A big thank you to New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Rachel Lynn Solomon for joining me to talk about her upcoming Young Adult release, Past Present Future, which is the sequel to Today Tonight Tomorrow. The book releases June 4th, but pre-orders are currently available!
Follow Rachel:
Books discussed in the episode:
For links to the books discussed in this episode, click the link here to take you to the Google Doc to view the list.
For episode feedback, future reading and author recommendations, you can text the podcast by clicking the "Send us a message button" above.
For more, follow along on Instagram @whereileftoffpod.
A big thank you to New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Rachel Lynn Solomon for joining me to talk about her upcoming Young Adult release, Past Present Future, which is the sequel to Today Tonight Tomorrow. The book releases June 4th, but pre-orders are currently available!
Follow Rachel:
Books discussed in the episode:
For links to the books discussed in this episode, click the link here to take you to the Google Doc to view the list.
For episode feedback, future reading and author recommendations, you can text the podcast by clicking the "Send us a message button" above.
For more, follow along on Instagram @whereileftoffpod.
Welcome back. I'm Kristen Bahls and you're listening to Where I Left Off - A Bookish Podcast, and today I'm joined by the author of Business or Pleasure The EX Talk, Today, Tonight, Tomorrow and so many more Rachel Lynn Solomon, and today we're talking about her upcoming young adult release Past, Present and Future. Thank you so much for joining me today, Rachel.
Rachel Lynn Solomon:Thank you for having me, Kristen. I'm really happy to be here.
Kristen Bahls:Oh, I'm so happy to have you. I've been loving your books, but I always ask every author that comes on what are you currently reading right now?
Rachel Lynn Solomon:Yeah, so I am currently reading well, reading the audiobook, or listening to the audiobook of the latest Finley Donovan book. I am just obsessed. They are these comedic murder mysteries that really just have you kind of at the edge of your seat, laughing but also stressed, and there's a bit of romance as well, and they're just such a blast especially on audio.
Kristen Bahls:Yeah, my friend Paige actually went to an event with the author and so she's been telling me about them. So they're definitely very high on my TBR and I kind of like how they don't fit like one specific genre and, like you said, they have a little bit of everything.
Rachel Lynn Solomon:Yeah, for sure. No, it's a really fun genre mashup.
Kristen Bahls:So what is something that you're passionate about that might surprise your readers?
Rachel Lynn Solomon:So I don't know if maybe passion is the best word, but something that I've gotten into lately is birds, and I think part of the reason is I live in Amsterdam and you know I walk or take public transit everywhere. I would be biking if I were not afraid for my life, because everyone is just far more confident than I am. But there are just so many different birds here, you know, just different from the ones that I grew up with in Seattle, and I really love seeing a bird in the wild that I haven't seen before and then like looking it up and finding out what it is.
Rachel Lynn Solomon:There are gray herons, which I had never seen before and they're just incredible because they're huge and they're so still that sometimes if you're just walking by you don't even notice them or you think it's a statue because they just don't move for minutes on end. And I especially love this kind of this time of year in the spring, because you see all of the ducks paired up. Sometimes you get to see their nests and I think just because Amsterdam is a city that I mean the water is so central to how the city runs that you, just you are so much closer to the avian wildlife. So I've been joking to my husband and my friends like be careful, I'm going to get into birding. But I think it's a legitimate risk and I'm already there.
Kristen Bahls:And you can put, like some bird references or even a main character that has that as their hobby in your next book. You never know where it could show up.
Rachel Lynn Solomon:Yeah, I guess. So I mean, they're just so cool, they're so interesting.
Kristen Bahls:I love that. Speaking of writing a little bit more, are there any tropes that you haven't written yet that you think you would want to add into future novels?
Rachel Lynn Solomon:I have never written Best Friends to Lovers. Yeah, it's such a great one when it's done well. I mean, like People We Meet on Vacation is just god tier when it comes to that. Because I didn't. I honestly didn't even think I liked the trope that much until I read that book, and it's just so well done. So I actually have a YA in in progress. I mean, I have a few chapters written, but I'm not going to be able to work on it until later this year. That is best friends to lovers, but I think why, like, I would love to do it in adult as well, because I think it just hits differently. I mean, it can be great in both age categories, but I would like to do. There's a difference between being lifelong friends when you're 17 versus lifelong friends when you're 30.
Kristen Bahls:Oh my gosh, that'll be so cool. So is your actual work in progress. Okay, so are you working kind of on two things at once, like a little bit with the YA that you have to shelf and then another book, or what's kind of your focus right now?
Rachel Lynn Solomon:I can usually only focus on one thing at a time, and it's usually just whatever the most pressing deadline is. So at the moment, I'm working on my next adult romance, which is actually set in Amsterdam. Uh, and that one has been. It's been a lot of fun, it's been a challenge, because I've never written something, um, that wasn't set in Seattle, where where all my other books are set, um, and even though I've lived here for three years, it's just, you know, I want to do the city justice and I want to make sure I'm portraying it in both a positive light while also showing all the weird I'm like I've. I actually think this, this could be an okay book, and I got to that point yesterday, so I'm currently feeling good.
Rachel Lynn Solomon:Um, and then my way project is so that adult book is scheduled for next year. And then I have a YA project that hasn't been announced yet. Um, that's the best friends to lovers one and that will be coming out in 2026. And I'll start. I have a few chapters, but I'll start really working on it later this year.
Kristen Bahls:Nice I was gonna say on your Amsterdam book, the Rom- Com. I think that one thing that you do particularly well is always just kind of creating like a visceral reaction. I've never actually been to Seattle, but reading your books I feel like I'm there. So I have no doubt that this new one will be perfect set in Amsterdam. So talking a little bit more about your upcoming novel Past, Present and Future. So this is the second novel. So this is the second novel. The first is Today, Tonight and Tomorrow, and then this is a second in the duology. So what inspired you to kind of come back to and continue a Rowan and Neil story?
Rachel Lynn Solomon:The short answer is the readers. So this book came out in 2020. I drafted it in 2017. So it's been a long time since I was, you know, in that, the headspace of that first book and it will. So it was released. I should specify it was released in July 2020 and, leading up to the book, when the world shut down, I just assumed it was doomed. I it was my favorite thing I'd ever written. And I was like, well, you know, and it was my favorite thing I'd ever written, and I was like, well, you know, it'll be out there and we'll see what happens, but my hopes and expectations were quite. Well, my hopes were somewhere in the middle.
Rachel Lynn Solomon:I books, you know, romantic comedies were providing that for so many readers. And even though this book portrayed a version of the world that was not possible to access at the time because it's about two seniors on the last day of high school that play this citywide scavenger hunt, slash, assassin game and they are longtime academic rivals they end up teaming up and, of course, realizing that they've been in love with each other this whole time. I heard from a lot of teens who were kind of robbed of that end of high school experience and it was just really meaningful to hear that they were able to escape and find some joy in that book. And then was just really meaningful to hear that they, that they were able to escape and find some joy in that book, Um, and then I just continued to be super lucky and it's very hard to explain. I think publishers are always trying to figure out why a book resonates with readers more than than another. Um, but Today, Tonight, Tomorrow is the book that I heard the most from readers about Um and I also.
Rachel Lynn Solomon:The one thing I kept hearing was what happens to them afterward, because I purposefully didn't write an epilogue. It ends, it takes place in 24 hours and we really don't see what happens after that day. Um, and in my head I would always just, I always just assumed that they would be together forever, because, as a romance writer, kind of have to believe in that. Yeah, so when people ask me, I would just kind of jokingly say like, yeah, you know they never break up and they die together in their sleep in their 90s holding each other.
Rachel Lynn Solomon:But the more people asked, the more I just started thinking about it and I was going through, you know, some upheaval in terms of um, you know, moving and completely uprooting my life from Seattle to Amsterdam. Um, that obviously caused a a very exciting thing that I'm super super grateful for, but not without challenges. Uh, and I had just been so happy when I was drafting Today, Tonight, Tomorrow, and I really I wanted to try to recapture that, but I also didn't want the sequel to feel like a cheap money grab. I think that's just a very easy way that people brush off sequels that they don't like, and I was very scared of that, so I didn't want to write it until I felt like I had a solid idea.
Rachel Lynn Solomon:Yeah, and I knew that if I wrote it, that it would take place in college and that it would follow them on this long distance relationship, but I didn't really know what they would specifically be doing in the book, and it actually wasn't until the title came to me that I really felt like I had to do it, because the title was just kind of a perfect parallel of the first one of the first one, and I actually I think I emailed my team about the possibility of writing this book. I want to say it was in 2022, maybe like end of 2022. And then it was originally going to come out last year, but that didn't happen because of, you know, other book deadlines and I just again like really wanted other book deadlines, um, and I just again like really wanted to do it justice. Yeah, I tend to put a lot of pressure on myself.
Rachel Lynn Solomon:This is just a theme with me, um, but I also I didn't want to announce the book until I was completely done with it, because I wanted to make sure, even though I was doing, even though the initial idea was sparked by people asking what happened to Rowan and Neil after the last chapter, I wanted to write it for myself first, without any other voices in the room, and feel like if I could get it right for myself, then hopefully the readers would see that I'd, you know, done the best that I could with these characters and just given them all the care that they deserved.
Kristen Bahls:I agree and I at first, whenever I saw there was a sequel, I was like how are you going to take that subplot of the how like that was what made it so special was having the how and the competition and the kind of enemies to lovers. And then, as I was reading it, like from the first page, I just realized, okay, this is really good and I like how you took the long distance relationship and you still included a lot of the struggles to make it more realistic, but it never felt forced at any point and you still added some other fun little twists that I don't want to ruin for readers that really keep the plot moving along. Yeah, I was gonna ask you whenever you start really second guessing yourself, is there any kind of tactic that you use to kind of keep going? Is it just writing it for yourself first and then just kind of showing it to friends and getting feedback and adjusting, or do you have any like specific tactics for kind of inspiring writers?
Rachel Lynn Solomon:Whining to my friends tends to work really well. They're really good at, you know, positive affirmations. Sometimes you just need some cheerleading no, but I will. Often I feel like, you know, critique partners and, like my author friends, really are the best when they're helping with brainstorming. That is just invaluable, I think. And then also, you know, my editor and my agent will help with that as well. But sometimes you're just so close to a project and you can't see the very obvious way forward until someone points it out. And this happened with Past, Present, Future. Actually, someone suggested something that completely changed the book and then a different friend suggested something with my Amsterdam book and I just it's something that now I'm like how did I not see that? But you're just too close to it and it's you need that outside perspective sometimes.
Rachel Lynn Solomon:So, yes, definitely talking it out with other people helps, um, kind of just taking a break and, like you know, getting some fresh air exercise so I'm not just locked in my my little room all day, and also sometimes, if I'm really struggling with something, it's a good, it's a sign that well, obviously it's a sign that it's not working, but it's usually a sign of something deeper that's wrong. Like, if I'm dreading writing a certain chapter, then why is the reader going to enjoy reading it if I didn't like?
Kristen Bahls:Writing it.
Rachel Lynn Solomon:So usually I need to go back to the drawing board and figure out okay, why am I not excited about this chapter and what can I do differently?
Kristen Bahls:Do you tend to like really plot out your novels, or are you a little bit more of a pantser?
Rachel Lynn Solomon:No, I do really heavily outline. My outlines are probably, I would say, like 7 to 10,000 words or so, because they often have like chunks of dialogue that just come to me as I'm working on them. But I mean, with this book I'm working on now like I've re-outlined it four times in the process of between drafting and now revising, because I just couldn't figure out like what the plot was where the tension was out, like what the plot was where the tension was Um. So yeah, I do, I I often start with an outline. Almost always by the midpoint things have changed and I need to go back and re-outline because it just kind of not I don't want to say it goes off the rails.
Rachel Lynn Solomon:It just goes in a direction that I hadn't planned and I actually think that's really fun because I know that some pantsers don't outline because they want to be surprised, and even though I do really heavily outline, I have never written a book that hasn't gone in a direction that I didn't expect, and that's really exciting.
Kristen Bahls:That's smart and I feel like you could probably say that for so many things in life. As soon as you have a plan, something's definitely not going to, you know, always go according to that plan. But of course it helps to have, you know, a little bit of an outline for sure, Talking a little bit more about the book. So what influenced your decision to add some of the more mature themes to this novel versus the first one in the duology?
Rachel Lynn Solomon:A few things. I mean, they are like 19 in the book, so it is a bit more mature. They're in college, they have much more freedom, much more independence, they're not constantly reporting to their parents. And I also think college is a time where you are figuring out a lot of stuff about yourself for the first time as a result of that freedom and not for the first time, um, as a result of that freedom and not you know the, the leash has kind of been snipped and you, yeah, like you, have to figure out how to do your laundry and how to probably feed yourself every day. If, if those weren't weren't things that you were used to doing, um, in high school, um. And I think it's also a time where people find, you know they're changing atmospheres and changing friend groups and just if everything you know, it's such a period of of vast change that mental health can can change a lot as a result.
Rachel Lynn Solomon:And then, with regard to because this book is definitely I know it has more sexual content than Today, tonight, tomorrow, and I guess that is also because they are kind of on their own. But also I think there's something really valid as like validating as a teenager, as someone who is like late in high school or in college, like reading this book and seeing two people who are in a relationship work through, um, you know, some communication difficulties around intimacy.
Rachel Lynn Solomon:um, I don't think that anything in the book is not suitable for YA , a YA audience or you know I don't think my YA publisher would have would have published it, true, but I do like I do really stand by it and I think that the conversations that they have as two people who are in a relationship are not ones that we get to see a lot of in YA, where everything just ends with them like getting together and there's no, there isn't really that struggle around, around that kind of intimacy. And I think those conversations can be so important to see on the page, to help, whether it's like helping someone see, have a model for how to maybe navigate that, or like, whatever age you are, I think they can feel very empowering. I mean, that was a whole, that was kind of my whole drive behind Business or Pleasure.
Kristen Bahls:Definitely I was going to say um same thing in Business or Pleasure that not everything goes perfectly the first time, and there are a lot of things that they both have to talk to in conversations that they have to have. And it doesn't mean that just because it didn't go perfectly the first time, that it can't get there with a little bit of work. Um, and communication for sure. Well, good to know. And if you could compete, compete, do you think that you would be able to win? Uh, the howl, the scavenger hunt?
Rachel Lynn Solomon:Absolutely not no, I mean my, like you know, skills in games, kind of start and end with anything word based. So you know scrabble is. I could win Scrabble but not much else. I'm not super coordinated and I also don't think I I don't have the like competitive nature. I think to go running around the city to to figure out the scavenger hunt clues. So yeah, I think I'd be quite bad at it.
Kristen Bahls:Whatever you were making the scavenger hunt clues, did you just kind of go off of memory because you've lived in Seattle, or did you kind of have to do some research and walk around and figure out how you were going to structure them?
Rachel Lynn Solomon:Yeah I did a lot of research, a lot of exploring. There were so many things in my early drafts that didn't make it into the final book. I had, like maps. I mean I had, you know, it's basically that meme with like the you know, murder map, except it was just weird things in Seattle, um, and it was actually kind of a bummer because there were some things in my earlier drafts and actually some things that are in the final that are no longer there, um, so it's sort of this weird time capsule of a Seattle that doesn't quite exist anymore, at least the way that I wrote it. So it's very interesting to now that I don't live there, because I spent the first 30 years of my life in Seattle, going back and seeing it change. So I wrote this book as a love letter to Seattle and I do, like, feel, really, I feel really attached to that version of it.
Kristen Bahls:I agree it's really interesting to be able to, you know, just see all the different landmarks and places that you include in both novels, and especially in this one, as they go off to New York and Boston and you get to talk about both of those places and kind of their new environments. But I was going to say that one thing I really enjoyed about the book was both Neil and Rowan's roommate situations, and that not to ruin anything in any way, but they, when they get there, the roommates, maybe aren't the personalities that they were expecting. Did you have a similar roommate experience?
Rachel Lynn Solomon:I actually did, and I remember writing this or like drafting this, and thinking I wanted specifically Neil. I wanted to give him just a roommate that would be the complete opposite of him and it's like a he's just this, I mean. Yeah, it's kind of like a himbo, I guess.
Rachel Lynn Solomon:But he is he's very much a golden retriever and he's one of my favorite characters, for sure. But yeah, my freshman year of college I had a roommate who was she was on the rugby team and she was just very like I am 4'10 and she was, you know this, like very tough, um, like rugby player, and you know we were always very pleasant with each other but just ran in very different circles and like I went to one of her rugby matches and it was so scary, um. But then there was one time where I had like a bad breakup, freshman year, and you know I was just like crying and she was like very sweet, like you know, like you know kind of like patting my back and like is there anything you need? And just I think that those moments between people who just have this really just only connected by the of roommates, roommate selection, like that proximity, can inspire some great kinds of closeness.
Kristen Bahls:Yeah, I agree, I had a very interesting experience myself. I think everyone can definitely relate to that. And so so many things in this novel. And if it okay, so if it were just a random saturday in the spring, what do you think that Neil and Rowan would be doing right now?
Rachel Lynn Solomon:Now I think, well, if it's a Saturday, then they're definitely visiting each other at one of their schools and probably just exploring the city. I feel like they just love to go out and see new things and you know, there is a version of Howl in the book that they kind of create for each other, so I think they would be doing probably something similar in one of their cities.
Kristen Bahls:I agree, and is there anything that you would like readers to know more about the book going in?
Rachel Lynn Solomon:That's a great question. I think just that it's a little more serious than Today, Tonight, Tomorrow, but there is absolutely still a happy ending. The epilogue is one of my favorite things that I've ever written and I really like. I'm so grateful for the readers that have stuck with these characters and the readers who are just picking up the book and learning about them now, because they are 100% of the reason that I was able to do this and, yeah, I really, I really hope they enjoy the kind of the next chapter for them.
Kristen Bahls:And if they pre order it through the link on your Instagram, then you will also personalize it with some Seattle doodles, correct?
Rachel Lynn Solomon:Yeah, yeah, so they get. There are a few options for just some little little fun things. They can pre order through Third Place Books in Seattle for signed copies that will also come with character art that I'll be revealing soon. And there's also a Barnes and Noble exclusive edition which is not signed but it does come with sprayed edges that they're blue and they have a little space needle on them. It's super cute and there is a bonus second epilogue that I think will also be very satisfying. So kind of a pick, pick, whichever one is most appealing.
Kristen Bahls:I don't know. Now I really want to read the second epilogue, so that's probably going to win it out for me. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me today, Rachel, and that's it. Thanks for listening to Where I Left Off - A Bookish Podcast. You can sign up for Rachel's newsletter and purchase her novels through the links in the show notes. Tune in next time Find her newsletter and purchase her novels through the links in the show notes. Tune in next time. Bye.