There’s so much I want to tell you about Cicadas: A Totally Ordinary Epic Love Story, but when I finally sat down to write my release-day newsletter and blog post, I was paralyzed. Should I discuss the theme of memory and how music and photography both feed and distort it? Should I talk about cicadas as symbols of ecstasy and resurrection? Or explain why I took the comma out of the original subtitle (A Totally Ordinary, Epic Love Story)?
None of those book-club topics would mean anything if you haven’t read the book, so I’ll just talk about what it means to me.
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Okay, an hour has passed and my words all sounded trite, so I deleted them. I’ll just say that Cicadas is my most personal book yet. Maybe that’s because I started writing it during the pandemic. A lot of authors turned inward during that time, drawing upon the wells of their own selves and pasts, and I was no exception. Maybe this story, first born as an idea in 2004, just needed a quiet time to grow.
Anyway, I hope you come to love Joel and Danny-Dan-Daniel as much as I do. Or at least half as much.
What if you had a second chance at a second chance?
One day in 1987
Budding scientist Joel and cowboy-quarterback Danny meet amid the arrival of seventeen-year cicadas. Like the loud, lusty insects, the boys bond through song, reveling in the heat and hope of early summer—until fate tears them apart.
One night in 2004
During the next wave of cicadas, Joel and Dan find their connection stronger than ever. Boyhood fascination becomes an irresistible (and inconvenient!) passion, one that will unite and divide them for another seventeen years.
One love to last a lifetime
At the dawn of 2021, Joel and Daniel reach out, and in a heartbeat, the years and miles between them fall away. But to make their next reunion last forever, they must face their troubled pasts and embrace their boundless future.
Cicadas is a uniquely American, ridiculously romantic tale about memory, nostalgia, and the courage to dance into an untold tomorrow.
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See more about Cicadas: A Totally Ordinary Epic Love Story, including a tiny trailer plus a sample chapter