Author: Emma

Emma Barry is a teacher, novelist, recovering academic, and former political staffer. She lives with her high school sweetheart and a menagerie of pets and children in Virginia, and she occasionally finds time to read and write.

Things I Really Liked in 2025

“A glooming peace this morning with it brings; the sun, for sorrow, will not show his head”: those words are in my mind today, but they would’ve been appropriate for much of the last 12 months. I’ve struggled to write this post because every day of the new year has erupted with a story that makes me want to throw up my hands and say, “See, we don’t deserve good things right now.” But art has gotten me through this year, and I need to celebrate it.

As always, the normal caveats apply: this isn’t a best of list, it’s merely a list of things I read, watched, and listened to in 2025 that made me happy or gave me thinky thoughts. If you’re curious, you can check out my previous year in reviews: 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, and 2016.

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My 2026 Word

Continuing my 2025 reflection posts (see my 2025 in writing post here), I wanted to return to last year’s word: balance.

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2025 in Review

My nudge word for 2025 was balance. It’s difficult for me to remember a year that’s been so divided between moments when, in a cold sweat, I’ve thought, “I have no idea what I’m doing” and those when, in tears and triumph, I’ve thought, “I absolutely know what I’m doing.”

Is that balance? Who can say! Let’s review.

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Feeling…adventurous? I have details re: my next book!

So I can finally share my vague publishing news with you: I have a forthcoming project, and it’s an academic adventure romance.

a screenshot from Publishers Marketplace reading, “Author of BAD REPUTATION and CHICK MAGNET, Emma Barry’s YOU, ME, & THE CONSPIRACY, pitched as an academic adventure romance a la National Treasure with more spice, in which two history professors uncover a revolutionary conspiracy and secret society that they must expose—or risk becoming its latest victims all while fighting their growing attraction to Norma Perez-Hernandez at Atria, at auction, in a two-book deal, for publication in Fall of 2026, by Sarah Younger at the Nancy Yost Literary Agency (world).”
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Bold Moves is on sale

FYI, the ebook of Bold Moves is on sale for the first time in North America. Until the end of August, you can get it for $2.49 at Amazon. It’s also available in KU, in paperback, and on audio, where it’s read wonderfully by Savannah Peachwood and Jeremy York. There’s a full list of buy links at Books2Read.

Additionally, the ebooks for Chick Magnet and Bad Reputation are both $1.99 this month, so it’s a great time to stock up on Emma Barry titles for cheap.

Coming Soon: A Casual Thing

A few months ago, I asked my newsletter subscribers what bonus material they wanted to see for Bold Moves, and the consensus was Jaime and Scarlett’s high school love affair.

I had several pages of notes with snippets of conversations and ghosts of scenes, the kinds of things that I worked into exposition and memory in Bold Moves. So I picked out a few that felt most important to me–and which could give the thing some kind of narrative coherence–and I started writing. And I kept writing. And then I wrote some more.

Finally, I had an 11,000-word prequel sketch. I’m planning to send it out to my newsletter on August 1; if you aren’t subscribed, you can fix that here. I will eventually add a link to the extra to the book page, but subscribing to my newsletter is the fastest way to get the prequel.

A few notes: given that the novel is a second-chance romance, don’t go looking for a happy ending here. It doesn’t have one. It does have profanity, on-page kissing, and references to poverty, homelessness, and drug trafficking.

3 Books By the Numbers

Do you remember when I used to blog? Ah, those were the days!

With the decline of the Google Reader and RSS feeds and as it became harder to balance my day job with my parenting responsibilities and my writing, it became more difficult for me to justify spending time on blogging. Each post would only get a few dozen hits, and so it made more sense to save those ideas, and that time, for my newsletter. (Which you can sign up for here, if you’re inclined.)

But I just finished drafting a book, and I realized that I have some interesting data, or at least some data that I found to be interesting. For my last three projects, I tracked my writing progress in spreadsheets, meaning that I can take a granular look at my productivity. What follows is a peek into my–wildly disparate and probably dysfunctional–writing process.

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Stuff Your Kindle Day

The world is on fire in a hundred ways. But I can offer you more than 1600 free books. Yes, that’s right: more than a thousand books that are totally free can now be yours! Visit www.romancebookworms.com to browse the incredible selection. It includes The One You Hate (by moi). This title has never been free before, so click fast if you don’t have it.

Some other participating authors whose work I would recommend that you check out are Tara Lush, Zara Keane, Nicola Davidson, Aydra Richards, Edie Cay, Kate Pearce, Asa Maria Bradley, Rachel Grant, Karen Grey, Mia Heintzelman, Jackie Lau, N.R. Walker, Valerie Pepper, Brighton Walsh, Genevieve Turner, Kate Meader, Reese Ryan, Annabeth Albert, Chelsea Cameron, Zoe York, Sadie Haller, and Ainsley Booth.

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Bold Moves Release Day!

It’s release day for BOLD MOVES, my second chance romance about a chess grand master adapting her memoir with the director whose heart she broke in high school. It can now be yours on Kindle (and in KU) and in paperback; the wonderful audiobook—read by Savannah Peachwood and Jeremy York—is available at Audible; and there are additional buy links at Books2Read.

I have to confess something: I am boring. No, really, it’s true. I eat the same thing for lunch almost every day. I love listening to narrative history podcasts. And I think solving the Piano Puzzler is fun.

See, I told you—boring.

But because of that, in real life and in fiction, I have always had a soft spot for people who paint their lives in screaming neon. Those capital-C characters who are loud and audacious and comfortable in the spotlight. Those folks who can crank their emotions up to 11. Jaime and Scarlett are those kinds of people.

This is a book about how the stories we tell become our identities. It’s about making impossible choices when you’re probably going to lose the game. It’s about fate and forgiveness…and the seductiveness of reusable canvas bags, sourdough bread, and chess. Chess above all things.

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Chick Magnet ITALIAN Cover Reveal!

I suspect that every author has a list of hopes and dreams for their books. For example, I would love to see my one of mine in an airport bookstore. I mean, I’d love to see them in any bookstore at all, but for reasons that I can’t really explain, the airport bookstore feels like an especially high bar. Probably because the titles you see there tend to be super mega ultra bestsellers, and, well, who wouldn’t want that?

But another goal for me was translations; I desperately wanted to sell foreign language rights to one of my books. And two years ago, the lovely folks at Queen Edizioni bought the rights to Chick Magnet and Funny Guy, and Chick Magnet is going to release on April 22, 2025: the same day that Bold Moves will appear in English.

Isn’t the cover for the Italian translation gorgeous? It’s so bucolic, and I adore that they kept the pink and yellow cover scheme from the English-language version.

Anyhow, if you read in Italian, you can preorder Chick Magnet for Kindle here.