We're so back

You sell a book, and you reset your goals, and you lose sight of the dream as it was when you first dreamed it. It’s so over.

I spent basically all of 2025 going it’s so over in regards to various aspects of my authoring career. Transparently, I had a YA on submission that never sold, I suspected well ahead of time my debut wouldn’t be a blockbuster, and I was going through a lot in my personal life that crushed my capacity to the size of an ant.

Recently I cured myself of this melancholy by updating my author website. I have three more books under contract. By the end of 2027 I will have published four books. Four! Four four four!! The me of 2022 would have found that unfathomable. So, too, the me of 2021, 2020, 2019…etc. You sell a book, and you reset your goals, and you lose sight of the dream as it was when you first dreamed it. It’s so over. Until it isn’t.

I’m burying the lede—today I’m truly delighted to be announcing another book deal, in a new genre.

READY OAR NOT, my debut romcom, will release in spring 2027 from Alcove Press. I’m under a new pen name with it, Kvita Eyi, and about to start edits with my editor. The official PM announcement goes live tomorrow. Here it is early:

Kvita Eyi’s READY OAR NOT, a debut bi4bi¹ romcom about a woman, unwillingly back in her hometown, whose sister tricks her into coaching the high school crew team—only to find her co-coach is none other than her childhood crush, to Jess Verdi at Alcove Press, with Faith Black Ross editing, for publication in Spring 2027, by James McGowan at BookEnds Literary Agency (world)

We’re so so back. I wrote RoN in 2 months, in a rush, just for fun, because when I was signing with my agent James he said—do you write romance? No? Okay well, you should consider it.

And I did. I considered it lots and lots and lots, and in the fall of 2024 I sent my writing group a message that said, basically, “pick my fall book: should I write my next fantasy under contract (AN UNCERTAIN MAGIC) or this random rom com?”

They picked the rom com, I dug in. Then I spent the following spring desperately trying to write AN UNCERTAIN MAGIC in time for my deadline.

READY OAR NOT is for people who love; pathetic queer men, quarter life crises, career changes, family dynamics, little sisters, and humor. It takes some of my best skills from AN UNLIKELY COVEN and sets them down in the suburbs of Northern Virginia—dynamic characters, funny dialogue, some slight family trauma. Maeve Carter, the main character, would do anything for her little sister. Even leave her big city life to move back home in the wake of her parent’s divorce so she can take custody of her sister JJ, only for her sister and her best friend to trick her into interviewing for the job of head crew coach at JJ’s high school. Maeve, a former college athlete, returns to the water after years away and finds herself face to face with her co-coach, Izzy Jimenez, who just so happens to be her childhood crush and the boy next door.

The book’s for fans of the thematic depth of an Emily Henry novel, or the fun of a Talia Hibbert, and absolutely not for my high school crew team or my childhood neighbor I had a crush on once.

RoN will be my third published book, and my fourth under contract. Adding it to my website I thought—huh, I think I’m an author or something. Lots of people don’t get to publish a second or third book, much less a fourth. I feel really special, and really happy, to be doing this.

Lots more from me in the future, team—stay tuned for all the sweet sweet details.

all the best,

Kvita

1. technically the love interest, Izzy, is pan, but pan4bi isn’t really a phrase, so while pansexual does NOT equal bisexual, we make do and I will brace for cancellation