"Having that time between the books gave me a chance to grow as a writer and a person."

New York Times bestselling author Jill Santopolo on revisiting beloved characters, making the most of research trips, and her moving new novel, THE LOVE WE FOUND

Hello, friends! Before we get into today’s lovely Q&A, a question: Did you know I had a book come out last week?! It’s called THE LAST FERRY OUT and it’s a sapphic puzzle-box mystery set on a remote tropical island. If you like the newsletter, the odds are [types madly into calculator] extremely high that you’ll like it too. Oh, and if you’ve been on the fence about subscribing, know that in the coming weeks I’ll spill the tea about my sales, bestseller lists, the exact how and why and what worked and what was a disaster vis-a-vis my marketing efforts, and more. (Like, brutally, stupidly candid.) Come join me in the darkest, most embarrassing corners of my brain!

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Check out the collection of past Words With (Author) Friends, wherein I g-chat with an author and you get to read over my shoulder, and order Jill’s epic love story, out now.

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Me: Good morning, Jill!

Jill: Good morning!

I just discovered that the last time I used gchat was in 2021. So nice to dust off my gchat today.

Wow, well, welcome back to 2021! (I don't think many people are using it anymore, to be honest)

It was a great feature--not sure why people moved on. Maybe this will get me back into it. 🙂

Haha, here's hoping.

Huge congrats on THE LOVE WE FOUND! How are you feeling post-launch?

Thank you so much. I'm still coming down from the book tour high--it was so incredible to be on the road for twelve days with so many book lovers. And it was particularly special to get to visit stores I'd been to eight years ago with my first book. In one case I was even in conversation with the same author I'd been in conversation with about The Light We Lost.

In the book, Lucy reflects on her life since the events in book one, and this publication has really been a chance for me to reflect on everything that's happened in my world--and the world at large--since then.

That's beautiful! Eight years—wow, so much has happened since 2017. Can you share what the book's about?

SO much!

The Love We Found picks up ten years after the events of The Light We Lost ended, and we find Lucy with her family in Brooklyn. She gets a call from Gabe's editor at the Associate Press, asking if she can locate some photos for him, and in the box discovered an address in Rome torn off the back of an envelope. And that address sets her off on a journey of healing.

Did you always know you wanted to return to The Light We Lost?