Before KNOCKED-UP CINDERELLA, I published four YA novels, three of them rom-coms. I’d always seen myself as a young adult writer, because I’d always idealized teen romance, with the heady, all-encompassing first loves and epic mistakes. Teenagers are blessed with time–time to obsess over minutiae, whether that means longing looks from a hot guy in calc class, perceived slights from a best friend, or every lyric from their favorite band’s new album.
For most of my twenties and thirties, I continued to romanticize teen love, probably because, for me personally, those decades were not about looking for romance and dating, but marriage and parenthood. And most of my circle of friends were in the same place.
But now that I’m approaching forty (in a little over a month *cough*), I’ve started to focus more on mature romances. I have friends who’ve found love after thirty-five–after they’ve settled into careers and their single lifestyles. They’re learning how to let a new person–with their own careers and baggage–into their already established existences. I know people who have divorced and found themselves single for the first time in two decades. They have to figure out the dating game in a whole new millennium.
Love at forty means having to think like a teenager again, while having the mature brain and body of a forty-year-old. It means learning to navigate new dating norms and rituals. It means that maybe you’re the only single person you know and no one else can empathize what you’re going through. It means letting new people in and finding the right person to meet you where you are. It’s about changing bodies and changing needs and figuring out who you really are, because you’re forty now, and this is as real as your life is ever going to get. So, in that way, it really is like the other side of the teen romance coin.
And that’s where Erin and Ian are in KNOCKED-UP CINDERELLA. They’re two career-minded people, who’ve never needed more than work. But suddenly they’re faced with having to let, not one, but two people into their full, busy lives. They’ve never had to make room for anyone, but now they have to consider the needs and feelings of their own child and their co-parent.
Teen love is about firsts, but so is finding new love at forty.
KNOCKED-UP CINDERELLA by Julie Hammerle
I’m a walking contradiction.
School principal who liberally drops the F bomb.
Fiercely independent yet willing to auction myself off for charity.
Serial monogamist who’s down for a no-strings one-night stand.
Except now I’ve gone from one-working-ovary to co-parent in the time it took a stick to turn blue.
F. Bomb.
Ian Donovan may be a richer-than-hell venture capitalist, but he’s no Prince Charming ready to sweep me off my feet. Good thing I don’t need him. I’ve been doing fine on my own for forty years, and I’m not about to start changing that now.
Ultrasounds, swollen feet, midnight cravings? Bring. It. On.
But why is it when you finally swear off men, you meet one who’s too sexy—and determined we can make it work?
Contemporary | Romance Contemporary [Entangled, On Sale: November 12, 2018, e-Book, ISBN: 9781640636903 / ]
About Julie Hammerle
Julie Hammerle writes young adult novels that focus on nerds, geeks, and basket cases falling in love. On the YA side, she is the author of The Sound of Us (Entangled TEEN, 2016) and the North Pole romance series (Entangled Crush, 2017). For adult romances, look for Knocked-Up Cinderella in the fall of 2018. A graduate of Butler University with degrees in secondary education and Latin with a minor in music, Julie lives in Chicago with her family and enjoys reading, cooking, and watching all the television.
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