am so excited to share Joey’s story with you. Every Version of You is, at its core, a romance, but it’s also a coming-of-age story about a woman who tries, for the first time, to figure out what living life for herself looks like. Two parts “wish fulfillment” and one part “be careful what you wish for,” the story uses magical realism and romance to explore themes of self-discovery and second chances. I hope it encourages you to live the life you dream of living, today.
– Natalie Messier
