My next project.

(no, not the YA; no, not the one on sub)

This morning I woke up and my first thought was, is this book going to give me a mental breakdown? and for some reason, this felt like a good time to start telling people about it. Even though I’m still editing it, and I haven’t nailed down a release date yet. Is this a sign the mental breakdown is already in full swing? Possibly!

If you’ve had the misfortune of knowing me or hearing me talk at any point over the last year or two, you’ve likely heard me mention this project at some point as Coast Book, or Beach Book, or That WIP I Kept Working On After It Was Rejected Even Though I Really Should Have Been Working on Other Things. I feel like I have been working on it forever. It is possible it’s making me mentally unwell. It is possible I always think this about every book.

It’s tentatively called Heartwaves, and here is an equally tentative synopsis:

Mae Kellerman is content. After forty years of ups and downs, she has a meaningful job at a queer community center in Portland, Oregon. She has an apartment full of plants, a ride-or-die group of friends.

Until the day her best friend and mentor actually does up and die. Leaving Mae with a hole in her heart—and a shocking amount of money from his inheritance.

Before she can think about the cash, she has to focus on throwing his perfect death party, followed by spreading his ashes on the Oregon coast. Only then does she take a breath, and in the process, stumbles upon an empty storefront for sale in the tiny whale-watching town of Greyfin Bay. Overnight, an old dream surfaces…and her newfound inheritance could make it possible.

If only Dell McCleary didn’t stand in her way.

Real estate agent and owner of said storefront, Dell only sells property to the folks actually invested in the best interests of Greyfin Bay. Not some Portlander with pink hair who breezes in on a whim. A Portlander who, irritatingly, refuses to take no for an answer.

As Mae upends her life for the pursuit of opening a queer-owned bookstore in a conservative coastal town, she and Dell are forced to work together, navigating prejudices and past traumas along the way. But as opening day of Bay Books grows nearer, Mae’s heart grows increasingly tangled with her landlord’s—even if his own heart might already belong to someone else.

Heartwaves is a contemporary queer romance that explores the risks and rewards of life in any landscape, and the freedom to lift the limitations we put on love.  

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This book started for me as, and I think most strongly remains, an exploration of small town romance—and I mean classic, mass-market small town romance, with flowers and cottages on the covers—a sub-genre that has always brought me immense comfort, at the same time that I grapple with it deeply as a queer person. A queer person raised in a small town who now lives in a liberal city, specifically. In a way, it’s me paying tribute to (while grappling deeply with) romance as a whole—the tropes are incredibly familiar, but then along the way I make everything weird.

Here’s a list of my favorite things about it:

• they’re both fat!

• they’re both in their forties!

• they’re both bi/pan/queer/whateverthefuck!

• everyone is nonbinary!! not really but……it’s at least 50/50 with cisness in this one

• for actual information though: Mae and Dell are both stereotypically feminine and masculine presenting, but the pairing in my heart is nb/nb

• a pack of dogs named Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young

• books! I think Alexis Hall said once that every writer, at some point, will write a book about books, so here I am. the world is horrifying; why SHOULDN’T I indulge in a little fantasy about opening a bookstore with a view of the ocean, tell me I can’t!!

• related: I’ll Make You Bookshelves as a love language

• plants and flowers!

• matcha lattes!

• tattoos/beards/pink hair/pretty nails

• a butch elder who owns the IGA

• crying to Judy Garland

• crossovers with some of my favorite previously written worlds (see: me just having a good time)

• by accident, it’s an incredibly slow burn (sorry/you’re welcome)!

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While these are all fun things, the more I work on Heartwaves, the more I worry that it has become, perhaps, a bloated document of me simply needing to explore many things for myself rather than, per se, Making Good Book.

At the same time, if one can’t self-publish a magnum opus of Exploring Things One Needs To Explore At the Time, what is even the point of words?

So, other than exploring queerness in small towns, Heartwaves also explores:

• the guilt of leaving a public service job for more selfish pursuits

• grief!

• related: getting old and watching people you love also get old

• the concept of polyamory

• feelings about gender while being stereotypically femme and masc

• mess

• like, sometimes you move a lot throughout your life and love a lot of different people and make mistakes and hurt people and have people hurt you and sometimes your memories just all feel as big as your dreams!! and you are very competent but also messy

And then as a bonus, I thought it’d be cool to sit with some of my worst fears and learn more about PTSD.

So…that’s about it!

I’m hoping to publish Heartwaves in June or July. I’m hoping to send out a small number of ARCs/be more competent about all of this soon.

Hope you’re doing as well as you can,

xo

anita