The Write Off
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- Pre-Order
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- Expected Apr 7, 2026
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
Two rival authors are forced to confront a decade of love and heartbreak on the campus where it all started in this captivating debut romance by Kara McDowell.
It’s been thirteen years since Mars Darling first met West Emerson on a bench outside their writing class. What started out as a friendly rivalry turned into a best friendship and then, for a brief time, a romance. Now over a decade later, as Mars stands at their college campus as a once-esteemed YA fantasy author, ready to take on a book festival, she comes face to face with West—the muse behind her infamous trilogy’s heartthrob hero, the man who betrayed her in the worst way.
Mars is determined not to let her comeback tour be ruined by the fact that West is also at the festival as an author. But the longer they are on the campus that holds so many shared memories, the more time they have to untangle their past, and Mars starts to question if maybe it’s not only her writing career that deserves a second chance.
Told in two unfolding timelines—Mars and West’s frenzied college days where they grapple with their undeniable connection, and their tension-filled present of heartache and familiar yearning—this charming romance shows that while you can’t rewrite the past, it’s never too late to chase your happily ever after and get back the one that got away.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Romance can be a lot messier in real life than it is on the page, as Margot “Mars” Darling learns in this engaging rom-com. Mars authored a megahit YA romantasy series starring a dark and handsome hero based on her old flame West Emerson, who’s now an acclaimed writer himself. In college, they were set to conquer the literary world together…until West betrayed her horribly and publicly. So when they run into each other at a book festival, things get complicated fast. In her first romance for adults, author Kara McDowell really pulls us into Mars’ conundrum: Should the man she turned into countless readers’ favourite book boyfriend still have a place in her own heart? Switching back and forth in time between college and the present, we get a satisfying view of the entire arc of their relationship. Full of fun winks that fans of romantic reads will just get, The Write Off is a gift to rom-com lovers everywhere.
