what my haglights have to do with romance novels

and also a couple of updates!

Dear readers,

I can hardly believe we are into June—this feels like a time of year I’ve been waiting a long time for, for various reasons, and now that it’s here, I’m almost surprised by it! June 8th and I’ve not yet done at least five thousand of the ten thousand things on my to-do list? Shameful! So let me get to one of the most pleasurable things on this list, and that’s writing to all of you.

all right let’s discuss my hair

Awhile back, when I asked you all what you’d like to hear about from me in my newsletter, a surprising number of you said “your haglights,” lol. If you have not heard me talk about this before, “haglights” are what I call my gray (white??) hair, which is abundant, and which I grew out during the pandemic. Like my dad, I started going gray very young—I found my first strands when I was seventeen, and not long after that, I started coloring it pretty regularly.

When the pandemic hit, I knew regular coloring wasn’t going to be an option for some time, and I could hear in my head the voice of a favorite hairstylist friend telling me that I should absolutely not put box dye on it while I waited. And I suppose I just figured: well, might as well take this opportunity to see what it looks like grown out? Also, let me be honest: even though I have always been vain about my hair, I was not really thinking a lot about it at the onset of that time. Like everyone else, I was mostly thinking about getting through each day.

But also, hair isn’t just hair, not really, especially because it intersects with all kinds of norms about gender and beauty and aging, in a culture that is obsessed with those things. Obviously, a particular subculture I spend a lot of time in is the world of romance novels, and I’ve written before about how the genre walks a curious line when it comes to beauty—and how women protagonists in particular are held to strange and punishing standards about how they can and cannot “tend to” their own appearances. It’s not like you get many scenes of a love interest taking a big inhale of their beloved’s hair and thinking, I could still smell the fresh chemicals from her recent root touch-up. No! That sh*t is going to smell like flowers or strawberries or fresh-baked cookies or some other thing that also provides insight into our often crooked thinking about gender norms!

To be clear, there are great romance novels with gray-haired women protagonists (pls don’t get me started on what I see as a recent glut of “silver fox” heroes; that would be another essay entirely) : for just two examples, see Karen Booth’s recent Gray Hair Don’t Care, and also the unforgettable Not Quite a Husband by Sherry Thomas, where the heroine has DRAMATIC gray hair (a full-on white STREAK that appears overnight after a devastating revelation about her marriage). But it wasn’t as though, when I started growing out my hair, I had in mind a whole host of models from this subculture I spend a great deal of my time swimming in. If anything, I’ll be reading these books and seeing a curious number of people with “sun-kissed” hair! Brad, it’s not the sun! It’s probably strategically-placed peroxide!

But you know what? Romance novels did have an impact on my decision to embrace my graying hair. In the years I’ve spent as a devoted reader of these books, one of the many things I’ve learned from them is how to honor the things I enjoy. So many of my favorite romances explore this notion of pleasure, and while some people might hear that word—pleasure—in relation to romance novels and think it must refer to sex, those of us who knows these books by heart know that it’s so much more. My favorite romances celebrate characters’ sources of joy, and the books themselves are source of joy for this huge community I’m so proud to be part of. When I am a part of online romance communities, or when I attend an in-person romance event, I see so evidently how much unrestrained enjoyment people take in their reading. I see that joy explode into spaces even when the culture at large might sneer at the very thing I love—the very thing, at times, that keeps me going. I see people claiming and celebrating this genre they like so much, and not apologizing at all for it.

This may seem like a long walk away from the topic of growing my gray out, but it’s not. Because the truth is, I just…I ended up really liking the way my natural color looked. I even liked it it when it was sort of awkwardly half-grown out, a mix of gray and brown at the top, and the old color at the bottom. I liked how sometimes the streaks of it made me feel like I had a rock star vibe which is not a vibe I have ever had in my life; I liked how it looked so different from any way my hair had ever looked before. I liked that when I saw people they would say, “Your hair!”, which had always been very dark brown, and I liked that sometimes they clearly didn’t really approve of the change (one woman told me I was “giving up”[!!! haha, amazing]). I liked being able to say, “I know! I love it!”, because the thing is, I do.

And romance novels have really taught me how to love things that other people have a lot of judgmental ideas about.

I’m not keeping my hair gray because I wanted to make a statement about aging or beauty, though I guess doing that would be fine. I’m keeping it because I like it, and someday I might not like it anymore, in which case I guess I’ll dye it again, and that will be fine, too (recently, Fran Lebowitz talked on this podcast about her reasons for continuing to dye her hair, and it was hilarious, as usual).

I want to say, also, that nothing about this is so simple: the whys behind what we like never are, and liking something doesn’t mean you never have to interrogate it. How I feel about my hair and my face and my body with each passing year is actually pretty complicated, and how I feel about how romance novels (including the ones I write) treat hair and faces and bodies and bunch of other things is complicated, too. But for now, let me say this to those of you who asked about my haglights: if you think you might like to see yourself with your gray grown out, I’m here to say that you can, and you might end up really loving it.

If you do try it, here are some of my recommendations: 1) follow the #grombe hashtag (and other related hashtags!) on socials, because it’s just good to see faces in your feed that have hair in the transition stage—it’s very freeing!, 2) get a stylist who is supportive of you growing out your hair, and who has experience with “softening” the transition, especially if you’re worried about a hard line between your old color and your grow-out, 3) wear a hat if you’re going to be in the sun for awhile, or use SPF on your hair, because your grays will yellow with sun exposure, 4) consider using a shampoo like this a couple of times a week (and leave it on for a few minutes!), because it will brighten your grays up when they get dull or yellowed, 5) pay attention to how the texture of your hair changes with the color transition and adjust products accordingly!

OMG I feel like a hair influencer now, lol. Let me get on to some more specific book announcements.

midwest! i’m coming home (for a few days)

If you’re in the midwest, Ohio especially, I hope you’ll consider coming to see me at this event, to be held at the magnificent Mercantile Library in Cincinnati. Some of you know I was born and raised in Ohio, and Cincinnati is a place where I have very close family, so I am thrilled for the opportunity to do an event here—in conversation with my friend Niamh O’Leary, who herself is a longtime romance reader! I can’t wait to discuss Georgie and the genre with her, and I hope I will see some of you there. Tickets are free!

icymi: the other side of disappearing synopsis

One thing that’s funny about publishing is that sometimes sites like goodreads will surprise you with the revelation of information about your upcoming book that you did not know would be out there quite yet, lol. However! In this case it’s all very exciting because it means I was able to share on instagram the synopsis for my next book, The Other Side of Disappearing, which will be out on March 26th, 2024. In case you missed it there, here it is:

A timely, moving, modern love story about intimacy and truth-telling in the digital age, from the acclaimed author of Georgie, All Along and Love Lettering.

Hairstylist Jess Greene has spent the last decade raising her younger half-sister, Tegan—and keeping a shocking secret. Ever since their reckless mother ran off with a boyfriend she’d known only a few months, Jess has been aware that he’s the same accomplished con man who was the subject of a wildly popular podcast, The Last Con of Lynton Baltimore.

Now thirty-one, Jess didn’t bargain on Tegan eventually piecing together the connection for herself. But Tegan plans to do exactly what Jess has always feared—leave their safe, stable home to search for their mother—and she’ll be accompanied by the prying podcast host and her watchful, handsome producer, Adam Hawkins. Unwilling to let the sister she’s spent so much of her life protecting go it alone, Jess reluctantly joins them.

Together, the four make their way across the country, unraveling the mystery of where the couple disappeared to and why. But soon Jess is discovering other things too. Like a renewed sense of vulnerability and curiosity, and a willingness to expand beyond the walls she’s so carefully built. And in Adam, she finds an unexpected connection she didn’t even know was missing, if only she can let go and let him in . . .

Gaaaaaah, I am so excited for and proud of this book—I hope it sounds good to you! I’m hoping to have a cover and preorder links for you soon! But in the meantime, if you’d like, please add this one to your goodreads shelf.

what i’m reading

Last month, Fated Mates did one of their excellent trailblazers episodes with a writer I admire so much, Loretta Chase, and I loved it so much that I’ve listened to it twice—and then after, I went back to listen to Loretta’s two most recent books in audio: A Duke in Shining Armor and Ten Things I Hate About the Duke. I read these when they first came out, but it was such an experience listening to them in audio, especially on the hells of listening to the author talk about her craft in such frank, generous ways. Highly recommend if you’re an audiobook lover!

Hope the rest of your June is restful and warm (not too warm) and happy and fun. Love y’all.

xoxo

kate 🖤