Book Girl: The Giveaway

What I read, wrote, and did in October, plus the chance to win a limited-edition pack of Blackberry Spindrift.

How excited am I to be back in your inboxes with our usual monthly update and a VERY exciting partnership. Let’s crack open something bubbly (is your fridge empty of seltzer? I can help you out) and get right to it!

Last month, I shared the cover of my debut novel, The Art of Vanishing. I am so bowled over by all of the support that flooded in from the announcement — thank you so much to every friend, family member, and reader who texted, commented, and preordered!

If you would like to preorder a signed copy, I’ve teamed up with some of my fave booksellers at Books Are Magic to take those orders. Click here to place your order. Please feel free to indicate how you’d like it personalized in the instructions field at check out and I will take care of whatever personalizations you desire!

Speaking of preordering, I’ve teamed up with my fave sparkling water brand, Spindrift, for the BEST giveaway. This summer, Spindrift brought their beloved Blackberry flavor out of the vault for a limited edition run that sold out completely. BUT they found a few cases and asked if I, a big fan of Blackberry Spindrift, wanted to do a giveaway. The answer was ABSOLUTELY yes.

If you’ve already ordered your copy (or if you would like to do so now), please fill out this form to be entered to win an eight pack of Blackberry spindrift. There will be 36 winners! The odds are great that you might be one of them! You can preorder in any format (hardcover, ebook, or audiobook) and from any store. The giveaway ends 12/8, so enter today.

What I’m reading (October Edition):

My, oh my, was October a good reading month.

• Two highly anticipated work reads publishing Summer 2025: Don’t Let Him In by Lisa Jewell and My Friends by Fredrik Backman. Totally different books and both TOTALLY live up to their hype. I think I can say Don’t Let Him In is my favorite Lisa Jewell novel (and I LOVED None of This Is True, so that is saying something!!!!) and I wasn’t prepared for how hard I would cry at the end of My Friends. It was that good. I can’t wait for you all to read both of them.

• Also to add to your 2025 radar: Sash Bischoff’s debut Sweet Fury. Highly recommend for fans of Fitzgerald, of Hollywood, and of unreliable narrators. I read this entire novel in one sitting. Don’t miss this one.

• If I haven’t talked to you about Bethany Joy Lenz’s memoir Dinner for Vampires, then I haven’t seen you in the last month. This was a PERFECT audiobook. I love One Tree Hill, but I don’t even think a love of that show is necessary to read this one. But you must enjoy reading about cults!

• I love Stanley Tucci and listening to him read me journal entries about everything he ate last year was incredibly soothing. But if you’re just entering into the Tucci memoir universe, you should start with Taste!

• I checked another book off of my personal goal of reading every book Ann Patchett’s ever written and I loved Truth & Beauty. It’s a beautiful and sad memoir of friendship and it’s not really a book on writing craft but it is one I think other writers would enjoy.

What I’m writing:

At the end of September, I got my pass pages of The Art of Vanishing from my editor. These are the typeset pages, so words appear on the page as they will in the finished book — the same font, the same page numbers, everything! This is the last time I get to make any changes to the book so I went through the entire thing, top to bottom, one last time. I changed a few sentences and the proofreader and I cleaned up a few last quirks, and then I sent it back. The book is done! I won’t get to change it ever again! Now it’s my first novel and my relationship with it will surely change as it becomes more than just mine because it will be yours too!

What I’m listening to:

This month, I’ve found myself revisiting this playlist I made in the spring of 2020. This playlist and these songs got me through the beginning of lock down and that sad, weird, hard to define time in our lives.

What I’ve been up to:

October will always go down in my personal history as the month I got to show you all the cover of The Art of Vanishing and the outpouring of love and support I felt following that announcement.

Apart from that, I wrote and I worked (a lot). The team I manage at work is growing and a lot of this month was dedicated to interviewing, onboarding, and training, as well as finalizing plans for some major upcoming books.

I kept running! This hobby lives on! I ran three times a week, every single week in October. I also started taking reformer pilates classes, which I’ve been really enjoying. I’ve been working to really stay in touch with and listen to my body.

Ariana, my cousin and best friend, came to visit at the beginning of October and I took Saturday off to do a 12 hour readathon with her. It was SO much fun and I realized as it was happening that it was the first day I’d taken off in an entire month. Every day in September was either a day for work or for writing and boy did my brain need the break.

I’m not a big Halloween person, but I am a huge fan of my friend group’s tradition of watching Practical Magic and making margaritas during the midnight margs scene and that was just as fun this year as it is every year.

The Game:

In case you’ve missed it, The Game is a series I’ve created for my Instagram stories. I ask my followers to give me something they love: a song, a movie, a place, a person, an era of history, a time of the year, a feeling, etc and I p air it with a book rec. I put the call out on my Instagram stories yesterday so here are a few pairings. Come back next month for more!

1. Girl gang — We Play Ourselves by Jen Silverman

2. Tacos — Ramón and Julieta by Alana Quintana Albertson

3. Great British Bake Off — The Golden Spoon by Jessa Maxwell

4. That’s So True by Gracie Abrams — Good Material by Dolly Alderton

5. Must survive the week!!! — Joan is Okay by Weike Wang

6. Dancing with the Stars — Take the Lead by Alexis Daria

That’s all for now! Don’t forget to enter to win your case of Spindrift!