You’ve seen the cover—maybe you’ve even seen the trailer—and now you’re wondering: Why is she writing YA, and what is this book about?

This book is YA because it needed to be, and when you get into the plot, you’ll understand exactly why that is. This story just wouldn’t work with adult characters, but it spoke to me, so I needed to write it.

If you’re hoping for a story with a similar feel to the Embrace Tomorrow Duet, I think you’ll get your wish. Like the Embrace Tomorrow Duet, The Lie That Binds is about how love can change your entire outlook, how it can transform a lonely existence into a vibrant and happy life. 

This is the theme I’m interested in with all of my writing—in different situations, with different people—how does love change things? How does it make them better? Does it solve the problem, make you face the problem, or make you realize that there isn’t really a problem at all, outside of the obstacles in your mind? 

Love is the most powerful emotion—even more powerful than fear. People will die for it, kill for it, sacrifice everything for the safety of another—or even for another’s happiness. To watch love transform two people is beautiful—and even more so if one of them is in a difficult or perilous situation: if love is the difference between life and death, between comfort and fear, between existing in a vacuum and actually living. I hope you saw that in the Embrace Tomorrow Duet with Will and Tori, and I hope you see it here with Nathan and Holly.

This book also allowed me to revisit being a teenager and what it’s like to experience love for the first time. Do you remember? The flutter in your stomach when he looked at you? When he smiled at you and you felt like your heart was going to beat right out of your chest? When he kissed you and the world was the most perfect place? When nothing could go wrong, and everything was right? I had such a good time reliving that through Nathan and Holly’s eyes. It’s worth remembering, and it’s worth going back to, especially in these days when life seems more difficult and more complicated than it’s ever been.

I won’t spoil the plot for you, but one of the central themes of The Lie That Binds is secrets. If you were seventeen, and there was something that would radically change the way the world looked at you, would you keep it a secret? If so, how far would you go to keep it? Would you lie? Make up a cover story? Ask other people to keep it a secret too? How would it affect those around you, and how you interact with them? And most importantly, how would all these choices affect you?  At the heart of The Lie That Binds is a secret, but it’s not the one you think—you need to read to the end of the book, through the layers of secrets and lies and decisions, to figure out what the true secret is, and how love is pivotal in the discovery of the truth. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.