First Down is a USA Today Bestseller!
Let's celebrate with a playlist *and* Wicked Serve teaser!
Hi everyone! Happy Friday! I hope you had a lovely Feb and are looking forward to March! Going forward, I’m going to add a little ~agenda~ at the start of my letters, so you know what kind of rambling you’re about to be in for. I am SO excited about this one, it’s full of good stuff! In this newsletter, we have:
USAT Bestseller (what!!!!!) + pub week pictures!
Wicked Serve updates + a teaser because I have zero chill 🤭
Showing off the OFFICIAL First Down playlist!
Breakaway + Stealing Home preorder updates
Let’s dive in!
sometimes, your dreams come true:
A week and a half after First Down’s Avon re-release, I have one thing to say: life is weird and wonderful.
I wrote First Down in the summer of 2022 with pretty much zero expectations. The Callahan family sprang into my head and wouldn’t let me go; I had to write about them. I hoped a couple of people would enjoy it, and that I’d create a foundation for more books to come. I couldn’t imagine just how many of you would love and feel a connection to James and Bex’s story, and fast-forwarding, I really couldn’t imagine that it would, less than two years after its initial publication, become a USA Today Bestseller!
But you showed up for this book, like you have time and time again. You proved that there’s love for these characters, this family, this world. You excitedly showed me photos of First Down in indies and Barnes and Indigo and Target and Walmart. You preordered from The Novel Neighbor. You shouted about this from the rooftops alongside me… and in doing so, you made my secret wish for this re-release come true.
Seriously. I’m tearing up again writing this letter! I’ve been thinking for a few weeks about how cool it would be if this book debuted on the USA Today list, and it DID. How magical is that?
I’ve wanted to be an author for as long as I can remember, and I always dreamed of having my books on store shelves one day. Widely and proudly! Last week, on Monday evening, I was TERRIFIED that I’d be scared, or stressed out, or anxious about the sight of the books out in the world in this new way. It’s one thing to know people are reading on their Kindles, but another to think of someone picking up the book alongside their groceries and the newest Magnolia Home candle, you know? But instead, I felt pride. I felt peace. Standing in Barnes & Noble, in Target, in Walmart, staring at my book stocked next to greats in the romance space—I felt pure joy. I gave little girl Grace, always scribbling stories in notebooks, her greatest wish… and it’s all because of you and your support.
Thank you, thank you, thank you! I hope this is the start of a long, wonderful journey for the Callahan family, and for all the stories that come after. If you’ve loved Beyond the Play since the start or are just joining the ride now, please know that I appreciate you deeply.
Look at some of the fun places First Down has popped up!
an exclusive wicked serve teaser:
I’ve been focused on all things First Down in public, but I’ve also been hard at work on Wicked Serve! ARCs are available for request in two ways:
Netgalley (US for now; Avon approves or denies requests) - request HERE! Thank you for getting it so high on the “most requested” list—you’re amazing! (Can we get it even higher? That would be cool…)
Valentine PR, sending in late July - request HERE!
In the meantime, I’ve been working on pass pages, which is traditional publishing’s fancy way of showing the author what the typeset/formatted version of the book will look like, and to give them a chance to make any last minute changes. I decided to print my pass pages (yes, all 434 of them) to give myself the experience of reading like it will appear in paperback, and it’s been blast to return to Izzy & Nik’s story! I LOVE THEM SO MUCH and I sincerely hope you do too. In fact, how about a little teaser from Izzy’s POV…
N: You’re a beam of light in a person, Isabelle
So fucking beautiful
My heart squeezes tightly.
He can’t have meant it. If he meant it, maybe things would be different. It’s just a line, no matter how good, and the fact I’m still obsessing over it is several shades of pathetic. It doesn’t change the fact that what we had was casual. An exploration in attraction with no promise of anything deeper. A fun time, exactly what I’m good for, and one my family—especially my brother Cooper—absolutely can’t find out about. He and Nik are two of the top college defensemen in the country, captaining rival programs. They already got into one fight their sophomore year, and that was just because of hockey. The last thing I need is to encourage another, more personal one.
At least Nik is back in Massachusetts at UMass Amherst for his senior year, and I’m in New York at McKee University for my sophomore year. I’ve never been so grateful for state lines. Soon, I’ll forget his crooked smile, and how he handled my body with as much skill as his hockey stick, and especially the way he said my name—always my full name, Isabelle—like a velvet caress.
His mother was my boss this summer, and the first day of my internship, he sauntered into her office without knocking while she was out at lunch. He teased me until I realized who he was . . . and he called me Isabelle from the first introduction. Isabelle, not Izzy, like everyone else.
I can still see him in perfect detail: the blue button-down, sleeves rolled to the elbow. Messy hair, sharp eyes. He stole my M&M's and didn’t even eat any—bastard—and scrawled his number on one of my pink sticky notes with a wink that made me go molten.
The rest of the day, I couldn’t stop thinking about the way my name sounded coming out of his mouth. I broke down and texted him, and somehow, the first kiss we shared felt like the hundredth. Once we started, I couldn’t help but let it happen all summer long.
I stare at those two brief texts until my vision blurs.
-Grace Reilly, WICKED SERVE
I cannot WAIT to share more about this book as we get closer to release! Brothers rival + secret summer fling + a broken boy with a heart of gold, all wrapped up in a hockey/volleyball romance mashup? It’s killing me to keep so much about this book a secret! August 13th can’t come fast enough.
If you enjoyed this little snippet, give me a shout below, and don’t forget to preorder Wicked Serve and keep your receipts for future goodies!
let’s all sing “umbrella” together:
AKA First Down: the Playlist
A few newsletters ago, I shared a poll to get some ideas on how to replenish my bonus content since the extended epilogues are in the new Avon editions, and playlists topped the responses by far! I always make a playlist full of ~vibes~ to listen to while I write, and I thought it would be fun to celebrate First Down’s re-release with the songs that inspired James & Bex’s love story! Check it out on Spotify, and let me know if you have any others you’d add in! Like many bookish friends, it was hard to limit the Taylor Swift… I swear, she has a song for everything romantic.
I’ll be adding this to my website soon! Happy listening!
breakaway + stealing home preorders:
I’m so excited to share that The Novel Neighbor is running special preorders for Breakaway and Stealing Home! Preorder either book (or both!) from Novel Neighbor, and receive:
A hand-signed bookplate to put in your shiny new paperback :)
A gorgeous couple art print illustrated by cozka_art!
Support this series and a fabulous indie bookstore while snagging some exclusive art when you preorder! And remember these new editions have the chunky, spicy extended epilogues in them—yay!!
bye for now!
I’m diving into a new project now (book 5, a standalone coming from Avon next year!) and I am so, so excited to get some new words down. Next time we chat, I’ll talk a bit about how my writing process begins.
Have a lovely weekend, everyone! Thanks for sticking around!
FIRST DOWN IS A USA TODAY BESTSELLER!!!!!!
So happy for you! I just listened to the audio and am listening to #2 now. I can’t believe book 4 is humanizing Nick!!!! I can’t wait!!!!