mas 🦋 asked Jessica Joyce:

What inspired you to write the Ex Vows?

Jessica Joyce I actually had written a very different version of the book back in 2021 (which, funnily enough, was based on an even MORE different version written in 2020) that I queried, but it didn't go anywhere. When I got my book deal with Berkley, they asked for a pitch for the second contracted book that would come after You, with a View. I kind of panicked and pulled Georgia and Eli out of the vault, then reworked their story to be a second chance storyline instead of the friends-to-lovers storyline it had been before. There were a few elements that stayed from their 2020/2021 versions—that specific friend group always existed, as did the wedding subplot—but a lot changed to support Georgia and Eli's modified history with one another.

I am a huge, massive, obsessive fan of second chance stories—I love the idea that even if things and people leave us, sometimes they come back to us again. I actually think in a lot of ways, life is kind of a patchwork of us taking chances on ourselves and each other over and over again. And in the end, I had my own second chance with this book and its characters. It came back to me when I was ready to write it the way it really needed to be written.

flag