Happy New Year!

Let's banish the Sunday scaries together

Well, folks, we made it. 2025 is over, which means my debut year has ended, which means saying goodbye to a lot of firsts—my first book, my first year as an author, and the first time feeling like I truly found what I’m supposed to be doing. It’s the kind of thing you don’t know you’re missing until you stumble upon it, and then it just clicks.

Last year was so special to me. It was rich and layered and joyful and stressful and lonely and sometimes sad. It was scary and fun and agonizing and playful and good and bad and wonderful. Most of all, it was meaningful. I published a book—a book I’m really really proud of. I wrote another book—a book I’m bursting at the seams to share with you. I felt showered with love and support, and I learned more than ever before.

Honestly, I’ve attempted to sit down and write this newsletter a few times, and every time I’ve come up short. Possibly because I’m slightly exhausted with life. Possibly because there’s just too much to be grateful for and I couldn’t even begin to list it all…and possibly because I’m a little bit sad. Sad to see the year go.

Something you need to know about me: I strongly dislike change. Whether it’s good change, or bad change, I find it incredibly uncomfortable. Which is why, when things are tough, I tend to settle in, burrow down, and find comfort in the difficulties. I think I share this characteristic with Bennet, the main character of Passion Project. She finds comfort in her pain, so she clings to it, builds a world in the agony and plans to live there forever. And yet, also like Bennet, when things take a turn for the more peaceful, it’s harder to settle in. Harder to feel safe. It feels like it’ll go away, because suffering feels endless, and joy feels limited. It’s why I haven’t watched the trailer for People we Meet on Vacation, read Great Big Beautiful Life, watched the finale of Fleabag, or the last two episodes of Heated Rivalry. Because…it feels like if I engage in these warm, wonderful things that give me happiness, a small ration of the limited amount joy I’m afforded in one lifetime will be gone, and I’ll never get it back.

But it doesn’t work like that. Suffering is not endless, and joy is not limited.

All this to say, I’m having some major Sunday scaries right now, both for the week ahead and also for the year ahead, and I needed this reminder. If you had a shitty 2025, remember that suffering is not endless. And if you had a good 2025, remember that joy is not limited. We will never know what follows as the clock turns midnight—all we can do is grab on and just go with it.

Thank you 2025, for all you gave me. I’ll miss you for the most part, minus the chaotic and terrible state of….*gestures around at the general evil of the world right now.* That stuff we can leave behind.

Photo by Keeley McCormick

And for some housekeeping, I’m so excited to share that I’m going to be speaking with one of my favorite authors and dear friend Heather McBreen about her wonderful new book, Sunk in Love, on January 31st in Brooklyn, NY at Love and Legends bookstore. Heather is a beautiful writer, and Sunk in Love is her gorgeous sophomore novel that will make you feel so many feelings—joy, despair, grief, hope, giddiness, horniness…you name it. If you can’t make the event, consider preordering Sunk in Love. If you’re coming to the event, you will get a copy of the book with your ticket, as well as the lifelong memory of Heather and me yapping about men who love their wives. We’re going to have the best time!

Now, I’m off to enjoy the last hours of holiday break and I will do my best to damn the Sunday scaries to hell where they belong, and you should too.

Always yours,
London

P.S. Care for some book recs?

• Sunk in Love by Heather McBreen for a story of a marriage on the fritz, a disaster cruise around Hawaii with a nosy family, and the courage it takes to mend what has been broken. (Out January 27th)

• Unsteady by Peyton Corinne for a hockey player x figure skater romance that handles mental health with a caring hand, and that features one of my favorite prickly girl main characters out there

• The Epicenter of Forever by Mara Williams for a story facing the pain you’ve been hiding away in order to let love grow. (Out February 1)