“I usually don’t like to do it, because I feel like it’s usually a spoiler,” McFadden explained. “But I felt like in this case, I could write it without it being a spoiler. I could just like set it as a continuation of Millie’s story.”
Beyond feeling like the story could also stand on its own two feet, the also noted, “I felt so close to Millie and her character, and I wasn’t quite ready to let go of it.”
And it’s no surprise Millie is a character close to McFadden’s heart as their journey together dates back years. In fact, the Dear Debbie writer conceived the story back in 2019.
“When I first wrote it, it was a little darker than some of the things I had written,” she recalled, and that led to a deviation in her writing process. “Often, when I write something, I show it to my mom, and she gets very scared easily, so I was afraid to show it to her, so I shelved the book for a while, and I thought to myself, ‘I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to publish this.’”
