Love Always, Bailey follows five friends who spend five days at a beach house where they discover the importance of friends and how quickly they can slip away. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

The inspiration for the setup of this story was taken from my personal life. The Highview, the house the friends go to, is a real house in Manasota Key where I used to spend one week each summer with my friends. The friend group is based off of my own childhood friends, and many of the scenarios in the story were inspired by real-life scenarios.

Was there anything from your own life that you put into the characters in your novel?

No character in this story is a carbon copy of anyone I know, but they each have some of the best and worst qualities of my childhood friends. I think when pulling from inspiration, it is important to keep the element of fiction. In this case, I imagined how I thought the real-life friends would react to the major event and loss in this story. I know these characters so well because I crafted them to be fictionalized versions of people I know so well.

What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?

Friendship and found family are the most important themes that I explored in this book. I think it is so important to share with YA readers the importance of friendship. In adulthood, I find that so many adults don’t value their friendships, and I find that to be a huge loss.

What is the next book you are working on, and when will it be available?

I am currently shopping around 2 YA novels. One is about a young girl who has to move into a motel after her family suffers a loss due to addiction. The other is a YA version of The Wedding Planner meets The Wedding Singer: basically, a wedding planner’s very type-A daughter falls for the lead singer of a wedding band.

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