So, I’m back from an amazing ACFW conference, hanging out with all my author friends, brainstorming new novel ideas with my brilliant Sunrise Publishing authors, and eating way too much delicious food from the Peabody hotel.
But…this was one of their delicious desserts.
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It’s a duck. A white chocolate duck that appears to be floating in a pool of its own blood!! (It’s raspberry coulis), worse, the only way to eat the thing was to—and I want to be clear that the restaurant intended this—decapitate it.
I had some issues. First, I love white chocolate. And inside it was filled with chocolate mousse! I mean, priorities, right?
But, the poor duck. In the end, I scooped out the insides and left the head on my plate. But even as I write that it sounds like a crime scene. But it was oooh sooo tasty!
Let’s not talk about the duck. Let’s talk about how amazing it is to hang out with my Sunrise team and the uber-talented Sarah May Warren. We manned the Sunrise Media booth, I taught, we hugged people we didn’t know, and then Sarah and I got to sit together on the plane like a couple of kids on a field trip. (And we were bumped up to first class! #win)
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Here’s a thing I’ve learned in a career of making stuff up for a living: writing is lonely. It’s you and a blinking cursor and the fear that you’ve forgotten how sentences work. (Every book. Every single time.)
But it doesn’t have to stay lonely. One of my favorite things about Sunrise is that I get to collaborate — either as an editor to help an author bring a story to the page. Or as a co-writer, working alongside some amazing authors.
Case in point: The Story Between Us
This one is special. It was Sarah’s story — her heart, her characters, her vision — she told me the story, and then I wrote it. Which is why the cover reads Susan & Sarah May Warren.
(Frankly, I think I should always write my books this way!)
Livvie Fox has spent six years being too nice for New York publishing — baking cupcakes for the coworkers who steal her promotions and the boss who can’t be bothered to learn her name. Then that boss drops a bomb: reclusive bestseller Ian Rivers is two years past deadline, and if his contract dies, so does Livvie’s job.
What her boss doesn’t know is that Ian Rivers is a pen name — and the man behind it is Nate Rivers, who shut down the day his twin sister died. The boy Livvie almost kissed on a dock the summer she was twenty.
Nate doesn’t write anymore. Doesn’t take meetings. Doesn’t open his door for anyone—until the woman his late sister loved like family shows up in Maple Lake with stolen soup, a looming deadline, and a Flannel Festival weekend he can’t hide from.
The chapter neither of them ever wrote is finally demanding to be told.
Some what-ifs deserve a second chapter.
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(Available NOW in the Sunrise Shop!)
The early reviews are so kind. One said it made her cry tears of sorrow, redemption, and joy — and that Livvie’s faith in Nate is what gives him the courage to write again. She also demanded Sarah and I go write YA fantasy next, which, noted.
My favorite line from the book, and the one I keep thinking about: “You (need to) trust that God’s writing a better story than you could have plotted yourself.”
And speaking of writing with amazing writers, my novel with the marvelous Tari Faris, Nothing But Air (Summer Rangers, Book 3) hit #1 on Amazon in its category. Two writers, one Grand Canyon, a whole lot of treasure-hunting chaos, and a book neither of us could have written alone. 
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Grab both while they’re the preorder/launch price!
I’m so glad to be home. I took yesterday off and sat on my sofa and binge-watched a show. It was great. I’ll tell you about it Friday.
For now, thank you for reading our books. I’m deeply grateful.
Have a fabulous week!
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