Two Launches and One Mother's Heart

Hello Beautiful Readers,

This month feels especially significant.

I'm celebrating my birthday and I'm launching two babies into the world.

One is twenty-three years old.

The other is 234 pages.

I'm not sure what makes me feel older the gray hair I found in my eyebrow this morning, turning 53, or watching my oldest move to New York City for his first post-college job.

Whatever it is, July has me feeling all the feelings.

Last week, I drove my son into the city, unloaded boxes, hugged him goodbye, and drove home. College prepared us for him leaving, but this was different.

This wasn't "See you at Thanksgiving."

This was the beginning of his own life.

People talk about becoming empty nesters the quiet house, the smaller grocery bill, the laundry that suddenly disappears.

What they don't talk about is a mother's heart.

For years, motherhood is found in the little things: making their favorite meal, asking about their day, sitting beside them after a long one. Then one morning you wake up and realize those everyday moments are gone.

Not because they don't need your love anymore.

They just need it differently.

As bittersweet as it is, I couldn't be prouder. I can't wait to see the life Matthew builds. 

As I've been processing all of this, it struck me that I'm sending another piece of my

heart into the world this month.

Regret No More releases on my birthday.

Books aren't all that different from our children. We nurture them, lose sleep over them, worry whether the world will be kind to them, and eventually have to let them go.

This book carries an especially tender piece of my heart. While writing Justine and Becca's story (a mother and daughter navigating breast cancer, regret, forgiveness, and second chances) someone close to my family was undergoing cancer treatment. We also lost a dear friend to cancer.

To say this story became personal would be an understatement.

There were days I couldn't separate my tears from my characters' tears.

Maybe that's why this release feels different.

This isn't just another novel. It's the story my heart needed to write.

So here I am celebrating another birthday, watching one dream begin in New York City and another begin on bookstore shelves.

It's scary. 

It's exciting.

It's vulnerable.

And it's a beautiful reminder that our hearts never stop making room for new seasons.

Next week I'll be in Cape Cod with my toes in the sand, a book in my hands, and the ocean in front of me, thinking about the two "babies" I've spent years nurturing.

I have a feeling they're both going to be just fine.

Thank you, as always, for being here and for walking this journey with me. Whether you've been reading my books since the beginning or just recently joined this community, I'm grateful you've chosen to share this season with me.

Here's to new beginnings, open hearts, and trusting that the things we love most can flourish once we let them go.

 With gratitude,

 Wendy