1997 Project Romance #1: Deconstructing the Anatomy of a Trope | A Publishing Partner Unzips Her Own Origin Story

I am embarking on a new project that feels a bit like becoming my own client. Over the years, I’ve told many people that their lives are a manuscript, and now, thanks to a literal ghost in my machine, I’m forced to take my own advice. This essay is the first in "1997 Project Romance," a series where we'll deconstruct a real-life romance by reverse-engineering the emails that started it all. It is the unvarnished "source code" of my own history, showing you how the power of storytelling can be built from the mundane moments of our daily lives.

The Perfect Storm of Dumbassery | How an IT Director Who Built a Bank Short-Circuited Over an Editing Queue

I recently wrote a long note on my Substack and spent some time debating if it should remain there as a journal entry or if it belonged here on the website. My Substack is a place for raw, professional journal-style updates, while I consider this website my permanent library for all my considerable and varied thought pieces on all things books, reading, writing, and publishing-related.

What Deanna Read #116: April 2026

I'm going to be honest and say that I do not know where I will land at the time I'm prepping this post since I'm being slightly organized and putting this together early. That said, it's been a slow month as I'm juggling work AND playing full time nurse to Hubby who is recovering from knee surgery. And he's much improved and doing very well, thank you for asking. But he better not get too used to me waiting on him hand and foot.

UPDATE: I am happy to report that prepping this early has meant that I am going to likely be the earliest I have ever posted a monthly What Deanna Read. Go me! I did read a few extra books by the time the end of April rocked around, so I'm pretty happy with where I landed overall.

Here's what I read in the last month.

Round Two 2026 ARCs from Deanna’s World | Historical Romance, Romantasy, Why Choose, Dark Psychological Thriller, Dark Mafia Romance Audiobooks

Hello, team!

Do you know what they said about best laid plans? Well, they very often go astray. For me, those plans led me down the garden path, up the side of one hill, over another mountain, and ultimately landed me playing nurse to Hubby, who is recovering from surgery. He’s recovering very well, hooray!

I want to thank you all for your patience and for bearing with me while I’ve been absent last month and most of this one. I am delighted to have several new books and audiobooks for you to read, listen to, and champion. You are every author’s best friend because of your enthusiasm, your love of good stories, and the support you show them. Believe me when I say they appreciate each and every one of you.

And before we get started, if you are an author and would like to submit your book for review consideration, click here. Here at Deanna’s World, we not only feature our very special author clients, but also all authors who would like to have access to the Deanna’s World Advance Reader (ARC) team.

The Doha Diaries #1: One-Way Tickets and Indemnity Forms, Confiscated and Stripped

I’ve spent the last decade helping authors find the heart of their stories, acting as that voice on their shoulder between a messy first draft and a polished, ready-to-publish book. But lately, I’ve realized I’ve been ignoring a story of my own—one that’s been sitting on a dusty hard drive for nearly two decades. Okay, not dusty, it was in a drawer. I’m digging into my archives and treating my old journals with the same clinical yet caring eye I give my clients—this is terrifying. This will be a series of essays I’m calling "The Doha Diaries," where I’ll be sharing the raw, unvarnished, and very messy lessons of a year that broke me down and built me back up, all while showing you exactly how a publishing partner turns life’s chaos into a narrative that matters.

Settle in and buckle up, you’ll want your beverage of choice for this ride…

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Notes from Deanna's Desk #2: Better Late Than Never

A long, long time ago (no, this is not the beginning of a Star Wars movie. Hah!)… when I first started my Substack, I thought it would be fun to do a recap of what I shared each week or month called “Notes from Deanna’s desk” of which I did exactly one post. Life, work, etc. I have no excuse really, but despite good intentions, that fell by the wayside very quickly. The reality is that if I have deadlines and life intrudes the first thing to go is social media, and the next thing to go is trying to maintain any semblance of a schedule on my website. And then I decided to hop off the social media hamster wheel, and that was that.