Welcome to The Scroll, a new column that checks in with your favorite writers, asking them to exclusively reveal and annotate the best moments from their brand-new books. We also get them to dish on their writing process and divulge a few plot secrets along the way.
For this round, we chatted with KJ Micciche, who truly knows how to write the best love stories about authors. Her latest book, One Week Later, is also the second book in our new Cosmo Reads imprint. Publishing on January 20, 2026, the novel follows two writers as they fall in love on a trip of a lifetime in Aruba. However, the bubble bursts when they head back home. They each decide to write and publish a book telling their side of the story, but when one of them is accused of plagiarizing the other, they are forced to confront the truth that is hidden in between the margins.
Here, Micciche shares another exclusive excerpt and talks about how her real life inspired this book, the reality of motherhood, and the big discovery she made while annotating this piece.
Fans who order from The Ripped Bodice (signed and personalized) or Brewster Book Store (signed bookplate only) will receive a limited edition Cosmo Reads luggage tag! Micciche will also be going on tour and stopping by Novel Grounds in Chesapeake, VA; The New Romantics in Orlando, FL; and Barnes & Noble Massapequa in Massapequa, NY.
There's two stories here: Beckett and Melody's love story and Melody's relationship with her mom, Birdie. Which came first?
I started with the romance. I said, The mother daughter thing has to be there, and it has to be strong, but it also has to pull back and be secondary, because otherwise it's not gonna fit right in the genre.
Why did you pick this excerpt to annotate?
My mother is in her end of life season, and it has given me the opportunity to really explore motherhood in a different way. When you're a child you forget that mothers are people also. That's really been just at the forefront of my mind a lot lately.
I look at myself as a mother. I look at my mom as a mother. I'm much more forgiving as a daughter now than ever been in my whole life. When I wrote the character of Birdie, I wrote her as the ideal of what I wanted to be as a mom. It's a far, far cry from who I am, but it's certainly something to strive for.
How do you pull from real-life experiences and try to not give too much of yourself away as you're writing?
I have developed boundaries that I think come with a little bit of age and a little bit of wisdom. The setting of Melody's apartment is the exact apartment, including address and apartment number that I grew up in. But, I don't live there anymore. These are pieces of my past and, in doing that, it enables me to write something that's much more grounded in reality and in truth.
How did you figure out the three types of love you mention in your annotations below? Were they something you'd heard about?
I came up with that myself—as I was working on The Scroll! I've experienced all three and I can recognize that those are the only three types of love that I've come upon. It makes sense of such a complicated emotional experience.
What do you hope readers ultimately take away from this book?
How important it is to be grateful for everything. Find whatever moments of gratitude you can in things that seem to be there every day. There's so much that happens and our lives are so busy. Reading is very special in that way, because when we sit down with a book, we take time to commune with that story and with that author.
EXCERPTED FROM ONE WEEK LATER, BY KJ MICCICHE, TO BE PUBLISHED ON JANUARY 20, 2026, BY COSMO READS, AN IMPRINT OF SOURCEBOOKS. COPYRIGHT © 2026 BY KJ MICCICHE.
One Week Later, by KJ Micciche will be released on January 20, 2026 from Cosmo Reads. To preorder the book, click on the retailer of your choice:
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