well, well, well

if it isn't another reinvention

Dear readers,

If you’re seeing this newsletter in your inbox, that means you’ve either recently signed up to receive what I’m calling kate, lately (thank you very much to Sarah Adler for suggesting this name!), or your email address has successfully migrated along with me over to this new newsletter home on substack, a platform that allows me more flexibility to reach out to subscribers. I am genuinely so excited to have you!

The previous iteration of my newsletter was…shall we say, infrequent? Inconsistent, perhaps?

It doesn’t matter, really: what matters is that recently, I’ve had an appetite for a bit of reinvention. And being more intentional (if maybe still infrequent and inconsistent, who knows!) with this newsletter seemed a good place to start.

So, let me tell you a little about why reinvention has been so on my mind lately, while showing you what I intend this newsletter to be (and while sharing some news!).

Romance, for me, is a genre of reinvention. In the stories themselves, of course, reinvention often takes center stage—an unapologetic rake falls hugely, wholly in love; a committed wallflower steps out from behind the potted plants and stuns everyone at the ball; grumpy becomes (even for just one person) sunshine. When I think of the romances that have stayed with me the longest, it’s always the ones where huge reinvention happens, where I can’t forget a character from either their before or their after. Love is, in these books, the vehicle for reinvention, and for me as a reader, this is often hugely satisfying.

Recently, though, I read a great romance that took a different tack with the notion of reinvention: Jess K. Hardy’s Come as You Are, which features a hero in his 50s and a heroine in her 40s, both of whom have lived lives that put them through the wringer. I liked so much about Hardy’s book—its sensitive treatment of addiction and those who struggle with it, of aging, of self-doubt and self-recrimination. I loved that the characters themselves weren’t so much reinvented as they were allowed to accept that they carry their past selves with them, all the time, even as they reach for new things going forward. Maybe you’ll check this one out if it sounds appealing to you?

As usual in my experience of being a romance reader, there’s so many books out there that somehow manage to find me at the right time. As I write this newsletter, I’m over halfway through my next manuscript (!!!)—and as with every other book I’ve ever written, it’s stretched me, challenged me, made me wonder, at times, if I’m capable of trying new things.

But I think, actually, the spirit of reinvention from Hardy’s book is probably what keeps me writing. With every book I draft, I am absolutely reaching for new things, but I’m also carrying every version of Kate with me—the Kate who wrote the Chance of a Lifetime series, the Kate who wrote Love Lettering, the Kate who wrote Love at First, and the Kate who wrote Georgie, All Along (a book that has a lot to say about reinvention—indeed, the title of this newsletter issue is the first line of Georgie!).

It’s been just over five years since I became a published author, and I have to admit—I’m pretty proud of all those Kates. That’s why I’m over-the-moon excited to tell you about a reinvention that my publisher has been working on for the last year or so (gosh it’s been hard to keep this a secret!): pretty soon, you’ll be able to find The Chance of a Lifetime series in print, with newly-redesigned covers, in bookstores everywhere (!!!).

When this series was first published, it was digital-only, with a very basic print-on-demand option. But these new editions will be in trade paperback format, with everything you love the most about your favorite print books. Inside, you’ll find the same stories that first connected me with so many of you. It’s your unending support of this series that has made this possible, and I am so, so thrilled that you’ll get to see Kit and Ben, Zoe and Aiden, and Greer and Alex on your bookshelves in this format. This is a reinvention-dream come true—I always wanted to see these books in print—and you’ll be the first to see their new covers soon.

If you’ve made it to here with me, you know the gist of this newsletter: I’ll always talk a bit about what I’ve been reading, what I’ve been writing, and what I’ve been thinking about; I’ll always share news when I have it. This was the spirit of the online space where many of you saw me most, and since that space that may not be long for this internet world, I (along with many of you) have to do a bit of reinventing. I hope you’ll stick with me in this new space (find me on Instagram, too!), and I hope you’ll stay tuned for more news in the months to come…about Georgie, about those repackaged Chance books, and about that manuscript I’m working hard to finish.

Feel free to drop a comment below about your favorite reinventions in romance—I’d love to hear your recs. And as a little celebration for getting started with this reinvented newsletter, I’ll pick one of my subscribers to win a signed ARC of Georgie, All Along—make sure you’re signed up!

I hope you’re all taking care of yourselves and taking time to read great things that make you feel good.

Love y’all, and thanks so much—from the bottom of my heart—for being a part of my online community, even when it’s in a time of transition. (Next newsletter, I’ll be funnier, I promise lol)

xoxo,

kate 🖤

p.s. this newsletter absolutely would not have happened if the generous Alicia Thompson hadn’t answered about ten thousand questions from me. She has a great substack here!

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