Friends, it’s been hot here where I am, much like the weather in The Glowing Life of Leeann Wu. And like in the book, things have started to go a little sideways. This newsletter, for instance, was supposed to go out a couple of days ago and obviously did not. But enough about my technical difficulties…
US readers, there’s a Goodreads giveaway for print copies of Leeann Wu that closes 7/13, so very soon! Also for US readers, Barnes & Noble is having a BOGO 50% off sale on romance paperbacks, so that means you could get Wild Life and then also a copy of Hard Knocks for half off.
In other news, the best Jasmine (Guillory, of course) gave my first Uptown book Playing House (which I talked about in the last issue of this newsletter) this beautiful write up in The New York Times in a piece about fake dating books.
It’s so lovely. And speaking of the Uptown books, although the next book in the series, Open House, seems unrelated except by location, readers may have noticed that there’s a tiny cameo from Magda in Playing House.
Magda, of course, is the FMC of Open House, a real estate assistant in New York City who’s trying to sell her uncle’s Harlem townhouse and a nearby open lot where she discovers residents, like our MMC Ty, have planted a community garden. Ty doesn’t want to see the community garden that saved him after his mother’s death razed, but Magda needs these sales commissions because she’s struggling under terrible student loan debt. And thus an enemies-to-lovers story is born.
Open House also came out of my love of walking around Harlem and seeing the beautiful community gardens residents had put up. Some of them had flowers and veg, and others also had chicken coops and had been adopted by schools where the kids installed benches they’d made in class or solar panels they’d learned about in science. The variety and volunteer work and heart put into these spaces is profoundly moving.
(And just a side note, I like to think that Magda is now working for the Mamdani campaign.)
You can get Open House here:
Ebook: Amazon | Google Play | Kobo | BN | Apple Books | Amazon UK | Amazon CA
Print (as part of The Uptown Collection): Bookshop | The Ripped Bodice | Indiebound | Amazon US | BN
Whew! Are you still with me, because I’m not sure I’m with me. Mentally, I’m in Stardew Valley collecting eggs and handing people daffodils. If I could give you one, I would.
xo Ruby, Opal and sometimes Mindy