My heart needed them equally.

Cross-posted on Substack.

Oh my poor heart. It wants what it wants, and right now, it wants to break in two and get sewn back together. Lucky for me, I’m halfway into writing a pretty emotional book with lots of pining. I announced it last week! Did you get the first two chapters as a teaser? If not, subscribe on Substack, and they’ll be delivered to your inbox!

More on Not a Strong Enough Word in a minute, but first…

Look. I need to cut back on the caffeine. I feel like I’m constantly saying this, but never actually doing anything about it. Well, I am now. 2025 is the year of Allie. I’m taking my physical and mental health into my own hands this year. Eating fruits and vegetables. Not smashing ten handfuls of Goldfish out of the box as soon as I get home from school. 8,000 steps or bust. Drinking. Water. For. The. Love. Of. Everything. Holy.

Since Thanksgiving, when I started this endeavor, (I don’t wait for resolutions) I have actually gotten really good at eating fruits and vegetables. I’ve gotten *better* about water, but not perfect. The step thing is new, but I have a standing desk at school that I try to use for a few hours a day, and a treadmill desk attachment that I use while I’m editing or doing schoolwork at home. (I can’t write on that thing. Too bouncy.) And let me tell you, I feel amazing. We had a couple of setbacks his weekend that would have normally taken me out for the whole day, but I dealt with them and moved on. This is a true testament to my mental health.

But I’m still drinking an afternoon coffee, and my sleep is disrupted. I have a feeling these two things are related. So I’m going to try to cut back. For real this time. Because even though I’m craving heartbreak right now, I don’t mean that literally.

Love Out Loud, which is now on submission, was the happiest book I’ve ever written. And I loved it more than anything I’ve ever done. My characters are both sunshine. It takes please in LA so there’s a sunshine setting. They’ve been best friends for twenty-five years. They’re mostly well-adjusted (until they realize they could have been happier this whole time if they had just been together), and after they finally get together, there’s not really a question about whether or not they stay together. The question is about how. They’re adults, one has a kid, they have lives and jobs and families and considerations (like the fact that they don’t live near each other) outside of just will we/won’t we. But they’re soft and sweet and… sunshine personified.

When I was writing it, I knew it was the book of my heart. It is a nod to drama club and high school theater and friends who stick with you and memories and things to work through in order to become the best version of yourself. It’s a reminder that we are more than our anxieties, and more than our jobs. It’s a ___ to anyone who is feeling the winds of change and wants to fly. There is so much of me in this book, and that’s ultimately why I ended up putting it on submission.

(Of course, now that it has been submitted, I’m nervous they’re too soft and too committed and, while the stakes are high—twenty-five years of friendship!!!—maybe they’re not high enough. I stand by it, though. Maybe, what this world needs is some sunshine-y softies falling in love.)

Shortly after I finished Love Out Loud, I was launched rather forcefully into the election and holiday season. I released two lighthearted novellas and finished up a third (coming tomorrow!) all while spreading the joy of the season. EVERYTHING WAS HAPPY, OKAY?

Except, I wasn’t.

I was burned out. I don’t generally rank school years, but last semester was up there in the top three worst of my entire career. Personally, politically, professionally… I was doing too much and never feeling like I was doing it well enough. And the writing? That thing I was doing for fun? That I had set such great boundaries around and was doing really well with it and writing all the happy love stories my little happy heart could handle? Yeah, I took some hits there, too. Stuff that was completely out of my control and had nothing to do with my boundaries: friends turning out to be not actually my friends, algorithm changes, social media turning into political theater, two Discord servers full of 900k people between them asking for pirated copies of books… you get the idea.

Where I used to need warmth and sunshine and lighthearted banter, I started to crave a different emotion. Where I wanted uplifting prose that made my heart sing, I started to need poignant prose that broke it in two.

What can I say? Where so many women have turned to feminine rage, I’ve turned to heartbreak.

A story started to take shape. Two bookish characters—a writer and an editor, maybe?—who both have a passion for language and writing. Their life story is intertwined with their book stories. They both need a second chance, with each other and for themselves. They’d pine, and then they’d pine some more. They’d be so wrapped up in words and pages and each other that they wouldn’t know where one ended and the other started. And because they’re both involved in books and writing and literary fiction, the prose of the whole book would be rich with metaphors. Poetic, even. (I did study creative writing and poetry in undergrad, after all.) And as if that weren’t enough, these characters had some past trauma: of burnout, of loss, of the ache that accompanies both. Because burnout can feel a lot like loss. Because you can grieve the loss of something you thought you’d have just as much as the loss of something you held onto dearly. Not a Strong Enough Word started to take shape.

I craved this book. I needed it. So I started writing it, fully knowing that I not only had too many other projects going to start this, but that it was going to break my heart.

But, you know what? I needed the heartbreak. I needed to pour all of my sadness and burnout and anxiety into something that reflected where I was and who I am at this moment in time.

I’m about 50,000 words in, and I don’t think there has been a time I’ve sat down to write that I haven’t cried. She’s depressed. He takes care of her. He wants to feel something again after she walked out of his life. There’s hair washing and tattoos and picnics in the park with a good book and sunlight. There are both internal and external forces keeping them apart and pushing them back together. There are words and pages and books. I cry because I need this book, and I’m so grateful I can write it. I cry because I’ve been there, and it hits close to home. I cry because, in letting my characters be sad, it heals something in me. It helps me process; it tells me I’m not alone.

Why keep writing in the midst of all of this? When things seem hopeless? When people are stealing work or finding shortcuts and cutting corners?

Last time, I wrote to find a joy I thought I had lost. This time, I’m writing because we’re all a little broken, and we all deserve to get put back together. They’re both important stories. They both deserve to be told.

And I’m equally excited for you to read both of them.

Love in the Time of Conversation Hearts is out TOMORROW! You can still pre-order your Kindle copy. Tomorrow, you can grab it on KU or snag a paperback from Amazon. (They’re real pretty.)

Here’s some more about it:

Cora Bennet is the Valentine’s Day queen.

Normally, it’s her job to drive tourism to her tiny lakeside town. And she’s really good at it. In February, that means organizing her favorite event—the annual Valentine’s Day fundraiser. Too bad this year she’s been distracted by her work-nemesis, Adam Sullivan. The handsome but infuriating mayor of Heartsong, California.

Adam is everything Cora is not. At least, that’s what she always thought. When a work conference leading up to the big event leaves the two sharing more than just a hotel room, the idea that they’re all that different starts to fade. In its place is something even scarier: a desire to repeat what should’ve been a one time mistake.

With the fundraiser looming closer, Cora has to make a decision. Is it time to give love a try, even if it’s with the last person she suspected? Or is she better off letting Cupid’s arrow pass her by?

Curious about co-writing a book? Hannah and I had a virtual hangout and chatted about our process. We won’t tell you who wrote what, but we do share some tips and insight into how we worked it all out.

So many new releases recently! Once you’re done reading Love in the Time of Conversation Hearts, check these out:

Ten years after a steamy college hook-up that neither of them has forgotten, Easton Mason and Maya Atler cross paths at a corporate conference in Las Vegas. Easton, now a personal injury attorney, is still the charming, happy-go-lucky guy with great hands that Maya remembers from University. While she, a soaring literary lawyer, remains the stubborn, ambitious go-getter with perfect legs that he’s never quite been able to get out of his head.

After a night on the strip leads to a little too much reminiscing and far too many tequila shots, Easton and Maya wake up the next morning very, very…married.

Maya’s determined to annul their nuptials before anyone else hears about their drunken mistake, while Easton is convinced their little mishap is a stroke of fate, and he’s not going to let her walk away this time. Before he signs away their marriage as if it never happened, he’s determine to convince Maya to give him one chance to prove that this experiment in love might just be a forever kind of deal.

Read it here!

Graham Sadler prefers to keep his circle small and enjoys the quieter side of life. When an invitation arrives for his ex-girlfriend’s wedding, the only person he can see being his date is the vibrant woman he hasn’t stopped thinking about since their first meeting. The only problem? He doesn’t know how anyone will believe they’re together. Or how he can fake anything around her.

Quinn Jackson hasn’t had it easy, but that doesn’t stop her positive outlook on life and constant smile. After years on the move, she has finally opened her dream bakery and is starting to feel settled in the quaint fishing town of Sutton Bay. All is going well, until it isn’t, and she’s too independent to ask for help. Enter the shy, sweet man who’s intrigued her for months and makes an offer she can’t refuse.

The line between real and fake starts to blur when they realize opposites absolutely attract. Their lives quickly intertwine, and two very different people bring out the best in each other. But will those differences and the people from their past stand in the way of the beautiful life they both desperately deserve?

Just One Moment is book #2 in the Sutton Bay series. A series of interconnected standalone stories set in coastal New England, with lots of feelings, swoon and spice!

Read it here!

We’ve also go trad re-releases of Give Me Butterflies by Jillian Meadows and The Wedding Menu by Letizia Lorini!

So many amazing books to read, so little time. I hope you have a great reading week!

Happy reading,
Allie