Author Diary: IDEAL LIFE ARCs have landed!

+ What the heck is an ARC?

(😬 My voice gave out a little on me, but I think my voiceover still turned out okay… )

---

Hello, Protagonists!

Welcome to another entry in Author Diaries—where we take you behind the scenes of publishing—querying, book auctions, cover design, how authors make money, book publicity, and more.

In this post you’ll find:

📚 What’s Filling My Creative Well—books or articles that are lighting up my brain

🤩 Behind the Scenes—Ideal Life ARCs are here!

❓What are ARCs?

As always, thank you for being here, not just as readers, but as fellow story-lovers and co-dreamers of this beautiful, bookish life.

xo,

Joanna & Evelyn

---

📚 What’s Filling My Creative Well

Currently reading:
The Favorites by Layne Fargo—this is our book club pick this month! It’s like the Winter Olympics meets Wuthering Heights.

Think: world-class talent, lots of drama, some backstabbing, and characters who are completely obsessed with each other (and themselves).

• Reminder: Our Book Club meeting is on Sunday, January 25th at 8pm ET / 5pm PT.

• Discussion Qs and more info at the bottom of this previous post:

Exciting Announcement! Our (Slightly) New Name + Book Club Picks for Early 2026

---

🥳 Behind the Scenes—IDEAL LIFE ARCs!

Somehow, I’m always the last to get copies of my own books. Whether they’re ARCs (advance reader copies) or the final, finished novels for sale, they seemingly always arrive on my doorstep after everyone else has seen them.

It’s a function of me living on the West Coast (I assume the publisher warehouses must be on the East Coast?)

Anyway, right before Christmas, a mysterious box arrived.

I really had no idea these were coming. I thought that ARCs of Ideal Life would be ready in late January, maybe early February.

But… surprise!

Here’s the ARC in front of my shelf of the other books I’ve written.

I love when my publisher’s art department adds a little somethin’ extra:

And the back (full description is also at the end of this newsletter, so you don’t need to try to read the photo):

I’m so excited these ARCs are going out to booksellers and librarians and early readers now.

Ideal Life officially hits shelves on August 18, 2026 - (I’m still getting used to the fact that it’s already 2026… Eight month countdown starts now!!)

---

❓What are ARCs?

Un-proofread bound copies of the manuscript, printed on cheap paper. They are used for publicity and marketing purposes to give bookstore & library buyers and book influencers a preview of upcoming books so that they can order them (for the bookstore or library) or start telling people about them (on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, etc.)

For more in-depth info about ARCs + a typical publishing schedule, I dove deep on the topic in a different Author Diary last year:

What are ARCS? Also, A Sample Production Timeline in Traditional Publishing

---

What is Ideal Life about?

If you’re new here, you might not have heard about the book yet, so here’s a little description. And at the bottom, there is a pre-order link if you’d like to support my work early. It is only $17.99 right now.

Anyway, Ideal Life:

In New York Times bestselling author Evelyn Skye’s warmhearted and lightly magical novel, an opportunity to turn back time gives a scientist the chance to pursue her ideal life, only to realize it might keep her from truly living. Perfect for fans of Rebecca Serle and Taylor Jenkins Reid.

What if you could rewind the last 24 hours and perfect your life?

Talia Morgan has built her dream: a neuroscience startup poised for a $100 million acquisition that will validate years of relentless work to make the world better through technology. But when a glitch in her app leads to catastrophe, everything she’s worked for crumbles in a single night.

Then Talia wakes up with a mysterious watch that lets her rewind the last twenty-four hours. Suddenly, she can prevent the glitch, ace that crucial meeting, and savor perfect Sunday afternoons with Sam, her brilliant best friend who’s quietly loved her for nearly two decades. The watch feels like the ultimate optimization tool, a way to debug her life until every moment is flawless.

But Talia’s addiction to rewriting her past comes at a devastating cost. Each rewind pulls her further from the people she loves most: Sam, who watches helplessly as she disappears into endless cycles of perfection; Libby, her globe-trotting sister who needs support that Talia is too distracted to give; and most dangerously, from her own true, authentic self.

When Talia discovers a conspiracy to turn her life’s work into a tool for mass manipulation, she faces an impossible choice: use the watch to cheat her way to stopping it, or accept that the messy, imperfect version of her life might be the only one worth living.

From New York Times bestselling author Evelyn Skye comes an incisive exploration of ambition, perfectionism, and the modern pressure to optimize our way to happiness—a story that asks whether our relentless pursuit of an ideal life might be keeping us from truly living at all.

---

» This post is part of our Author Diary series. You can find past entries HERE.