Hi, First name / my friend, 

 

First things first: In a Jam is now available in audio! It went live on Audible bizarrely fast which is only fair considering we've been waiting for it since September. Narrators Kit Swann and Jason Clarke are perfect as Shay and Noah. They bring the town of Friendship, Rhode Island to life. Click here to starting listening!

 

Also, my friend Kate Clayborn has a new a release this month--Georgie, All Along--and it's gorgeous. I've been listening to Part of Your World by Abby Jimenez and I can't say enough good things about this book. It's kept me going through three to four miles a day in the New England winter so that's about as high praise as I can offer. 

 

Finally, and far less happily, I've been absent from sending these memos and posting on social media since the holidays because my biggest fan passed away. My mother died after a long illness and I'm so, so appreciative to all who've reached out. It means so much to me. 

 

To be honest, I never expected her to be my biggest fan. My mother was a voracious reader but she wasn't a romance reader. When I started publishing, I never imagined she'd insist on reading my work. Still she read all of my books--even the ones I asked her not to read because the idea of my mom reading certain spicy moments almost made it impossible for me to write them. 

 

In the days and weeks before a new book released, she'd stalk Amazon for the listing and tell me she didn't see it yet--even when I told her a hundred times there wasn't a preorder and I'd let her know the minute she could order her copy. Or that I'd send her a copy and she didn't have to worry about it. That didn't stop the stalking.

 

She always asked tons of questions about the projects I was working on as well the ones coming up even though I'm not great at verbalizing things when they're still taking shape in my head. I can be prickly about it too but that never stopped her from asking. I started sharing as much as I could over the last year because I knew she wouldn't get to see the projects slated for 2024 and 2025 published.

 

She'd told me she loved In a Jam and that it was one of her favorites though I discovered in the last month that she never got a chance to finish it. She'd had difficulty in the past year with memory and I was told she kept starting over or rereading sections. 

 

I hope she knew it would work out for them in the end. I hope she knew that Shay and Gennie and Noah would be okay and, like all of my books, the ending would be a happy one.