Hello, good readers –
I hope the end of summer is being kind to you. I hope it’s full of squishy tomatoes, sugar-sweet corn, and peaches that dribble right down your wrist. If you’re not in a summertime hemisphere right now, I hope you’re wearing some truly excellent scarves.
Releasing a book in pandemic means I missed out on the kinds of in-person events you might usually have when a book is published, the kind where you get to agonize for hours about an outfit and chicken out of a bold cat eye at the last minute and then go to a bookshop or an auditorium and read from your book and discuss the ideas in it in front of people – people! In the flesh! – who are excited to read it. Or who have already read it and have questions (and more-of-a-comment-than-a-questions). I was thrilled to do many virtual events (still available, still free for dance schools!) and one lovely in-person event last year, but beyond that, I haven’t had a chance to meet many readers. I know you’re out there, but man, I’d really like to meet some of you, just to be sure.
That’s changing next month, because I’m going home to Sydney and I’m bringing Turning Pointe with me. It’s happening about a year later than I’d hoped, on account of the pandemic, but it’s happening, and I’m so excited to be in my hometown and to talk about it with my friend Ariane Beeston, an author and ballet teacher who I’ve known since we were teeny baby ballerinas.
We’re being hosted by the great Better Read Than Dead (265 King St, Newtown) on the 15th of September at 6:30 pm. RSVP HERE.
If you’re in Sydney, or know someone who is, please spread the word about this event. I want to meet as many readers as I can. I might even find the courage for a bold cat eye.
That’s what’s happening with Turning Pointe. As for the next book, the romance novel Pas de Don’t, it’s almost out of my hands. It will be out next northern summer, but that means that even now we’re in the final stages of line edits and copy edits. It’s almost too late for me to change or fix anything (eep!). Soon the cover will be finalized – you guys, the drawings I’ve seen so far are so, so good and you have no idea how much restraint it’s taking not to share them on every single platform I have right the hell now – and you’ll be able to pre-order it.
Until then, I am waiting. Something I am generally terrible at. And using all that impatient energy to work on the next book, another romance, another ballet love story, another love letter to my hometown, that I hope you’ll also get to read.
Here are some books I’ve read and recommended lately:
AMERICAN ROYALTY, by Tracey Livesay (contemporary straight pop culture romance)
WRITTEN IN THE STARS, by Alexandria Bellefleur (contemporary queer second chance romance)
WAYS TO BE WICKED, by Julie Anne Long (historical straight ballet romance!)
THE SHORE, by Katie Runde (not a romance! Just a beautiful, sad, funny, family novel by an Iowa author and friend)
That’s it from me for now. Take care of yourselves and each other,
Chloe.