📖 a cover reveal! RIGHT WHERE WE BELONG
plus some god tier writing advice
I have some news!
RIGHT WHERE WE BELONG is my next YA romance novel releasing next fall.
And here is the cover!
This image is protected by The Glaze Project
Cover Illustration: Leni Kauffman
Cover Design: Kelley Brady
Past and present collide in this swoony romance when a girl searching for a sense of belonging may have found it in an unexpected—and undeniably charming—visitor from the nineteenth century.
Delaney Carmichael’s final year of boarding school at Ivernia is not off to a great start. Losing her father has left her feeling completely unmoored—both emotionally and in terms of what she wants to do with her future. So when Delaney discovers that Ivernia—the one stable place in her life—is on the brink of shuttering its doors, it feels like the last straw. If life is measured in what she has to lose, then does anything matter?
Desperate for a solution, Delaney makes a wish—for a way to save Ivernia. The universe’s response? Enter Lord William Cromwell of Dunbry, a tall, handsome, and woefully out-of-place-boy from nineteenth-century London. At first, Delaney thinks this charming English heartthrob might somehow be the answer to her problems, but when disastrous consequences begin to unfold at an alarming rate, she realizes that if she can’t return William to where and when he belongs, the present could unravel completely.
Much to Delaney’s dismay, the only person capable of helping her is her brother’s infuriating best friend, Sumner, a boy who seems dead-set on getting under her skin. With time quickly running out, can the two set things straight before the past begins messing with the present in irreversible ways?
When I came up with the idea, I wasn’t sure anyone would go for it (it’s so silly?!) let alone give me permission to write it. But I’m grateful my agent and editor and everyone at Penguin believed in it from the jump. I love movies like Kate and Leopold or Enchanted or A Knight Before Christmas where one character is clearly a fish out of water—the humor is just so much fun. It’s zany and goofy and romantic all at once.
But here’s what kept nagging at me in its early stages: What was the point of having a devilishly handsome 18-year-old lord from Victorian era England appear in our present day reality? Why this story? But more importantly, why this place in time?
The soul of this book is about how places we find meaningful may change, but the memories we make with the people we hold dear stay preserved in a time. It’s an exploration of loss and grief and belonging and all the ways we remember people in this one great existence we’re able to experience. How it’s so easy to feel like nothing matters when, truthfully, we breathe meaning in what matters. It’s for anyone who’s afraid of making the wrong choices, and it’s about letting go of expectation and living for yourself.
I love antics and fun and games, but I also love heart and depth and relatability. I love books that make me laugh AND cry. And I love gripping onto certain lines that make you shout, yes! I’ve felt this way too!
Brynn was a refreshing character to write in Cancelled because she’s such a quippy, independent go-getter and problem solver, and I didn’t want to write a copy/paste main character for this story. I wondered, what does this character want? And truthfully, she doesn’t really know! (Or perhaps she does know and is too afraid to reach for it…) Because at the time, I also didn’t really know what was next for me. And that’s scary, looking down a dark tunnel of change and not knowing what lies at the end of it. Was I making the right choices? But what are right choices? And how do you know if you’re making them? So, if you—like me—have ever fallen into people pleasing tendencies, this story might be for you.
I also loved exploring living for the small moments. We prioritize grand celebrations and big milestones, but this isn’t all that makes up a life. Because so many slow, mundane days add up to something wonderful and significant when you look back. As the saying goes, maybe we don’t know we’re in the good old days until they’re behind us.
So, yes, this book has a love triangle and banter and comedy and a time travel dilemma and romance—but there’s also so much more. And I do hope you find it intriguing enough to preorder!
(Speaking of, I have some incoming preorder incentives! Please stay tuned for more!)
RIGHT WHERE WE BELONG will belong to you October 28, 2025, but it is available for preorder now: Barnes and Noble | Bookshop | Amazon
Best writing advice I’ve found useful over the years (god-tier advice)
As always, there’s something in my newsletters catered to you, lovely writers. I saw something similar on Pinterest and thought it made for a good prompt, so I wanted to try and put my own spin on it.
Writing advice is so subjective, much like reading, because sometimes things work for certain people and sometimes they don’t. But I’d love to share what’s worked for me and made things click in a way they hadn’t before.
Without further ado…
Chuck Palahniuk’s take on thought verbs. It’s another way of presenting showing versus telling, but I think about his examples often.
Kurt Vonnegut’s advice: “Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.” If you’re stuck writing a chapter/scene, are you moving the plot forward in some way or revealing character and if not, is the scene you’re writing actually serving the story?
Take breaks. It’s so simple and, truthfully, advice I HATE following. What do you MEAN I’m not a machine??? But please trust me when I say it’s better for you and your manuscript if you take time off. It makes coming back to the story fun. Plus, you come back inspired.
Some prose sounds clunky and stuffy—but why? How do you fix stumbly sentences? I love reading craft books, and this one was impactful on a prose level, reminding me of grammatical rules and syntax and how to create wonderful prose!
And finally, worry less about said prose when you’re drafting. This is your time to get the story on the page. Fixing sentences can come later!
I love the cover and the story sounds amazing!