Do Your Worst is out in the world!!!

Release day reflections, reveals, and an exclusive Chapter Two audiobook sample

Tender, Thirsty, Ambitious is a twice monthly newsletter from romance author Rosie Danan about savoring the good stuff, looking respectfully 👀, and building a creative practice that embraces unapologetic striving.

Volume 8, Week of November 14^th, 2023

*Author’s note: This is a special edition of Tender, Thirsty, Ambitious because my third novel, Do Your Worst, comes out today!

This newsletter will be themed with reflections, inspirations, and celebrations surrounding the book. I’m just gonna do Tender this week, because despite my best efforts I’m still writing this on the morning of release, and well, I’ve got a lot of other stuff going on.. The Thirsty and Ambitious sections will be back later this month.

I hope that’s okay with you :)

TENDER– savoring the good stuff

grateful for clarity of purpose. As a writer, each of my books has been a quiet quest to answer different questions. Some of those questions are complex. I could, for example, wax poetic about my engagement with societal themes (perhaps insufferably?), but there has also always been something very practical I’ve been investigating at the root of these exercises.

Book one—The Roommate: Can I write a book (and get it published)?

Book two— The Intimacy Experiment: Can I do it again?

Book three—Do Your Worst: Why am I writing?

You’ll notice the last one is a different kind of question. More philosophical than practical. Here’s the thing, and you may have heard this before, writing is hard. It takes a lot of time and energy. It opens you up to criticism. In some ways, large and small, it opens you up to the Mortifying Ordeal of Being Known. There’s no guarantee of financial stability. No linear corporate ladder to climb. You could, in theory, build a career for years and watch helplessly one day as the tide of changing reader behaviors or Tik Tok or AI or Something Else washes all your hard work away like a sandcastle on the shoreline.

I am not, by nature, someone who embarks on exercises of effort or vulnerability without clear expectations for return on investment. And at one point, deep in the dark winter of 2021, I thought maybe traditional publishing was a bad bet.

And yet…

I found there was one guarantee in my endeavors. One input and output that I could reliably control.

So, I got a new notebook, and I wrote on the back in colorful block letters, “JOYFUL EXPLORATION. CELEBRATE EVERY STEP.”

I learn so much with each novel I publish. About my craft, my genre, myself. I discover new obstacles and attempt new techniques (writing on my phone, writing by hand, outlining in Excel, alpha readers, beta readers, stickers for every 1K).

It’s like the late, great Bob Ross said:

Do Your Worst is my first book born from a recipe of all my most beloved stories.

Here’s a non-exhaustive list of a few inspirational ingredients you’ll find sprinkled throughout:

• Late 90s/early 00s paranormal like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Charmed, and of course The Mummy

• 1980s Historical Highlander Romances

• Gail Carson Levine’s remixed fairy tales

Whenever I attend author events, I struggle to come up with questions, but I think next time I’ll ask, “Why do you write? What does it give you?”

grateful for my first ever book tour that I Taylor Swift Mastermind-ed around getting to visit some of my favorite people in some of my favorite cities.

If you’re in or around one of the below areas, I’d love to see you. If you’re not but would like to join virtually, the East City Bookshop event with BK Borrison will also be live-streamed. Register HEREfor that login all other event links are available on my website’s events page.

grateful for the chance to write an English character while I lived in England. Even with the pandemic, our 4.5 years in London were some of the best and happiest of my life. I love that some of the phrases and mannerisms and sense memories of that time in my life will live forever (or at least until AI takes over the planet) in Clark’s character and in the pages of this story.

RELEASE DAY HOUSEKEEPING

• EXCLUSIVE AUDIOBOOK EXCERPT: As a special thank you for reading this newsletter, I asked my pub team’s permission to share a special five-minute preview of the DYW audiobook (Chapter Two!!) that you’ll only find here. I was blown away by the narration from Shane East and Saskia Maarleveld and hope you are too.

• LIMITED EDITION HARD-COVER OF DYW: I’m thrilled to partner with the team at Illumicrate/Afterlight Books to share a limited print run special edition. Grab yours HERE.

The Afterlight Exclusive: Do Your Worst edition is a B-format hardback and features:

·       An exclusive cover (by @earsofelf)

·       Foil embossing on the hardback

·       Stenciled fore-edge & block sprayed top and bottom edges

·       Endpaper art (by @gibb.arts)

·       Signed by the author (Author’s note: Fun Fact - I signed these all by hand in one afternoon at my UK publishers office while watching Bridget Jones’ Diary with my editor Ellie)

• GOODREADS GIVEAWAY: If you’d like enter for a chance to win a e-book copy of Do Your Worst, this giveaway is currently LIVE on Goodreads. Winners will be selected and notified November 16^th.

• DYW in the NEW YORK TIMES: I’m incredibly honored to share that Olivia Waite reviewed Do Your Worst for The Grey Lady. She writes,

“Rosie Danan’s DO YOUR WORST has that rarest of tropes: an enemies-to-lovers pairing that is perfectly, lusciously balanced. Clark Edgeware is an archaeologist in disgrace, Riley Rhodes is a curse breaker on the rise, and the infamous Scottish castle they’ve both been hired to investigate is the battleground.”

• You can read the full, blush-inducing review in her romance column.

• OH YEAH BUY LINKS.

DO YOUR WORST is Available Now from:

Bookshop | Amazon | Walmart | Penguin Random House | IndieBound

Barnes & Noble | Books-A-Million | Apple Books | Target | Waterstones

Good day from an anxious, proud author (and as always thanks for reading <3),

Rosie