Emma Barry's Blog

A little more than a year ago, I wrote a post in which I broke down three books in terms of how long I spent drafting them. One of those books was Bold Moves, one I can now tell you was You, Me, & the Conspiracy, and one is the book I drafted last summer, a project that I’m hoping to revise in August so that my agent can try to sell it at some point in the future.

But since I just finished drafting another book, I wanted to post those numbers for comparison’s sake.

I’m going to call this book Conspiracy 2 because it’s the follow-up to You, Me, & the Conspiracy. I’m really good at titles, can’t you tell?

It’s a connected standalone, and the closest thing I’ve done to a sequel since Genevieve Turner and I were writing the Fly Me to the Moon series–but you aren’t getting more out of me about it yet. ; )

Anyhow, I drafted the book between May 18 and July 14, 2026. In that period, I clocked 53 writing days (so I wrote nearly every day), and the first draft is 90,650 words long. That yields an average word count of 1710. My worst day was June 18 with a measly 119 words; my best was July 13 with 2781. That’s right: I didn’t break 3K once.

The last week and a half was painful because I was so ready to be done, but the last act was complicated and ended up being longer than I’d thought. But for the most part, drafting this book was rather…fun. This was because I’d solved the problem of “what does an academic action adventure romance from me look like?” with You, Me, & the Conspiracy. So I knew how much action I needed, and I knew how much heat I needed. Conspiracy 1 felt as if I was attempting to make a complicated recipe without knowing what the dish was supposed to look or taste like. Conspiracy 2 was making an old favorite, or at least making a dish that’s becoming a favorite.

In some ways, everything is bigger in Conspiracy 2 (bigger battles! badder baddies!), and the couple has a very different dynamic than Jess and Cal. But I didn’t have as many moments of “Oh God, I can’t write a car chase.” Now I know that I can.

I grew this book out of a 2,838-word proposal, which included notes about the characters, an incomplete synopsis, and a discussion of the history that’s relevant to the conspiracy. Yesterday, I revised and expanded that seed into a true synopsis; I’ll send this document into my editor along with the (revised) second draft in the fall. This finished synopsis is 4,024 words long, though I wouldn’t be surprised if that changes as I revise the book.

What I’m curious about now is tracking my post-drafting process more closely. How many days do I spend revising the book before I send it to my editor? How many days go into addressing her developmental notes? How many days do I log on line edits, copyedits, proofreading, etc.? And how much time do I dedicate to promotion?

I suspect that those periods might vary more than drafting. Some books quite simply need more work than others, and I’m too close to this book to know whether it’ll prove to be a needy book or not. But if drafting a book is a 45 to 60 day prospect for me, I’d love know how much time it takes me to revise and market a book.

When I was 19, I took a class that changed my life. A cliche, I know, but it happened. I was a freshman in college and an English major, but I’d begun studying Latin and had developed an infatuation with Roman history. Classics might have lured me away from English…if it hadn’t been for American literature to 1865.

The truly wild part was that I went in certain that I loathed literature written in the U.S. before 1900, an opinion I’d formed based on a mere whiff of exposure. In high school, I read European literature and lots of it. Mark Twain, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, and Emily Dickinson were the only exceptions. But that must’ve been because those were the only good texts. After all, the cream rises to the top, right?

What brought the sky down around my ears wasn’t simply discovering that I was wrong and that many of the stories and poems, the memoirs and speeches from the early United States were electric. Seriously, Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln are my favorite prose stylists, and it isn’t even all that close.

No, what made me stay in the field, what drove me to get a PhD in American studies, was how my professor taught us to read. I didn’t have this term then, but as teen, I’d been indoctrinated in New Criticism. In other words, the belief that the meaning of a work of art is intrinsic, and there’s no need look beyond the page for it. But in college, I met New Historicism and learned to read texts as products of culture. I never looked back.

I’ll spare you the gory details, but I never stopped reading American literature, and it remains the love of my intellectual life. So the last ten years…they’ve been a lot. And like a lot of academics, I’ve been watching the semiquincentennial approach with mild (and sometimes less than mild) revulsion.

But I woke up this morning wanting to read the texts that make me think about this place, about its complexities and its beauties and its messiness and its potential. The texts that represent the last 250 years, and the ones that make me anticipate the future.

In no particular order, here’s my semiquincentennial reading list:

Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates: “that this is your country, that this is your world, that this is your body, and you must find a way to live within the all of it” (11-12).Common Sense and Other Writings, Thomas Paine: “These are the times that try men’s souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph” (83).I Love America. That’s Why I Have to Tell the Truth About It, Viet Thanh Nguyen: “So it is that every day I ask my son if he has eaten yet and every day I tell my son I love him. This is how love of country and love of family do not differ. I want to create a family where I will never say ‘love it or leave it’ to my son, just as I want a country that will never say the same to anyone.”Nobel Prize lecture, Toni Morrison: “It is the deference that moves her, that recognition that language can never live up to life once and for all. Nor should it. Language can never ‘pin down’ slavery, genocide, war. Nor should it yearn for the arrogance to be able to do so. Its force, its felicity is in its reach toward the ineffable.”The Partly Cloudy Patriot, Sarah Vowell: “Jack and I put our hands over our hearts and sang that song loud. Because we love our country too. Because we wouldn’t have been standing there, wouldn’t have driven down to Washington just to burst into tears if didn’t care so very, very much about how this country is run” (169).A People’s History of the United States, Howard Zinn: “As we pass from one century to another, one millennium to another, we would like to think that history itself is transformed as dramatically as the calendar. However, it rushes on, as it always did, with the forces racing toward the future, one splendidly uninformed, the other ragged but inspired” (687).Selected Speeches and Writings, Abraham Lincoln: “Passion has helped us; but can do so no more. It will in future be our enemy. Reason, cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason, must furnish all the materials for our future support and defence” (21).Speech on the Dred Scott Decision, Frederick Douglass: “[A]ll I ask of the American people is, that they live up to the Constitution, adopt its principles, imbibe its spirit, and enforce its provisions. When this is done, the wounds of my bleeding people will be healed, the chain will no longer rust on their ankles, their backs will no longer be torn by the bloody lash, and liberty, the glorious birthright of our common humanity, will become the inheritance of all the inhabitants of this highly favored country.”“The Red Man’s America,” Zitkala-Sa: “My country! ’tis to thee,/Sweet land of Liberty,/My pleas I bring./Land where OUR fathers died,/Whose offspring are denied/The Franchise given wide,/Hark, while I sing.”

So the big news is that Romancing the Vote–a charity auction to support voting rights–is back, babes! 

I have two items up for bid. First, an annotated advanced reader copy of You, Me, & the Conspiracy. It’s sitting next to me as I write this post, and you can check it out here. I’ve filled it with notes, explanations, digressions, playlists, coded messages, and also CLUES. Yes, I’ve provided all the things I thought you might look up while you read, so you can investigate the trail of the conspiracy along with Jess and Cal. It is precisely the way I wish everyone could experience the book, if only my publisher would agree. And if you win, you’ll get to read the book FOUR MONTHS EARLY.

The second item is a group project: a gorgeous special edition of Diana Wynne Jones’s romantic fantasy novel Howl’s Moving Castle crusted with marginalia by Rose Lerner, Lish McBride, Sarah Wendell, Alexandra Vasti, Candy Tan, Olivia Waite, and, um, me. You can get a sneak peek here, but you should know the pictures don’t do the book justice. I had it about halfway through its travels, and the comments, jokes, questions, discussions, and annotations are CHARMING. This one will likely go for a lot, and it will be worth every penny.

You can peruse everything that’s on offer here. The auction will run from the morning of July 1 until 7 p.m. CST on July 5, 2026. If you haven’t been around greater romancelandia for one of these, it’s wild. I always enjoy seeing how many times I can be outbid, but I can’t get frustrated because it’s all in the name of saving democracy. 

In non-auction news, there is a Goodreads giveaway for You, Me, & the Conspiracy, which you can enter here. And if you are a book reviewer or industry insider, you can request the book on Netgalley here. I really do avoid Goodreads and Netgalley, so it’s a sign of my adoration for you that I went to both those sites–hands over my eyes–to grab the links for you.

Beyond promo, I’ve been writing. And writing and writing and writing. Indeed, I just passed 61,000 words on the follow-up book to You, Me, & the Conspiracy. I can’t say much more except that I’m loving this couple and their journey. They have a totally different vibe from Jess and Cal and the mystery they’re uncovering involves another historical moment, and so I’m having a wonderful time with them.

I’ve also been working on the preorder bonus for You, Me, & the Conspiracy. Can you say Christmas-themed epilogue? Cue the screaming!

So please, please, please consider preordering the book in ebook, print, or audio–those numbers truly matter to my publisher–and save your proof of purchase. I should have more details soon.

I have three super quick announcements!

First of all, if you’re a book reviewer (or a librarian, bookseller, or other official bookish type), Advanced Reader Copies of You, Me, & the Conspiracy should be available soon. If you’re interested in receiving one, please let me know via this form. I’m working with a new publisher, so I don’t know how many ARCs I’ll receive. But I want to be prepared to get those early copies into the hands of my core readers, and that definitely includes you.

Secondly, it’s Barnes and Noble preorder sale time! As you probably know, B&N members can get 25% off online preorders of paperbacks, eBooks, and eAudio with the code PREORDER25. If you were planning to buy You, Me, & the Conspiracy anyhow, this is the perfect time to snap it up for less. All the formats are available here. 

And lastly, I’m offering two signed books in the third annual KidLit4Ceasefire auction. You can bid on them here. Be sure to check out the other items, which include signed books, chats with cool publishing people, and gorgeous crafts.

Y’all, I have been waiting impatiently for a week to share this cover with you. I thought I would burst before those last few buy links went live. It’s embarrassing, but I have refreshed the vendors’ sites so many times, my fingers simply must be calloused.

However, at long last, I can reveal the gorgeous cover for You, Me, and the Conspiracy to the world.

The art is by Robin Har. Do yourself a favor and check out her portfolio. I’m so grateful to her for her work and to the sales and designs teams at Atria/Simon & Schuster. I honestly can’t stop staring at it.

But wait–I have to share the back cover copy too:

Perfect for fans of Jo Segura,  You, Me, & the Conspiracy  is an academic adventure romance that finds two history professors trying to unmask a deadly secret society.

After a bruising book rejection, tenure-track history professor Jessica Wilson is scrambling for something new to publish to secure her spot at the top of the academic food chain. While researching in the archives, she discovers a coded message written by one of the founding fathers with the power to change her—and the world’s—understanding of American history forever. But first, she’s got to prove it’s real.

Desperate for answers, Jess searches out Calloway Morgan, a Harvard PhD student turned adjunct professor. Cal was forced to leave graduate school after presenting theories about a shadowy revolutionary organization. Jess heard his conference presentation and thought his findings were absurd, but now, she believes he was on something.

With their fates intertwined by their discoveries, the two begin to work together, but danger lurks around every corner. The clandestine fraternity that they’ve uncovered still exists and is ready to kill. With it hot on their heels, the embers of Jess and Cal’s attraction grow. But unless they can make their findings public, they’ll soon become the conspiracy’s latest victims…

Sigh, I just couldn’t be more excited about this book. I’m deep in copyedits on it, and all I can say is it’s absolutely different from any else I’ve written…while also being very extremely me.

If all this sounds enticing, and I hope it does, You, Me, and the Conspiracy will be published in paperback, eBook, and eAudio on November 10, 2026. If you’d like to preorder it, you can do so at Simon & Schuster, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Indigo, and Audible, and there are more links at Books2Read. You can also add it to your Goodreads shelves.

Friends, I need your help!

The cover reveal for You, Me, and the Conspiracy is almost upon us, and I would love to recruit some folks to help me get the word out. If you’re interested, please fill out this form.

Essentially, I’m waiting for the buy links to go live. If everything goes according to schedule, I’ll reach out to everyone who wants to help me amplify my BEAUTIFUL cover on Sunday, February 22. I’ll send you a link to a Google drive folder with the cover, a few promo graphics, the back cover copy, and the buy links. My request would be that you post the cover on your social media channels on Monday, February 23, including the buy links if possible. (I know that IG is a jerk about links. No worries!)

Anyhow, I would be eternally grateful if you’d be willing to join my brigade.

FYI, I’m going to be at Novel Grounds bookstore in Chesapeake, VA, to support the latest release of my friend, Stacey Agdern, on January 31. If you’re around, I would love to see you and/or sign some books for you! Tickets are free (but help the store know how many books to get). You can reserve yours here.

I did attend a signing last weekend at the Blackwater Regional Library in Smithfield, VA, to celebrate the library’s 100th anniversary. You can read about the event, and see some pictures, here.

“A glooming peace this morning with it brings; the sun, for sorrow, will not show his head”: those words are in my mind today, but they would’ve been appropriate for much of the last 12 months. I’ve struggled to write this post because every day of the new year has erupted with a story that makes me want to throw up my hands and say, “See, we don’t deserve good things right now.” But art has gotten me through this year, and I need to celebrate it.

As always, the normal caveats apply: this isn’t a best of list, it’s merely a list of things I read, watched, and listened to in 2025 that made me happy or gave me thinky thoughts. If you’re curious, you can check out my previous year in reviews: 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, and 2016.

Non-Fiction

It probably speaks to the nature of 2025 that my most notable reads were about reality. The horrors came so thick and so fast, we couldn’t escape them. The writers whose work impacted me the most faced that head on, specifically Omar El Akkad in One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, Hannah Arendt in The Portable Hannah Arendt, and Aaron Parsley in “The River House Broke. We Rushed in the River.”

There’s nothing I could say about El Akkad’s book that hasn’t been said elsewhere; there’s a reason it won the National Book Award for Non-Fiction. But its indictment of the hypocrisy of western values seems more true and more broadly applicable now than when I first read it. Every page is a triumph.

After watching an episode of American Masters on Hannah Arendt, I realized I’d only read snippets of her work. In grappling with her philosophy more substantially, what astonished me wasn’t simply what she had to say about tyranny, but also her analysis of the legal and social conditions that make oppression possible. There are wide ranging applications for conversations around statelessness and citizenship. She absolutely deserves your attention.

Parsley’s first-hand account of his family’s experience during this summer’s Guadalupe River flood is the among the most searing essays I have ever read. I cannot believe he wrote it within days of the event, and I have thought about his family (and his nephew, Clay) every day since.

Music and Podcasts

My podcast of the year is The Review of Mess, a deep dive into beauty, fashion, and pop culture by Jessica DeFino and Emily Kirkpatrick. This is an off-the-wall choice from me because I generally prefer a tightly scripted podcast to a free-wheeling discussion. But since there’s only one episode a month and DeFino and Kirkpatrick have excellent banter, it’s wormed its way into my heart. Grounded in scholarship but aimed at a general audience, it’s always insightful and always a good time. I recommend The Truth About Butter Biscuit Blondes. Try jumping in at :56 for their conversation with Inae Oh about Mar-a-Lago face. They offer true analysis of the MAGA aesthetic, not simply mean (misogynist) snark.

If you want a podcast that will actually make you feel better about humanity, Yo-Yo Ma and Ana González’s Our Common Nature is a glorious exploration of the American landscape steeped in music. The first episode, which focuses on Wabanaki musicians playing to welcome the dawn in Acadia National Park, is exquisite.

I didn’t do much musical exploration this year, and I feel guilty about that. The albums I listened to the most were Lizzy McAlpine’s Older and Older (and Wiser). The (secret) book I wrote over the summer was inspired by a McAlpine song, but no, I won’t tell you which one just yet.

Fiction

I read and loved two books about flailing country music stars: Colton Gentry’s Third Act by Jeff Zentner and August Lane by Regina Black. In very different ways, Zentner and Black explore the burdens and prices of fame and whether it’s possible to go home again. They’re glorious celebrations of music, identity, and the American south. I highly recommend them both.

Also on the emotionally heavy end of the romance spectrum is After Hours at Dooryard Books by Cat Sebastian. A Cat Sebastian book seems to find its way onto my list every year, but, well, they’re just so damn good. This one is about finding and making community when it feels as if the world is ripping apart at the seams–and if that doesn’t convince you that this is the perfect book for our moment, then we have nothing in common as readers.

On the other end of things are Fan Service by Rosie Danan and Long Live Evil by Sarah Rees Brennan. These are both high-concept romances, but ones in which the execution lives up to the premise. Danan’s book finds an aging paranormal TV star actually turning into a werewolf, and Brennan’s has a woman dying of cancer entering (and ultimately revising) her favorite romantasy novel. Both of these books are just so much fun.

My mysteries of the year were both by Ruthie Knox and Annie Mare: Homemaker and its follow up, Trailbreaker. Recently divorced middle age mom Prairie Nightingale is observant. She notices the small details that others discard or ignore, and once she’s seen something that doesn’t fit, she has to know why. These are ripping good mysteries, but they’re also deeply insightful about modern marriage and gender. Oh, and there’s a swoony romance in the background. Please read them so that we can get 20 more.

Movies and Television

Sinners: Darlings, I can’t watch horror movies. I feel bad about that because there’s clearly a deluge of interesting stuff happening in the genre right now, but I am too much of a scaredy cat. As a result, I didn’t think Sinners was for me, until one of my grad school friends insisted, “This is an American studies text. You must watch it.” She was absolutely right. In fact, I’m only sorry that I didn’t see it in theaters because the cinematography was stunning. It’s basically a horror musical (no, really) that ties together history, place, mythology, and race. I adored every second.

Superman: We don’t need another superhero I groused…until I realized that maybe we did. We do need a superhero whose goodness is punk rock. We do need one who stops mid-fight to save a squirrel. We do need one who sits on his parent’s front porch eating cereal out of a mixing bowl while having an existential crisis. And we definitely need a new take on Lex Luthor that exposes tech bros for what they are.

Frankenstein: Look, I’ve got some critiques. Half the cast is chewing the sets, and half are giving quietly naturalist performances, and yes, there are a lot of changes from the book. But the production design is absurdly gorgeous and the alterations, in my mind, clarify and explicate the novel’s message. I loved it.

A Thousand Blows: A boxing show? Yes, okay, I enjoyed a boxing show. Set in the slums of late Victorian London, A Thousand Blows is about the moment when boxing went from back-alley entertainment to socially acceptable sport. Informed by a critical take on British colonialism, it focuses on a trio of fascinating characters anchored by amazing performances from Stephen Graham, Malachi Kirby, and (especially) Erin Doherty. I adored every single one of the female thieves, and I would watch a show about each of them.

Experiences:

I took one of my kids to see Lucy Dacus in concert. She opened with “Hot & Heavy,” and when Lucy’s voice came over the speakers, I would swear to you that had an out of body experience.

I ran a 5K this year for the first time since COVID. While I was substantially slower than before–substantially– crossing the finish line was incredible…and almost worth how sore I was the next day.

In December, I was in my office grading papers and minding my business when my agent emailed me to let me know that Bold Moves was on the NYT/Olivia Waite’s Best Romances of 2025 list. I honestly cannot express how flabbergasted I was and how much seeing my book in that amazing company meant to me.

Continuing my 2025 reflection posts (see my 2025 in writing post here), I wanted to return to last year’s word: balance.

I tend to have two speeds in life, stop and go. Putting things in proportion, making slow and steady progress, rolling the ball a little further up the hill before calling it a day…this is not how I do things. But it is a better way to do them. It is a healthier way. And in 2025, I was often forced to approach life this manner. I was too busy for anything else.

Particularly in the last third of the year, my schedule was jam packed. So I had to be disciplined just to get through the foundational stuff. But I did. I taught all my classes, and I finished drafting one book and editing another. On top of that, I got my kids to their activities and appointments, and I ran a 5K, and I started knitting a pair of socks, and I read steadily, and I baked a lot of bread. And while I could’ve used more slack at times, I generally felt good.

In that vein, my word for 2026 is sustain. I mean this in the sense of “to give nourishment to” but also “to prolong” and “to give hope.” I want to keep making the choices that allow me to meet my obligations, to create, and to thrive. I feel over the writer’s block that ensnared me from 2017-2020. But once something like that has sunk its claws into you, you can always feel its breath over your shoulder, even when you’ve freed yourself. It’s there, lurking. That asshole.

So for next year, I want to think long-term and to make the choices that allow me be in this for the duration. I’m too proud of what I’ve built for anything else.

My nudge word for 2025 was balance. It’s difficult for me to remember a year that’s been so divided between moments when, in a cold sweat, I’ve thought, “I have no idea what I’m doing” and those when, in tears and triumph, I’ve thought, “I absolutely know what I’m doing.”

Is that balance? Who can say! Let’s review.

In 2025, I:

Wrote 11k words and then edited and formatted “Double Take,” a bonus story for Bad Reputation. I shared it with my newsletter subscribers on Valentine’s Day, as promised.Revised You, Me, and the Conspiracy in response to my agent’s notes and then my editor’s notes. I wrote approximately 18K new words for it this year.Promoted and released Bold Moves, which ended up on the New York Times’s list of the Best Romances of 2025.Bit my nails and refreshed my inbox continuously while You, Me, and the Conspiracy was out on submission. Spoiler alert, we sold it, and it’ll be released on November 10, 2026. Pre-order links to come!Wrote 5K for two book proposals.Wrote 80K drafting one of those books, followed by 12K on the first revision of it. It’s with my agent now, and all I can say is that it’s soft and experimental. I’m excited to see what, if anything, will come of this one.Wrote 11K words and then edited and formatted “A Casual Thing,” the Bold Moves bonus story. This one hit your inboxes in August.Read 49 new-to-me books, and I’m certain I’ll get through more in the next two weeks.

In terms of my 2024 goals, I did sign a new contract, I was more chill about my release, and I mostly spent less time on social media. I only wrote 1 new book plus some bonus material this year (about 135K total), but I signed with film and TV representation, which wasn’t something I would’ve even thought to hope for myself. As terrible as the world was in 2025, I found sustenance and purpose in my work.

In 2026, I’d like to write another book and to research the one that’s been bouncing around my head for years. I want to stay focused on what matters to me–telling stories I love–and to let go of the things I have no control over. Most of all, I want to celebrate the wins. Losses are inevitable and failure happens daily, but that’s more reason to be present for joy and success. My instinct is to doubt or second guess the good things, but instead, I have to invite them in.

May 2026 bring many such moments to us all. They’re the only thing that’s going to keep us going. xo

(I’ve been producing some version of this post for as long as I’ve been blogging about my writing. You can read about my 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, and 2013 respectively.)