Chicago | Nicole Evelina – USA Today Bestselling Author

I know, I know, it’s been a minute since I’ve posted anything about writing or life. I’m even late with my August newsletter. But I have reasons.

Health Update
First, some of you may have seen on social that I was in the hospital about a week and a half ago. I went in via ambulance thinking I was having a heart attack (shortness of breath, dull pain in my left arm). My heart was fine, but in the course of testing they found I had three small blot clots in my lungs. I would never have known had I not gone in. (Listen to your body! It could save your life.)

They admitted me and pumped me full of blood thinners and now I’m home, back to work and taking blood thinners at home. (Which I will likely be on for the rest of my life.) They couldn’t find a reason for the clots; all my tests came back normal, so that is really scary. I’m paranoid about making sure I don’t sit in one place for too long at a time now.

As a result, I’m stepping back from some of the volunteer things I’ve been doing. I had a potential book project going on, but that fell through, and as much as I would have loved to have worked on it, I’m kind of glad. This situation forced me to look at the manic pace at which I’ve been working for at least two years now and settle down a bit. That is one weight off my shoulders.

Book Announcement – August 15
I’ve been sitting on this one for about a month and a half, but soon I will finally be able to tell you about a historical fiction book I have under contract! I’m really excited about it and I hope you will be, too. It’s a tight turnaround, but I know I can do it. And we have a cover to reveal at the same time! So please mark your calendars!

I’ve Joined TikTok
I finally gave in and went to the dark side. I’m on TikTok. (Find me here.) I’ve been lurking for a few months and realized its really not that bad when you find people of like mind. I’m going to try to make videos a few times a week. Right now it is just me trying to get used to how it works, but eventually you’ll see more book stuff on there too. So if you’re on, please follow me and feel free to like or comment on my videos. And if you have suggestions for improvement or things you’d like to see, I’m all ears.

Book Updates

We are just about three months out from the release of Sex and the City: A Cultural History! It is at the printer and I should be getting advanced copies within a few weeks. You’ll be seeing more and more about it as we ramp up marketing efforts.
The League of Women Voters book has a title: Raising Our Voices: The League of Women Voters in St. Louis 1690-2022. It is being sent to the publisher as we speak. More to come.
America’s Forgotten Suffragists is still in copy editing, but they say I should get those files back next week sometime. I’ll have a week to go through everything and then in late September I’ll see the book laid out for the first time in page proofs.
The Arthurian non-fiction book I wrote a chapter for is getting closer to publication. I completed edits that the potential publisher wanted a few weeks ago. Now we wait.
And yes, the Fierce Females on Television book is still happening, but it’s on the back burner right now with everything else that is going on. It’s due January 13. Plenty of time, right?

Chanticleer Conference Summary
I was planning on doing a full write up of the Chanticleer Conference but time got away from me and I don’t have the energy. Short version: It was one of the best conferences I’ve ever been to! I made so many amazing new friends and it was great reconnecting with old friends. America’s Forgotten Suffragists and The Guinevere’s Tale Trilogy both won Grand Prizes! And I got to speak something like four times. It was amazing.

T-minus Two Years (or less) to the Windy City
At the Chanticleer Conference, I made a promise to my Chicago friends that I will move there within the next two years. And life, as it usually does to everyone, promptly gave me a leak in my basement, a hospital stay, and car bills, which takes away from paying off debt and being able to move. Whatever. It will still happen.

I think that’s everything outside of the day job. Oh, my birthday is coming up later this month. Maybe I should update my Amazon wishlist!

Yay! It’s Been Searching for You‘s publication day! Here are the buy links:

What follows was actually written as a guest post for another site, but I loved it so much I decided to use it here and over at Spellbound Scribes as well since I have limited time to write these things in between conferences. Some of it will be familiar because of things I’ve said here in the past, but I urge you to read it anyway, as I hope it will give you some insight into why I consider this book more than just a love story, though it is very much one of those, too.

I never thought I’d write a romance. I actually swore I’d never write romance because I really disliked romance books for a long time – until I realized what I really hated was certain types of romance, specifically the more traditional ones where the hero has a pronounced physical reaction every time he sees the heroine, if you get my drift. Those make me want to barf. Others are pretty darn good.

But I still had one pet peeve: most heroines, especially in romantic comedies, are under 30. If there’s a wedding involved, it’s “OMG, I’m going to be 30 and not married!” As a 36-year-old single girl, allow me to smack you. So, what did I do? I went and wrote my own love story, one for those of us who are over 30 *gasp*, still single and still romantics at heart. I wrote it because I wanted to write the happily ever after I haven’t yet experienced.

The book came to life because of the Civil Wars songs “To Whom it May Concern” and “Dust to Dust,” both of which my best friend introduced me to. They seem to be bookends to a love story to me, so I swore I’d write a book that began with the words “To Whom it May Concern” and ended with the words “Dust to Dust.” And I did.

But while Been Searching for You is a fun beach read that won’t set the world on fire, it’s also much more than “just a romance.” It’s about a woman’s struggle to overcome her past hurts, heal and learn to trust again. Even if the reader hasn’t been traumatized in the same way as Annabeth, chances are good there are a few scars he or she can’t let go of; such things are a consequence of dating.

It’s about the struggle to connect in a meaningful way in the modern world, which seems to value hookups more than relationships with actual lasting meaning. Throughout the book, Annabeth struggles with having old fashioned romantic tendencies in a society that wants her to be happy with getting laid. That dichotomy is part of the reason why I chose not to have graphic sex scenes in this book; I wanted to show that it’s possible to have romance while the sex takes place off the page.

It’s also about friendship and the ways we support or harm one another through our interactions, ulterior motives and positive and negative reactions to life. I have had a few frienemies in my life (friends whom you are aware are likely to stab you in the back when it is convenient) and I wanted to explore that odd dynamic, one that I’m finding from contest feedback is much more common among younger readers than older. It didn’t begin with Mean Girls but that movie certainly brought it to the fore of societal consciousness.

Finally, the book also has strong themes of the power of education (especially in literature and writing) to affect students and positively change the world. This is a topic I’m personally passionate about and I’m sure it shows in the novel. In a world fixated on wealth (the quicker the buck, the better) I wanted to show how less flashy, sexy career paths can have meaning. Chalk this one up to the book lover in me!

One element Been Searching for You lacks that most traditional romantic comedies employ is a deception of some sort. You know the storyline: the fake boyfriend/fiancée, the woman pretending to be rich when she’s not, the person with a lie that will have to come out in the end. I think reason for this is twofold: 1) I hate deception, especially when it is contrived, and when it’s obviously contrived its like nails on a chalkboard and 2) I never sat down with the intention of writing a romantic comedy. I was writing a love story, plain and simple. When it ended up being laugh-out-loud funny, I dubbed it a rom-com.

Whether you like it, love it or hate it, I hope Been Searching for You is a worthy contribution to the annals of contemporary romance, albeit on the sweet side (but it’s not totally sweet due to references to sex and a bit of adult language). It was intended to be a standalone novel, but my beta readers are begging for more, so if you want me to extend this into a series, I need you to let me know. Either way, I wish you happy reading and hope that Annabeth, Alex, Mia and Miles are good company into the summer vacation season for all of you.