Emma Barry's Blog

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.)

So I can finally share my vague publishing news with you: I have a forthcoming project, and it’s an academic adventure romance.

My agent and I pitched this book as “National Treasure, but they f*ck.” Which…yes. That is very much what it is.

More seriously, it’s about how we remember the American revolution and about what kind of world it made. It’s about how modern universities can be hostile to knowledge. And it’s also about two extremely different people who go on the run together in a 1970s Winnebago. They’d rather not be crushing on each other, but they are.

Also, can we take a moment and marvel that **I** wrote an adventure romance? What a world! If you’ve read my character- and vibes-driven books and sent me emails about how maybe next time, I might consider adding a—you know—plot, then this book is for you. (Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me. Speaking of which, this is definitely a book about shadowy confederations who’ll do anything to keep control of the levers of power.)

I first described You, Me, and the Conspiracy to a friend in late 2019. Yeah, it’ll be seven whole years from the concept to the publication. A passel of people helped me with it. So while we’re celebrating the announcement, allow me a few acknowledgements:

I’m so grateful to Genevieve Turner who read about a floppity zillion drafts of this book as it grew and changed. She is a saint, and I never would’ve finished without her. I did a lot of writing during virtual hangouts with Olivia Dade, who is a dear friend and a wonderful cheerleader.

The spring 2025 NYLA interns, Deme and Sofia, gave me super helpful and encouraging notes: thank you!! Miranda Dubner talked through the plotting with me and offered some excellent suggestions.

I’m massively indebted to my agent, Sarah E. Younger, for believing in me and in this project and for going beyond the call of duty to sell it. (She literally phoned me with an offer when she was on vacation.) She’s a phenomenon.

As soon as SEY and I got on a call with Norma Perez-Hernandez, I knew that I wanted to work with Norma. She instantly understood my vision for this story, and her notes were incredible. I’m monumentally pumped to bring this book into the world with her and the entire team at Atria.

If you’re desperate for a taste, the book’s playlist is here. You, Me, & the Conspiracy has LOADS of autumn in New England, cabled sweaters, and dusty library shelves vibes, and it’s slate for release next September.

And if you want updates as I soon as I have them, please be sure to sign up for my mailing list!

FYI, the ebook of Bold Moves is on sale for the first time in North America. Until the end of August, you can get it for $2.49 at Amazon. It’s also available in KU, in paperback, and on audio, where it’s read wonderfully by Savannah Peachwood and Jeremy York. There’s a full list of buy links at Books2Read.

Additionally, the ebooks for Chick Magnet and Bad Reputation are both $1.99 this month, so it’s a great time to stock up on Emma Barry titles for cheap.

A few months ago, I asked my newsletter subscribers what bonus material they wanted to see for Bold Moves, and the consensus was Jaime and Scarlett’s high school love affair.

I had several pages of notes with snippets of conversations and ghosts of scenes, the kinds of things that I worked into exposition and memory in Bold Moves. So I picked out a few that felt most important to me–and which could give the thing some kind of narrative coherence–and I started writing. And I kept writing. And then I wrote some more.

Finally, I had an 11,000-word prequel sketch. I’m planning to send it out to my newsletter on August 1; if you aren’t subscribed, you can fix that here. I will eventually add a link to the extra to the book page, but subscribing to my newsletter is the fastest way to get the prequel.

A few notes: given that the novel is a second-chance romance, don’t go looking for a happy ending here. It doesn’t have one. It does have profanity, on-page kissing, and references to poverty, homelessness, and drug trafficking.