Hi folks! I'm so excited to help reveal the cover for London Sperry's new rom-com CITY PEOPLE, publishing April 6, 2027 from Penguin Random House.

Rebel Ever After listeners will remember London from our episode last August about her debut romance PASSION PROJECT and her quest to write a self-destructive, grieving baddie who deserves love. We had a wonderfully silly conversation despite the heavy subject matter.

I asked London what the REA community will enjoy about her sophomore novel. She texted me,

"City People deals with the stories that we tell ourselves about who we are, and what it means when you start to question those stories. It’s about change and growth, but mostly, it’s about letting go. It’s also about loving your gramma.

I hope REA listeners enjoy a man who thinks consent, pet names, and being berated by unlikeable female leads are sexy; an intergenerational female-only family; and a woman who wouldn’t know what she’s avoiding if you drew a map for her."

City People is available for pre-order wherever books are sold. You can pick it up from the Rebel Ever After affiliate store here.

About the book

A woman desperate to hold onto her Brooklyn brownstone can’t ignore her chemistry with the one man standing in her way, in this poignant enemies-to-lovers rom-com by the author of Passion Project.

Teddi Cooper, third-generation New Yorker, has breathed city air since the day she was born. Her life is perfectly syncopated with the beautiful, chaotic tempo of Brooklyn, from the moment she steps out the door of the brownstone she shares with her grandmother, to the moment she falls asleep with taxi horns blaring into the frenetic night.

So when Gram announces that she’s selling the brownstone and moving to Florida, the rhythm of Teddi’s life descends into cacophony. How could Gram not see that leaving NYC would be a betrayal of their very identities? If Gram needs a reminder of who she is, Teddi will do anything to show her—including coordinating a reunion show of the Broadway musical that made Gram famous before she gave up life in the spotlight. And to lay the pressure on thick, Teddi even gets Gram’s former co-star Hal Harrison on board.

The show is barely off the ground before Teddi comes head-to-head with Hal’s talent agent Reid Fletcher, who refuses to let Hal partake. Reid is charming, smart-mouthed, and absolutely infuriating, but Teddi knows a thing or two about digging her heels in.  As Teddi squares off against Reid over email, in the theater, and even through a heated game of tennis, she’s prompted to wonder if her dogged stubbornness is holding her back. Who would she be if she wasn’t determined to control Gram’s next move, to be a New Yorker at any cost? Is it possible that her identity is larger than the city she’s built her life around? And, most frightening of all, could her new life have room in it for someone else?