Behind the Scenes: The Creation of Addicted After All (Patreon)

Today marks the release of Addicted After All in print with brand new bonus material! It joins the other new Berkley Romance releases in the Addicted Series. This year, most years really, we are so full of love and gratitude, but to see the Addicted Series rest upon shelves in real life bookstores (not just our imaginations!) has been an entirely new and overwhelming feeling this year. We've said it before, we'll say it for the rest of our lives, but you all are the reason the Addicted Series has had this opportunity, has still survived and THRIVED after a decade. Without readers pushing this series on their friends and fam and strangers and everyone in between, it would've slowly faded into the background.

So thank you so, so much for keeping this series alive.

Now, we thought it'd be fun to walk down memory lane in celebration of Addicted After All. So here we go, a blast from the past! As told by Becca 😉

1. Addicted After All was one of the easiest novels we've ever written. We often refer to this one as "the book that wrote itself". It was back towards the end of 2014, and we'd written so many books that year, including Kiss the Sky, Hothouse Flower, Thrive, and Amour Amour (now titled The Failed Audition), PLUS Addicted After All. Yet, this book was by far the most stress-free of the bunch! Looking back, maybe it's because the angst was slowly leaving as Lily & Lo were coming into the final joyous stage of their Happily Ever After -- and it marked the end of a hard year for us.

2. We got Mr. Frodo Baggins while we were writing Addicted After All. Our tuxedo cat came into our life during this novel! He was a free kitten in a box, and we could not resist him.

3. Initially, Hothouse Flower and Kiss the Sky were supposed to be standalone novels, but with the success of Hothouse Flower -- this was the highest grossing novel upon release we've ever written, and to this date, only one book has beaten it (Misfits Like Us) -- we were financially stable enough to continue the Addicted Series. Long series are risks, but we're also very passionate about the characters and worlds we've created, and we didn't feel like it was time to let them go. So when we wrote Addicted After All, we plotted it in mind that there would be Fuel the Fire and Long Way Down afterward.

4. Upon every draft, it was always called Addicted After All and was MUCH easier to title than Addicted for Now and Ricochet.

5. “You have the purest parts of my heart, and I’m certain that in every alternate universe, I’m always, always in love with you.” This is practically engraved in our hearts. It's by far one of our favorite things we've ever written. It's likely in the top 5. Funny enough, though, as time has gone on, we've seen some people mistake Lo saying this to Lily -- when in fact, this is something Lily says to Lo. And knowing she says these words makes us even more emotional.

6. Krista & I were 23 at this time, and our life was eat, sleep, write, and repeat. It was such a different but special time in our lives, as it truly felt like Lily, Lo, Ryke, Daisy, Connor, and Rose were not only keeping our dreams afloat but they were the comfort and courage we needed every day. Still, to this day, we hope all of our characters can be that for you, as they've helped us in so many ways too.

7. We brought in Garrison Abbey and brought back Willow Moore! From the jump of this novel, we knew that there needed to be "new players" in the series, but I don't believe we realized just how much we'd love them by the end. Not to the point where we would go on to writing a web series with Garrison & Willow, which would ultimately become Whatever It Takes and Wherever You Are, the Bad Reputation duet!

8. I wish we could remember the response towards this book's first release in 2014, but maybe it's good that we don't because it must've been overall positive! As new readers find the Addicted Series, we're realizing so many say that this one is their favorite of the whole series!! Which we don't believe we remember hearing as much back in the day (unless our memories fail us 😅).

9. With the new Berkley Edition, we were able to include some really fun bonus material in Addicted After All, some of which we had written way back in the day. We love that we were able to include bonus that existed at a time when we were still in our early twenties -- when we were in the depth of writing the Core 6 -- because, for us, this just feels the most authentic to the series. We've wanted to preserve the Addicted Series with the voice of "Krista & Becca in their 20s" as much as possible, and we can't wait for you to read it!!

10. Lastly, we never ever imagined Addicted After All and the rest of the Addicted Series would led us to this place in time right now. There was a point by Some Kind of Perfect, we pretty much thought the whole series was dead in the water. We knew we had to open a new chapter, and the Like Us Series was really our saving grace (it still feels like that to our souls most days). The Addicted Series reemerging has been a beautiful, priceless blessing, and to see the power of these characters and books -- knowing they can withstand time -- means everything to us. It is the embodiment of the dream of two sisters, and knowing so many of you have connected to it and truly loved the characters for years and years is overwhelming.

So cheers to you!! Each new Addicted release is a celebration to readers. You all kept this baby alive! And now look at it 🥹

We love you all like Lily loves her Wampa cap 🫶

xoxo Krista & Becca

P.S. Reminisce with us! Let us know what you remember the first time you read Addicted After All. Your feelings, where you were in time, what you loved the most about the book 💕