Releasing your new novel into the world in the middle of the Corona pandemic is, well, an experience. The project that you’ve spent years of your life working on, your little book baby that means the world to you, the book that you were going to shout about from the rooftops—suddenly, it’s really not the most important thing, not even at all. This feeling, of your big thing becoming small, frivolous even, in the face of what really matters in the world, feels a lot like getting engaged on September 10, 2001. How do I know this? Been there, done that.

That’s right, my husband and I got engaged the night before September 11th. It was a rainy Monday night. He invited me over to cook dinner. When I arrived at his apartment, he had the whole room filled with roses and glowing candlelight, complete with our favorite song playing faintly in the background. He took my coat, got down on one knee, said some really beautiful things to me and asked me to spend my life with him.

The next morning, I met one of my best friends for breakfast to show her my shiny new ring and talk all about wedding plans. While we gabbed at the Applejack Diner in Midtown Manhattan, another friend called to tell us a plane had just flown into the World Trade Center. We spoke about it for a few moments and then returned to banter about bridesmaids’ dresses. As we finished the last drops of our coffee, the final bites of our toast, we had no idea what was really going on at the other end of our city. I left breakfast and started making my way to 47th street, the jewelry district, to have my ring sized. I ended up in the basement of a jewelry shop, where a jeweler began to solder small metal balls onto the inside of my shining engagement ring to create a better fit. He had a small TV at his workstation. When I turned my face toward the screen and saw the destruction of the Twin Towers, suddenly I understood there had been more than a simple plane accident.

I thought September 11th, 2001 was going to be my day, all about me. At age twenty-four, I was the first of my friends to get engaged. It was huge! We were going to celebrate and rejoice like nobody’s business, and everyone would be talking about me. Instead, as I walked down Fifth Avenue toward my apartment on Ninth Street, I watched the first tower fall in real time. I cried as I imagined the people inside and what must be happening just a couple of miles farther downtown. I thank my lucky stars that nothing that day was about me.

How strange it was over the next few days to bump into friends on the street and struggle with whether to even share my good news in light of the staggering tragedies being suffered by so many. How frightening it was to wonder whether the world would ever return to normal, whether we would even live to see our wedding day. How desperately we all just wanted reasons to hope.

And now, yet again, I have this wonderful, amazing, thrilling news that is somehow beginning to feel irrelevant due to a terrible situation that is so much bigger and so much more important than my own little life. My second novel, my first foray into contemporary fiction, is being released on April 14, 2020.

That’s Not a Thing is a New York City love story about a young woman at the beginning of everything—she’s just started her career as an up and coming attorney and has recently gotten engaged. But when her first great love reappears in her life, her world is turned upside down. Although the story deals with some difficult illnesses and complex emotional issues, ultimately, it’s just a lot of fun, a really good time.

But I’ll be honest, it feels a little weird to be pushing my own product right now. People are suffering. Doctors and scientists are fighting to save what could be millions of lives. A friend recently told me that during the recession of 2008, two items that continued to sell, possibly even more than usual, were books and nail polish. The theory is that when people begin tightening their belts, they skip the big-ticket items, and instead, find smaller feel-good “luxury” items.

So as I struggle to reconcile my personal joy about That’s Not a Thing with the difficult times we’re all slogging through, I can only hope that if people choose to spend some time inside my book, it’ll do them some good, lift them up, and give them the feel-good boost that so many of us are craving.

As I look back now on the horrors of September 11th and the days that followed, I’m amazed and grateful that the hope I clung to during that time was well-founded after all. Nineteen years later, so many of us have gotten married, had children, built careers and full lives enveloped in a climate of relative security. I now cleave to this data because we could all use hope right now.

So just like I did back in 2001, I will continue to hope. I will hope for a world where hospitals have lots of empty beds, where medical facilities have storerooms overflowing with protective gear for doctors, where tests, vaccines, and cures are easy to come by, where people can gather in groups of tens, hundreds, thousands without fear, where a book release counts as big news.

Stay well, readers, and please, continue to hope!