The New Girl: Billie Carver #2

Dear Reader,

Thank you for spending time with The New Girl.

This story captures a period in Billie Carver’s life when she is no longer simply trying to find her place. She has begun to create one for herself.

By 1992, Billie had changed. She is more confident, more independent, and far less willing to let other people decide who she should be. The rivalries and insecurities that once seemed so important have started to lose their power, but growing up brings a different set of challenges.

One of the things I wanted to explore in The New Girl was how quickly life can change once we begin to understand ourselves better. Billie’s relationship with Georgia ends, and later she begins a new relationship with Drew Anderson. Those changes are important, but this story is about more than who Billie loves. It is about the woman she is becoming.

Her friendships, ambitions, mistakes, and experiences in Boston all help move her closer to the writer and person readers will come to know throughout the Black Springs Universe.

I also enjoyed telling this part of Billie’s story through Josie Walker’s exploration of her mother’s life. That perspective allows the past to become something more than history. It becomes a daughter trying to understand who her mother was before she became the woman everyone remembers.

The title The New Girl has always meant more to me than simply being new to a place. It is about reinvention—the possibility of outgrowing old versions of ourselves without losing what makes us who we are.

I hope Billie’s journey reminds you that becoming yourself is rarely one dramatic moment. More often, it happens quietly, choice by choice.

Thank you for continuing Billie’s story with her.