Hello, everybody! So, with MADLY coming in a few months, I wanted to share some bits and pieces about this story to get you ready for it — especially since I know that a lot of you aren’t book bloggers and don’t have access to advance review copies.
One of the fun things about MADLY is that it’s a double sequel — it’s not only the second book in the New York Series that begins in TRULY, but also a follow-up to my second book, ABOUT LAST NIGHT.
MADLY throws together Allie Fredericks, May’s younger sister in TRULY who walks away from her groom on her wedding day, with Winston Chamberlain, the older brother of Nev in ABOUT LAST NIGHT. Those of you who remember Winston at all probably remember him as completely awful in every way, since his primary role in ABOUT LAST NIGHT is to blackmail his brother, get in the way of the romance, and be reprehensible. So many bad choices! But this is one of the things I enjoy about humans — we make bad choices all the time. We learn. We grow. And several years after the happy ending of ABOUT LAST NIGHT, Winston is in a different place (physically and mentally) and ready to have different experiences.
The third New York Series book, still in progress, is also planned to be a double sequel, though I won’t say just how, at the moment.
Here’s a tiny peek into Winston’s point of view from the second chapter. Happy reading!
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“Ooh. It’s space pirates!”
The most interesting woman he’d met in years pointed through the glass top of the pinball game. “Look, there’s the spaceship, and there’s the captain and his first officer in a gun battle.”
Her skinny body folded over the tight belt of her trench coat. Her fedora sat at the crown of her head, affixed at a rakish angle over a coil of upswept hair. She wore silk stockings with tall heels, but this costume—which would have been conservative on a London businesswoman waiting for the train—looked like a dare. As though she wore it to announce to the world that with this woman, they ought to expect the unexpected.
It was something of a miracle that he’d accepted her invitation to join her in the first place. Allie Fredericks was the sort of person Winston usually made space around when their paths crossed—the sort he’d expect to encounter headlining an off-Broadway production of the type his daughter, Bea, sent him to see, or being profiled in one of the Humans of New York stories she liked to send him. How the other half lives, she’d tag the articles when she shared them. Or, A little humanity to brighten your day.
What she meant was these were people with big lives and big stories.
Bea wasn’t wrong: it had been a very long time since Winston let himself be drawn to a woman with a story. Decades.
Until Allie had grabbed hold of his lapels and pulled him on top of her, he’d forgotten how exciting they could be.