How My Debut Novel (Accidentally) Became a Series

Isn’t it just like an author to write a standalone romance book and then fall in love with the characters and the world they created so deeply that they turn that standalone book into a series?

Just me?

Well this is awkward.

Seriously, though, that’s really the jist of how it happened. When I was writing Dream of Me, I wasn’t really focused much on anything beyond that. I wanted to be an author. I wanted to write a book that meant something to me, something I could finish and publish.

I want to finally have something to hold in my hands rather than one more unfinished book sitting forgotten in an old Google Drive folder. Or worse, on a long dead laptop’s hard drive.

So as I finished Dream of Me, I was only thinking of that.

Once it was done, though, and my eye started turning onto my next project, I knew I just couldn’t leave behind the world I’d created. I love Mia and Nick, and I’d fallen in love with the people in their lives, too.

Didn’t they deserve to have a story?

Didn’t they deserve to have their own happily ever afters?

Honestly, it felt cruel not to give them that, and if there’s anything to be said about me, cruel is not it. So of course I began mapping out Alexis’ story next. She was the smart and sassy bestie to the main character in Dream of Me, but just as is the case with everyone in their small town, Alexis has a secret of her own.

As of this blog post in January of 2024, I’ve got her story completely mapped out and about half-way written. Her book, When the Snow Falls, will come out sometime in the spring of 2024 and officially become the second book in the St. John’s Secrets series.