Next Best Thing: Miller Hoffman #2

Dear Reader,

Thank you for spending time with Next Best Thing.

For me, this novel is ultimately about growing up—and discovering that moving forward is much harder than simply leaving the past behind.

Miller Hoffman enters this story still carrying Bobbie Lamont. What happened between them changed him, and although their relationship is over, Miller has not completely accepted what losing her means. He wants to move on, but part of him continues to compare the present to a past he cannot recreate.

That struggle is at the heart of Miller’s coming-of-age.

Throughout Next Best Thing, Miller makes mistakes, becomes involved with people for the wrong reasons, and sometimes confuses wanting to be loved with being ready to love someone else. Penny, Hanna, Professor Kirsch, and eventually Michelle Connor each challenge him in different ways, forcing him to see parts of himself he would rather avoid.

Michelle becomes especially important because she cannot simply be the next person after Bobbie. If Miller wants something real with her, he has to stop treating his past as the standard against which everything else is measured.

I wanted Miller’s journey to reflect a difficult truth about growing up: sometimes the person we cannot get over is also the person we are not meant to return to. Letting go does not mean that the relationship meant less. It means accepting what it meant and allowing yourself to become someone new.

Next Best Thing is about love, but it is also about identity, mistakes, ambition, and learning to take responsibility for the life you are creating.

I hope Miller’s story reminds you that moving forward does not require forgetting where you have been.

Sometimes growing up simply means accepting that the next chapter cannot be the last one rewritten.

Thank you for continuing Miller’s journey with him.