What We Found Instead
Preorder Gifts
What We Found Instead is a compulsively readable novel about two women who discover they’re in a relationship with the same man…and end up in an entirely unexpected relationship with each other.
Preorder before July 28 and receive two exclusive gifts:
Still Lake: the prequel to What We Found Instead, an ebook that’s yours immediately upon signup
After the Last Page: an intimate, spoiler-rich reader’s salon with Heidi and Anena, the best friend who helped inspire the women of the novel
More About Those Preorder Gifts:
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Ebook: Still Lake
When you meet Eve and Maggie in What We Found Instead, Eve is living on a remote Northern Ontario lake. Hiding, according to her brother. This exclusive, available-nowhere-else prequel takes you back to how she got there:
A girlhood at Still Lake, learning to shingle roofs and set out on bush quests and dance too close to the edge of the dock. The summer everything changed. The search for belonging and self-reclamation that never quite succeeded, winding through woodworking shops and New York City crowds, a lost twinship, the slow erosion of happiness. And why, finally, Still Lake called her back.
Delivered to your inbox the moment you sign up.
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Reader’s Salon: After the Last Page
After the Last Page is an intimate conversation between Heidi and her best friend Anena—the person who helped inspire this novel and was present for every stage of its becoming.
No spoiler warnings, just the real talk that could only happen after you’ve read the book, plus an inside peek into where Eve and Maggie’s wounds, destructive patterns, and ultimate growth come from. (Hint: Anena just might be the Maggie to Heidi’s Eve.)
Bring your questions, theories, and feelings!
Taking place August 2026, one month after publication. (Date/time TBC.)
Your ticket arrives by email closer to the date.
Here’s How to Claim Your Gifts:
STEP 1: Preorder What We Found Instead
You can order your copy in any format (paper, audio, ebook), from any online retailer or bricks-and-mortar store of your choice.
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Preordering means you purchase the book before its official publication date of July 28, 2026. Your copy arrives or ships automatically on that date.
And if you preorder now, you'll receive your prequel e-book right away—so you don't have to wait at all to get something good!
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If you order a physical copy, it will ship on or around July 28. If you order an ebook or audiobook, it will be delivered to your device automatically on publication day.
Ordering from a local independent bookstore? They'll have copies ready for you on July 28—and they'll love you for supporting them. Indies aren’t always online-order enabled, but you should be able to email or walk in to place a preorder. You can also use Indie Bookstores (Canada) or IndieBound/Bookshop.org (US) to order online through your local indie.
Head’s up for my local Brockville peeps: the bookseller at my local launch is The Book’s Better, and they’ve set up a special preorder link. If you preorder from them, you can come to my launch party on July 28 and pick up your copy there! And I will sign it for you!
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Yes.*
Preorders are counted together on publication day, which helps a book land with momentum and gets it on the radar of booksellers and readers who might not have found it otherwise. Every preorder genuinely matters, and I'm so grateful for yours.
*Disclaimer: I am not in a position to 100% promise this.
STEP 2: Let me know you preordered
Send your proof of purchase and claim your gifts using the form below.
If you’ve already purchased and misplaced your receipt, or if you ordered from an indie that asked you to pay when you pick up the book, give us those details in the “Receipt / confirmation / order number” space.
STEP 3: Receive your gifts!
Still Lake will arrive right away. (Check your promotions or junk folder if you don’t see it.) Your ticket to After the Last Page will arrive by email closer to the date, along with an opportunity to submit questions in advance.
More About What We Found Instead
A moving and compulsively readable novel about two very different women and the unlikely bond they forge in the wreckage of one man’s betrayal.
“The rom-com I didn’t know I needed, with a platonic female relationshiop at its centre.”
Maggie feels behind for thirty-five―still unsure about her career path, still living with roommates and struggling through a never-ending PhD―but at least she’s certain about her relationship with her boyfriend, Karl. That is until she hears the voicemail on Karl’s phone from some woman named Eve, who’s using words Maggie can’t process like baby, love, and tonight. In an instant, Maggie’s trust in Karl unravels, but she doesn’t know the whole truth―and only one person can help her find it: Eve.
Eve didn’t flee New York and the stress of running her handcrafted furniture business just to be dragged into someone else’s drama. She likes the quiet rhythm of her Northern Ontario lake life: her dog, her cozy home, her dependable routines―and Karl, at least on the weekends when he’s not working in Toronto. So when a stranger presses for a meeting, Eve is wary. She doesn’t like her earnestness, her probing questions, her expectation of solidarity. And she certainly doesn’t like the news Maggie delivers: Karl is her boyfriend too.
Maggie and Eve’s tense encounter upends both of their lives. They expect to never see each other again, but instead they’re thrown back together―forced to face their resentments and insecurities head-on, pushed into vulnerability with the one person whose very existence caused their heartbreak.
What We Found Instead is a captivating and insightful look at complex relationships and a love letter to female friendship, asking us to consider questions about love, loyalty, and what we owe to ourselves and to others.
Coming July 28, 2026.
Photo credit: Leah Fae