People often ask me where the Starting Over Trilogy came from, and I love telling this story because, honestly, the trilogy I ended up writing is not the book I set out to write. Not even close.
It All Started With a Little Girl
Here’s a fun fact. Emily’s Next Chapter began its life under a completely different title. The original working title was To Lily With Love, and it was going to be a love story between a stepmother and her stepdaughter.
You see, I’m a stepmom. When I started dating my now-husband, Scott, his daughter was barely five years old. As our relationship grew more serious, I went looking for stories about how to be a stepmother, how to build that relationship, and how to be a positive female role model for a young child. And I kept coming up empty.
Oh, there were plenty of books about wicked stepmothers. Plenty of guides were for women becoming stepmoms who had no children of their own. But I struggled to find anything for someone like me, a woman who was already a mom, stepping into the life of a child who already had a mom of her own.
I refused to become the wicked stepmother of fairy tales. I wanted to build something beautiful with this little girl, and I wanted to write a story about that. But as I started writing, I realized the story was about so much more.
Falling in Love Later in Life
What I discovered on the page was a story about falling in love in our 40s and 50s. When we fall in love later in life, we bring our histories with us. We’re invested in our careers. We may have grown children ready to do their own things. We might not have the health we had in our 20s. Menopause. Enough said on that one.
And so my stepmother story became a love story between Emily and Lucas, and Emily’s Next Chapter was born.
Now, at book events, people love to ask me if I am Emily. The answer is no. Yes, Emily is a writer. Yes, she has two grown children as I do. And yes, she got divorced under circumstances that weren’t exactly flattering to her ex-husband. But Emily isn’t me. Emily represents hundreds, if not thousands, of women who have found themselves starting over in love and life. Because when one door closes, or in some cases gets slammed in your face, what are you to do but find a new path forward?
If we’re talking tropes, Emily’s Next Chapter has your second-chance romance, some Minnesota charm, a single dad love interest (that’s Lucas), a bookish heroine (that’s Emily), and all the lovey feels that come with a found family. I like to call it the Hallmark movie that isn’t a Hallmark movie, all wrapped up in one easy-to-read book.
Then Came Jessica
Here’s the thing. The story didn’t stop with Emily. As my ARC readers shared their feedback, we all realized there were more stories to tell. Emily isn’t the only one starting over. Women are doing this everywhere. So why stop with her?
Most people probably wouldn’t expect my second book to follow the male love interest’s ex-wife. But that’s exactly what happened. Jessica is Lucas’s ex-wife, and Jessica’s New Beginning came out in March 2026.
Aren’t ex-wives supposed to be evil? Well, I’m an ex-wife. So I had zero interest in writing evil ex-wives. I wanted the women in these books to be good people. Strong women with careers, friendships, families, flaws, fears, and lives of their own.
By the time I wrote Jessica’s story, I understood my characters better, and my readers were telling me what they wanted. Some wanted more spice. Some wanted more depth. Some wanted something that pulled at their heartstrings differently than Emily’s sweet romance. So I went there, and Jessica’s story got heavy.
While I was writing it, my mom was facing serious health concerns, and I was living with the fear of losing her. I won’t spoil anything, but one of the subplots deals with death and loss. Just five days after I finished the first draft, my mom suffered a massive stroke, and we lost her two days later. Looking back, I don’t think I could have written Jessica’s story the same way at any other point in my life.
And Then Liz Showed Up
As Jessica’s story grew more emotional, I knew I needed something with a little levity. I also figured that if I was writing a second book, I should probably write a third. A trilogy makes a lot more sense than a duology, right?
That’s how Liz was born. I introduced her in Jessica’s story, and Liz’s Forever After arrived in June 2026. By then, I was having some fun and testing what I could do as a fiction writer. My readers kept asking for more spice, and who was I to say no to the people supporting me on this journey?
When I describe Liz’s Forever After at book events, I use three words. Fun, flirty, and sexy. Unlike Emily and Jessica, who had both been married before, Liz is perpetually single and perfectly happy having hot, monogamous relationships without letting them become anything more. There’s a reason for that. A tragedy in her early 20s left her afraid to fall in love and fully commit. At the heart of it, she’s terrified of experiencing that kind of loss again. But then Matt gets under her skin. And, well, you’ll have to read the trilogy to see what happens.
Three Books, Three Flavors
Let’s talk peppers. When I describe my books in terms of heat, Emily’s Next Chapter gets a green bell pepper. Jessica’s New Beginning gets two red chili peppers. Liz’s Forever After gets three. That doesn’t mean Emily is a prude. It simply reflects where I was in my writing and my willingness to try different storylines and different levels of physicality.
If you love spice, you can absolutely skip Emily and start with Jessica. But I don’t suggest reading Liz without reading Jessica first, because somehow, Jessica became the character who ties the whole trilogy together.
One thing I never planned was the common thread of loss running through all three books. When I wrote Emily, I drew on my own loss through divorce. As I wrote Jessica and Liz, loss was running rampant in my own life, and some of that found its way into my fiction. You’ll see it with Will and Matt, too, since both men are widowers. Because here’s the truth. When we start over in love a little older and a little wiser, many of us bring loss with us. I adore a happy love story where everyone dances on a beach under the golden sun. But I also want my books to acknowledge that love can still find us after bad things happen.
That, my friends, is the heart of the Starting Over Trilogy. Three women. Three fresh starts. Three very different love stories. And every single one comes with a happy ending.