There’s no new #historyfriday post today because today I finally get to tell you about some non-history related news!

I am excited to share that my debut novel, If It Rains, will be released in Summer 2021 by Tyndale House Publishers! In case you’re not an avid reader of Publisher’s Weekly, here’s the blurb released earlier this week:

I am beyond ecstatic to be working with Tyndale House, who really seemed to grasp and appreciate my vision for this story from the beginning. If It Rains is such a book of my heart, and I cannot wait to introduce you all to Melissa and Kathryn. I hope you love them and their story as much as I did putting it all down on paper.

Many of you may not know that I have been working towards publication for almost ten years now. I started writing stories as soon as I could hold a pen and, while I originally thought I’d be spending my adult life chasing news stories across the globe, it soon became apparent that my heart lay in historical fiction.

I started my first novel in 2012, naively believing that all I had to do was get a finished manuscript, send it off, and boom–my beautifully printed pages would pop up in book stores across the country in a matter of weeks.

Needless to say, that’s not exactly how it happened. There is no such thing as “over-night success” when it comes to publishing. And, if there is, please don’t tell me about it.

Trying to get a book published is a LOT harder than I thought. It takes hard work, perseverance, MONTHS of waiting, and–despite what some people may tell you–more than one “yes.” Before If It Rains, I wrote two other books that gained little to no traction anywhere other than with friends and small-scale reader groups. In fact, I wrote IIR purely to keep my mind off the pit of despair wanna-be authors call “querying.” Because of said pit, I nearly quit on it several times.

Yes, this book that will soon be out the world, nearly didn’t get finished simply because everything about publishing is just so hard. 

But then this day finally came:

And let me tell you–it was worth it. It was so worth it.

I can’t wait to share this book with you all. And I hope you all think it was worth it, too. 🙂

**Oh, and if you came here looking for a #historyfriday post and you’re still super bummed there isn’t one, check out last year’s Valentine’s post here. I promise you won’t ever look at chocolates and roses the same way again.