On Wednesdays, We Show Something BEAUTIFUL

Once upon a time I posted about this weird little Addams Family romcom I was writing on Wednesdays; THIS Wednesday I’m posting THE cover

Way back when I first started writing Hopelessly Teavoted, and then revising it, I would post mood boards and art and snippets on Wednesdays, because of Wednesday Addams.

And so this Wednesday, I’m ready. I am going to choose joy, and no wizard that there is or was (cough bigots in charge, cough salutes, cough) is going to bring me down.

On Wednesdays, we don’t just wear pink. We also talk about Wednesday and the Addams Family in general.

Anyway, this is going to be the ultimate Wednesday post, because my spooky sparkly book has a cover!!!!

THE HOPELESSLY TEAVOTED COVER 😭

Isn’t it gorgeous?? The artist is Camila Gray (@camisgray on instagram) and I have long admired her work on incredible books by Jo Segura (check out Temple of Swoon and Raiders of the Lost Heart) and Liana De la Rosa (Ana María and the Fox, Isabel and the Rogue, Gabriella and His Grace), as well as all of her fantastic art on instagram. I was so excited when I heard she was available to illustrate, and my cover designer at Atria did a stellar job of putting it all together. Truly, I am overwhelmed by how much this cover nails the vibe of the book, and by how much my whole team—editors, marketing, design—seems to really SEE it. It’s spooky, it’s sparkly, and it’s bisexual. I love it.

Azrael Hart and Vickie Starnberger are so perfect here, and that little cat? That’s Emily Lickinson! Azrael is an angsty witch in all of his feelings. He is allergic to cats, but adopts Emily anyway, and finds that she is quite worth taking benadryl to have in his life. I will note that my children saw this cover and said this is really pretty, but it would be better as a book and a cover if I had written a black cat into the book. Which is fine, because they definitely can’t read it until they are much older than elementary school. So in my next book, I’ll write a black cat. Salem, my actual cat, is a little black cat, and he is the very best cat in the entire world, I’m sorry to tell you, even better than Emily Lickinson. I know, it’s hard to be better than Emily. She loves hope, and things with feathers.

Here’s the book in a sentence:

An angsty, anxious witch returns home after his parent’s death to discover that his former childhood crush has bought his parents teashop, and has feelings for him, too, only to be cursed so that he will die if they touch.

Here’s the book in a paragraph:

Mourning the death of his parents and his career, Azrael Hart returns to his hometown of Hallowcross, Vermont. He discovers that his childhood crush, a sunshiny girl with death powers, Vicki Starnberger, is fighting to keep the tea shop she bought from his family. When they’re forced to work together to face a magical threat, they finally figure out their feelings—just in time for a curse to keep them from laying a single ungloved finger on each other.

If you’re reading this and thinking, wow, I need to read that book, you can add it to a want to read list on Goodreads or preorder it here. You can also request it from your local library; authors LOVE libraries.

Now, to play myself out with a little song…

I want to give a special shout out to my friend Gina Orlando, who reminded me that jokingly calling this romcom a romtraumdramacom was the perfect opportunity for me to combine genre mashing AND Chappell Roan, two things I love dearly.

So, sing it with me, to the tune of Femininomenom:

Can you write a book with some fucking tea?

Hit it like rom - traum - dram - com

Get it hot like Alderaan*

Make a bitch go on and on,

IT’S A ROM DRAM TRAUMA COM**!

*So sorry, RIP the planet Alderaan and every fictional person who died that day, however, as a lifelong Star Wars lover this is a reference that popped into my head and once it happened, I simply could not ignore it.

**It is, in its heart, a romcom, though. It’s set in our world, but slightly kinder, and with magic. It has an HEA, only the truly evil are no longer with us at the end, and it posits the idea that grieving people, we deserve love, and magic, and comedy, too.

Stay tuned for a newsletter with updates. Order Hopelessly Teavoted or add it on goodreads. Follow me on instagram for mediocre cat and book content. You can find my socials and other fun stuff here.