One week of Not Looking

Field notes and thoughts

She’s been out for a week, folks! Have you read Not Looking yet? She sweet, saucy, chaotic, and nerdy as hell.

If you’re into a slice of life love story about Dungeons & Dragons, 40-year-old main characters who sound like all of my nearly-forty-year-old friends, one of whom is named Susan like many in my generation, “kitten” as a pet name, and cutie little teen bonding: this is the book for you! Or maybe not! Whatever!

Click here if you want it.

Please review Not Looking, too! Especially if you loved it. It helps other readers like yourself find my books. Here and here.

What’s up with me?

Well, bestie, thanks for asking!

I should be taking a long rest, but instead I’ve already opened a my notes app to whisper sweet nothings about my next disaster couple(s). Let’s just say there might be:

• A novella series about accidental cat parents!

• More to the Effie Bird universe than I once thought! (Meet Effie Bird and Brett Blue here.)

• A substack serialization/ebook direct selling method, which will give me even more creative control, create less overhead for me, and mean more money in my pocket per ebook sold!

I plan to spend the rest of the year writing away and I’ll share more soon-ish! But for now, I’m deeply cocooned with my fuzzy blankets, emotional support snacks, and TBR I’ve ignored while working on Not Looking.

Speaking of my TBR… This week, I started and finished Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry and jumped right into The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid. Any book/show/movie/music recs for me while I’m refilling the creative well?

I’m tabling at the Detroit Book Fest! This Sunday, July 20th, 10 am-4 pm. Are you a Michigan reader? The event is at Eastern Market in Detroit. Should be a great, bookish time. Hope to meet some of you there!

To those of you who’ve been here from the beginning, cheerleading a little self-published author struggling for visibility: thank you for sticking around! To those of you who are new to the Alaina Rose Literary Universe: I’m so happy you’re here!

It’s really hard and vulnerable sharing stories when the mark is constantly changing, going viral means everything, and the world is burning, but I’m consistently reminded to stay true and write for myself first.

To those of you who appreciate what I’m trying to do: thank you.

Cheers, and I hope you have the best day,

Alaina Rose

ps, as for the noshes & nibbles: the best thing I’ve eaten in a while was the sourdough ice cream at Chenin in Detroit, post pizza at Mootz and pre Detroit techno show at TV Lounge. A delicious vibe.