Apart from the odd story about my children, I tend to keep my personal life mostly separate both from my professional one and from this blog. But I have at the moment what feels like about six thousand unanswered e-mails from readers piled up in my in-box, a huge number of which are inquiries about when Kitty Bennet’s Diary will be released. And I really hope at least some of those who have written to me wander over here and read this post, because I always, always answer all my e-mails and I feel terrible that so many readers out there must be wondering whether they’ll ever hear back from me. But at any rate, I am so grateful for every one of the e-mails I get from all the wonderful readers out there, and I hate feeling like I’m disappointing everyone, so I feel like I really need to offer an explanation of what’s been going on. And I thought about writing a general ‘there’s been a family tragedy’ kind of post, but that seems . . . I don’t know . . . kind of silly, at least for me. It’s not as though posting about it here will make it sadder or harder. So here it goes:

We were expecting a new baby this summer. But very sadly, just after the second trimester had begun, the baby died. It’s been . . . I make my living as an author, and I still can’t think of the right words. Heartbreaking, hard, exhausting . . . it’s been all of those.

I truly love Kitty Bennet’s story, and I’m so excited to share it with everyone–and I will, I promise, and hopefully soon. But going through the copy edits on a book that is *mild spoiler alert* absolutely filled with babies and pregnancy and birth is just beyond me right now.

Thank you so much to everyone who has read the first two books of the Pride and Prejudice Chronicles series, and to everyone who has contacted me saying how much they’re looking forward to this third book’s release. It means so much. And thank you for being patient right now. I will be okay, even if I’m not at the moment. I’m lucky, I know, to have such a happy life to get back to when I can stop being sad.