So for me, it was just really a mechanism that was already built in because she was an interior designer but also a way to increase what she was at risk of losing for both of them if this didn’t go well. What made you want to explore the pressures that 30-somethings might feel when it comes to their careers?

The first book of the series, Delilah Green Doesn’t Care, was released at the beginning of 2022 and met with major acclaim for its depiction of queer romance. And at first, actually, [the plot] wasn’t a renovation show — it was just a magazine feature, like in a home design magazine.

For Astrid — well, I think for a lot of people and for me — [she was] just dealing with compulsory heterosexuality, where you just assumed that this is what you’re supposed to be like. And while her professional image is pristine, her personal one is not: A failed engagement and a tough-to-please mother have sent her flailing. Everything in her life was pretty much decided for her either explicitly by her mother or just by what Astrid knew was the right choice in terms of what was expected of her. On top of that, the place she loves most—her beloved grandmother’s historic Everwood Inn—is on the verge of closing. Sometimes, I do make certain decisions because I’m like, well, obviously, Astrid needs this problem because Jordan is going to complement it.

There’s not much like, “Oh, this is my duty to do this and that therefore I must do it, even if I hate it. I was familiar with shows like Property Brothers and the Joanna [Gaines] and Chip [Gaines] show, Fixer Upper — just all the really popular ones. But as the two realize they must work together to reach both their professional and personal goals, they inadvertently begin to understand each other and the ways that the world has sought to break their spirits. But filming the show means working with glamorous, ice-cold designer Astrid Parker, with whom Jordan has a disastrous meet-ugly.Without these cookies, we won't know if you have any performance-related issues that we may be able to address. That is until she meets Jordan Everwood, the carpenter who will also be assisting in this production. But when Astrid gets an exciting opportunity to renovate an entire inn that will be featured on a designer television show, Innside America, she thinks her prayers have been answered. And my favorite romances to read are not only [with people] figuring themselves out so they can be with another person, but they’re also figuring themselves out for themselves.

But I wanted to balance that with [the idea of] I have these people around me — no matter who I am or what I am, or how I see myself, label or no label, whatever it is — [who] accept me and support me no matter what. All this culminates in a budding queer romance, and suddenly Astrid is not so sure about anything, in the scariest yet most exciting way possible. Ashley Herring Blake, the award-winning author behind multiple books, is back again with her Bright Falls series.KT: One of the protagonists also seems to struggle with a need to please her mother, who seems impossible to satisfy. So, I had to figure out a way to insert some additional expertise, some tension with someone else, with [the character] Jordan and the carpentry [business]. There are books that start with sex, but then you build that backwards, and you can see that building backwards as they start to realize it’s more than sex, or something like that.

I think career changes, or thinking you want one thing and then you’d shift to another thing, is just something that’s really common with our generation that our parents’ generation probably didn’t do quite as much. But I think they’re both at a point where they need to change what their normal everyday life is, career and romance [wise].

BookPage is a recommendation guide for readers, highlighting the best new books across all genres as chosen by our editors. So, there’s a lot of things that you can just kind of shove under the rug when you’re growing up or when you first start coming into [your] sexuality.