We chat with author Adrienne Thurman about Don’t Tell Me How It Ends, which follows a floundering twenty-something who’s sworn off romance and finds herself roped into her meddling sister’s matchmaking business in this sparkling debut romcom that asks: Can we protect ourselves while falling in love?
PLUS you can read the first chapter at the end of the interview!
Hi, Adrienne! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Hi! I’m an author and mom to one, living and writing in the Northeastern US. My two older sisters and I were raised in Kansas by a single mom, so our household had LOTS of female-forward energy, which informs who I am, how I move through the world, and what I write today.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
I’ve always had a big love of language and words. As a child, this meant entering (and winning!) writing competitions, making up my own lyrics, and besting adults at word games. In school though, writing became an academic pursuit that I didn’t give much thought to beyond a given assignment. It wasn’t until years later, after I had my daughter, that I started playing with words again in the ways I had as a kid—making up poems and songs and rhymes as my daughter and I moved through our days. At that time, I spent a lot of my time dreaming of my daughter’s future—imagining what she could be one day and who she’d become—and I was reading hundreds of picture books. The combination of dreaming freely and being surrounded by books in a way I hadn’t been for much of my adult life, sparked something in me and I started daydreaming about who I still wanted to be and become. That’s when I started putting pen to paper again with my eye on a dream that felt impossible, but still worth chasing…publication!
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
- The first book you ever remember reading: The Giving Tree
- The one that made you want to become an author: The honest answer is probably every picture book at the library and on my daughter’s nursery bookshelf. That phase of life changed everything for me in all the best ways.
- The one that you can’t stop thinking about: The book that’s due to my editors now LOL
Your debut novel, Don’t Tell Me How It Ends, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
How did you get in?
What can readers expect?
Don’t Tell Me How It Ends is an exploration of love in all its many forms—familial love, self love, friendship love, and of course, romantic love. There are themes under each of these umbrellas that inform who our main character, Kaia Harper, is becoming as she moves through her post graduate transitional period, but as a whole, the book is about learning to let people and love in. Even as you move through the mess of life. Learning to trust yourelf and the journey. It’s funny and heartfelt and there’s a guaranteed HEA!
Where did the inspiration for Don’t Tell Me How It Ends come from?
I grew up loving classic romcom movies and rom-drams as well. I wanted to write something with the humor of the former and the layers of the latter.
I’m constantly surrounded by women and examining the universal experiences we all move through. I started playing with this idea that “coming of age” never really ends for any of us—as long as we’re living, we’re learning and growing and reacting to a life we can’t predict. It’s always new. It’s always scary. And it’s always chock-full of potential and opportunity if we’re brave enough to look directly at it.
With those overarching themes in mind, I let my brain play around until these characters started forming and dialogue started materializing!
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
I love writing mess and Kaia is mess. She’s constantly making decisions from a place of fear and self-protection, so it’s no wonder she backs herself into corners and inspires reactions from the people who just want to love her. This conflict was especially fun to write into Kaia’s relationship with her older sister, Zola, because of how central and formative the relationship is for each character.
Generally, I just love writing all the big emotional moments. The reckonings, the declarations, and all the spicy bits, because…come on.
Did you face any challenges whilst writing? How did you overcome them?
So many challenges lol.
Practically, I’m a single mom, so time is a big one! Also, have you ever tried to write a spicy scene with someone yelling, “Mom!” from their bedroom, an hour after bedtime?? But moms know, you just get it done anyway, because there’s no other option.
Emotionally, I had to dig really deep to tap into that new love, falling in love feeling, because I worked on this book while going through a tough divorce in real life. I’m grateful to be the type of writer who watches a movie play in their minds, so for a lot of the story, I felt more like a transcriber than the one doing the crafting. My characters led me where we needed to go from a narrative standpoint and witnessing their journeys gave me something to believe in!
This is your debut novel! What was the road to becoming a published author like for you?
Starting with picture books made for an unusual trajectory. I entered a contest early on with a picture book manuscript and got agent and editor requests through that competition. While I was waiting for their feedback, I switched gears and actually finished my first (unpublished and now shelved) novel. Once that was ready for eyes, I started querying that age category too! Ultimately, I sent the novel to one of the agents who already had my picture book work from the competition and she offered representation on both projects.
In the years since, I’ve been on submission multiple times, sold a few picture books and watched others die, left that first agent and queried again, signed with Melanie Figueroa at Root Literary, written some novels, and now I’ve published a debut picture book and debut novel.
No matter how the story starts, you just keep going. That’s all it is!
What’s next for you?
My next novel, called Better In Real Life, will be out in April 2027. It’s a standalone spinoff where we get to see Zola, the older sister from Don’t Tell Me How It Ends, get her happily ever after. It’s tonally very different from the first book, so I’m really excited for readers to see that progression.
Lastly, what books are you looking forward to picking up this year?
“I’m rooting for everybody Black.” (in my Issa voice)
- They All Fall in Love at the End by Haili Blassingame explores provocative themes like politics and non monogamy and it’s written by a sharp and exciting new voice. What more could you want?
- The Summer Girlfriend by Kristina Forest is a new book by an author I already love. Kristina does humor and heart like nobody else. I can’t wait to read her take on fake dating with a beachy backdrop!
- These Kindred Hearts is a YA romantasy anthology edited by Shari B. Pennant. It brings authors I already love together with authors I’m excited to read for the first time as they share bite sized love stories that get to play by their own set of fantastical rules.
- I also have the ARC for Die for Me by Shirlene Obuobi ready and waiting and the audiobook for The Exes by Leodora Darlington queued up on my phone right now and I cannot wait to dive into those, because…did I already mention I love mess?!
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Open in new tab Excerpted from Don’t Tell Me How It Ends by Adrienne Thurman Copyright © 2026 by Adrienne Thurman. Excerpted by permission of Dial Press Trade Paperback. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
