When she allows a young girl who expresses an interest in learning more about her craft to help her, it sets up a series of events that spans forward into the future. She’s an underground secret that only women know about and protect her identity. Her mother is gone and after Nella suffered a betrayal at the hands of a cheating lover, she shifts those skills to concoct potions that will be the undoing of men like him. THE TRUE LOVE EXPERIMENT is out from Gallery Books.It’s 1791 London and a mysterious woman named Nella operates her secret business in the hidden section of her mother’s former apothecary shop where she learned the healing natures of herbs and plants. “What more fun can you imagine than taking that person who thinks she knows everything about love and showing her that maybe that’s not actually true… they really became friends,” she says. The way the relationship unfolds slowly, Lauren explains, is what makes it good. “No two people complete each other, it is who is perfect for our heroine or our hero,” says Christina, and in this book it’s the divorced dad/documentary producer Conner who is clearly meant for Fizzy. THE TRUE LOVE EXPERIMENT is a stand alone novel focused on “Fizzy” aka Felicity Chen, who readers first met in their instant bestseller THE SOULMATE EQUATION. For more on TJ Newman, and to follow the latest developments as both her books head to the big screen, visit her website.Ĭhristina Hobbs and Lauren Billings, the besties and writing duo who make readers’ smiles and hearts grow with every book published under the pen name Christina Lauren, return to the podcast to talk with Olivia about this summer’s release. She’ll be at The Poisoned Pen Bookstore the following night. Newman will be signing books at Changing Hands Bookstore, where she used to work, on Monday May 29, 2023. This time around, deadline pressures were as intense as the burden of expectation, but Newman said she loved writing this intensely emotional book: “At its core, this story would not work if it were not a story of grief and loss and hope and survival and a family coming together” she says.ĭROWNING is published by Avid Reader Press, available for pre-order before its release.

A former bookseller and flight attendant, Newman’s commercial airline centered thrillers sparked bidding wars in publishing and in Hollywood. The writer returns to the podcast to talk with Olivia about battling the pressures of following up her debut bestseller, and her gratitude for the opportunity to live her dream as a full-time writer.

Newman says in describing the premise of this summer’s new novel, DROWNING.

“A plane crashes into the ocean, sinks with people trapped inside,” T.J.

Harperaudio the lost apothecary