WHAT HAPPENED TO RACHEL RILEY?

You can find out now. 🕵🏼‍♀️

Being an Author (TM) involves a lot of hard days.

Queries that go unanswered. Submissions that get denied. Edit letters that feel like literal death. (Does anyone else cry real tears every single edit letter they get? No? Just me and my fragile ego?)

Awards not won, lists not made. Tweets that float across your timeline calling your characters flat. Aloof relatives asking “oh, you’re still doing that? That whole writing thing?”

Before I got any book deal at all, I swore myself I wouldn’t complain about my career in public. Because while all of these are real stresses, they also drive me nuts to see written about so consistently. Sometimes I want to shake people and remind them that our job is literally MAKING THINGS UP; that other people have to, like, look at spreadsheets all day or stand for ten hours at the KwikTrip and we get to pull universes and characters and relationships out of thin air. Our career is one big cushy pillow of privilege and I did not, not, not want to ever lose sight of that.

So I always try to remember the good days, too. The glowing reviews and Instagram shares; the two (two, guys! Two!) times at school visits when girls have shyly handed me fanart of my characters. Emails proclaiming little old *me* someone’s favorite author. Those emails with headlines of OFFER.

And today. Launch day. The day you can buy What Happened to Rachel Riley? in stores. The day it shows up on peoples’ front stoops months and months after preorders. The day I can go visit the book myself, in waxy lamination at the local library.

In our hurried, good desire to form camaraderie in the trenches of writing and publishing, may we not forget the sweet celebration of a book release day. The joy of a fresh new book in our hands, a story told and written and edited and submitted and revised and marketed and now, finally, published.

If you’re on the fence about reading What Happened to Rachel Riley?, I hope this starred review from BookPage helps convince you. The book was also selected as an Indie Next title for winter 2023, meaning independent bookstore owners read it + enjoyed it, and Amazon chose it as one of their books of the month for January. I got a chance to speak with Publisher’s Weekly about my inspiration behind the book + the days of Hollister sweatpants.

My publisher is also hosting a giveaway on Goodreads, if you feel so inclined to enter!

Rachel, Anna, Cody and the gang can’t wait to tell their story. I hope you and the middle grader in your life love it. ❤️

Local friends—please join us tonight at the book launch party! We’ll be celebrating at Books and Company in Oconomowoc, WI at 6:00 PM. Cookies, gift bags, and big hugs galore. Kids are more than welcome.

And lastly, a book I’ve loved lately for…

Kids: The Story Orchestra: Swan Lake by Katy Flint was a Christmas gift for my kiddos, and we’ve been absolutely loving it. The story orchestra books are so fun—picture books told off of famous ballets. I will say the ending of this version is, ahem, much more kid friendly than the actual ballet. Reading it aloud is a delight.

Middle graders: I restarted Charlotte’s Web; this time, I’m reading it aloud with my 4-year-old daughter. I had a hunch she’d fall head over heels for Wilber and his friends and I was right. There’s sometimes a reason that classics are, well, classic.

Adults: In times of stress and deadlines, I go back to familiar favorites. Picnic in Provence by Elizabeth Bard will forever be one of my standbys. Dreamy French country life, musings on motherhood, and obsessive descriptions of tomatoes? I’m here for it.

Thanks for reading along!

-Claire-