Before we go too deep into this post, I need to start with a few disclaimers. First, this post is not directed towards Evie Woods or anyone on or affiliated with her team. Second, there will be spoilers for The Lost Bookshop. Content warnings for familial and marital abuse, domestic violence, forced institutionalization, abduction, abandonment, loss of a child, and death, as depicted in  The Lost Bookshop . Reader discretion is advised. via Goodreads I'm a mood reader with a

This week, I turn 30. I've found myself doing a fair bit of reflecting over the past weeks. The past decade especially has been quite the roller coaster between the various jobs I've had, navigating grief several times over, a freaking pandemic, a newly developed chronic illness, finally receiving an ADHD diagnosis after years of quietly dismissed speculation, and just trying to figure out who I want to be, not just who I'm permitted or expected to be. Despite the setbacks,

In the past few days, I've come across what seems to have been dubbed the "analog trend," which encourages decreasing your daily screentime in favor of tactile, low-tech activities. You may have seen "analog bags" containing things like puzzles, sketchbooks, or travel-size versions of popular board games. The "analog trend" may be newly coined, but it's not exactly anything new. Last fall, there was a social media trend of people recording themselves setting a timer and doin

Writing isn't glamorous. We spend a lot of time hunched over our computers, staring at blank screens with a mug of lukewarm coffee. A lot of us are in sweatpants and t-shirts with hair in messy buns not for the aesthetics but because it needs to be out of the way. Writing is early mornings with the 5 AM writer's club (or staying up incredibly late if you're a night owl writer like me). It's rewriting. Grappling with negative feedback and rejection and self-loathing at time

Romance, like any genre, has its conventions. That dependability is what keeps readers coming back. A romance without a happily-ever-after ending or, at a minimum, a happily-for-now is going to get raked across the firiest of coals by its audience. There are also tropes that won't appear in every romance novel but tend to be reliable favorites for those who seek them out, like enemies-to-lovers and office romances. And then, you've got the tropes and genre conventions that re