three small bites ⚾️🎙️🎬

book fairs at baseball games, a podcast i'm loving + an entertaining new movie

Jun 20, 2024

Unfiltered. Just LOOK at that grass (and that moon)! 🌙

Hi! How are you doing? Happy first day of summer! I am coming off a very fun weekend in Louisville, Kentucky, where I got to celebrate the grand opening of the romance bookstore A Novel Romance. Here’s a sneak peek of the space, which is adorable and filled to the brim with romance books! Love that for all of us. I got to hang out with Gwenda Bond and Mazey Eddings and meet sweet readers! It was fun from start to finish, and I highly recommend stopping by the store if you’re in/near the area.

✍🏻 I also recently wrapped copyedits for Yin Yang Love Song, whose pub date is now January 28, 2025. I promise, a description of what the book is about is coming soon!! I have the pre-order goodies nearly solidified in my mind…I can’t wait to share them with you. These goodies will mostly be exclusive to the pre-order campaign at Parnassus, so if you want them, make sure you pre-order from Parnassus Books so you get them. 😊

✨ Paid subscriptions are 20% off for the month of June! That means annual subscriptions are $40 (instead of $50!) and monthly subs are $4 (instead of $5). I’ll do the math so you don’t have to: that’s $1 a week, or roughly $3.33 per month. Thank you for your support! 🙏

1. ⚾️ book fairs at baseball games

Earlier this month, I went to my first baseball game of the season. The pre-game? A book fair! Parnassus Books put on a book fair to celebrate Pride Night at the field, and the curated collection was on point. I picked up a couple of books, including The Prospects by KT Hoffman. So not only did I get to shop for books ahead of the event, but I got to read the entire game, too. 😆 It’s something I’ve always wanted to do: Read and occasionally look up to watch the game while eating pretzels and pizza. And now I’ve gotten to. 10/10, no notes. Will do it again.

2. 🎙️ Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus

I enjoyed this podcast from start to finish (though I’ll say the ads were lengthier than normal? or maybe I’m just not used to it…or maybe they felt long because I can be influenced and I was busy imagining all the ways to use the products Julia Louis-Dreyfus was pitching). ANYWAY. In Wiser Than Me, Julia talks to women who are, you guessed it, wiser than her. There are such great nuggets that come from these conversations. I particularly enjoyed the convo with Ina Garten, where they talked about Ina’s butter-with-sea-salt-on-toast breakfasts and not letting anxiety show during entertaining, among many, many other things. This podcast is a joy. Also a delight: the episode with Julie Andrews, who is a true treasure and must be protected at all costs.

3. 🎬 Hit Man

I love when movies I want to watch drop on Friday nights on Netflix. It makes movie night SO much easier. Earlier this month, Hit Man came out. It’s fun, funny, and entertaining, and Glen Powell and Adria Arjona are fantastic together. A+ chemistry. The movie’s about a professor who moonlights as a hit man for his city police department. Things get dangerous and complicated when he finds himself attracted to a woman who enlists his services. Glen and Richard Linklater wrote the movie together, which is based on an article by Skip Hollandsworth.

My love of Linklater movies runs deep. He’s the director and co-writer of the Before Trilogy, which, you may know, I love. Speaking of, June 16 was Before Sunrise Day. If you, too, love the Before Trilogy, you might also enjoy my book, Red String Theory. 😏 And here are more Before Sunrise quotes for you.

📚 Extra bites: Book updates

🎧 I’m running an audiobook giveaway over on Instagram! It ends tomorrow morning.

I already mentioned the updated pub date (January 28!) and A Novel Romance, but I do have more events coming up:

📚 I can't wait for the Columbus Book Festival next month where I'll be on a panel with Kerry Winfrey and Ali Rosen, moderated by Jen Devon! Then, on Sunday, I'll get to hang out with readers for rounds of literary speed-matching. (I think Bennett would love this 😆). The schedule is now LIVE on the Columbus Book Festival website, and the event is FREE and open to all book lovers 📚❤️

📚 Steamy Lit in August will be here before we know it! If you’d like Lunar Love or Red String Theory, it's highly recommended to preorder from Meet Cute Bookshop by June 30 to ensure that you get your copies! When checking out, add "pick up at Steamy Lit Con" to the comments/notes! And if you come by and see me, I'll have goodies for you, as well as something extra special!

Still more to come, stay tuned!

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Hope the rest of your June is great! Is it also getting extremely hot where you are?

From me to you, in the present,
Lauren