It’s hard to believe that it’s only been five years since Lynn Painter first burst into the scene with her incredible debut, Better Than the Movies. Since then, it seems like she hasn’t been able to stop as she absolutely delights us with her stunning rom-coms that truly make us believe in love again. Thankfully, she’s not planning to slow down this year and is coming out with not just one, but two novels that we’re absolutely ready for. And yes, I did mean two! Surprise! We’re announcing a new Lynn Painter novel!
Cosmopolitan has an exclusive first look at Trust Fall by Lynn Painter, which is set to be released on September 29, 2026. The new YA novel follows Julia as she makes a big and sudden move from small-town Nebraska to New York City after receiving a surprising inheritance. But little does she know that one of her new classmates in the city is none other than Damion, the great-nephew of Julia’s benefactor. As these two cross paths in a variety of ways, feelings slowly change and things get complicated as they think about their own futures in the Big Apple. Here’s some more info from our friends at Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers:
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Better Than the Movies, Lynn Painter, comes a rags-to-riches rom-com about a small-town girl whose family inherits a fortune and moves to New York City, where she meets a big-city boy hiding an explosive secret.
Julia is just a small-town girl from Nebraska who loves her peaceful life. But when her elderly next-door neighbor—who just happens to be a secret multi-millionaire—leaves everything to Julia and her family after his passing, Julia is swept away to live in a historic brownstone in New York City and attend an elite private school for the super-rich.
It should be a dream come true. Wrong. Julia doesn’t fit in at her new school; worse, she’s failing. Enter Damion, the mysterious and handsome tutor who will get Julia back on track. Except Damion has a secret. He is the great-nephew of the man who left everything to Julia’s family. Damion doesn’t buy for a second that the person who was like a father to him would leave his home to strangers. And he’s determined to prove it.
To uncover the truth, Damion schemes to earn Julia’s trust. Not an easy task with Julia unsure about this rich boy with a rebellious personality. But the more time Damion spends with Julia, the more his plan begins to backfire. Because he is falling for the enemy—and the enemy is falling for him.
As Damion and Julia figure out where they belong, can they see past their differences and act on their feelings, or will the trust Damion has worked so hard to gain fall apart?
The iconic brownstone? It’s actually totally real (more on that in a bit) and you can see it come to life in the book’s cover along with glimpses of Julia and Damion’s lives. It matches the rest of your Lynn Painter book collection, so you’re gonna want to add this one to your shelf to match!
Cosmopolitan got to catch up with Lynn a few days prior to this big reveal to learn more about the book, her recent trip to NYC, and how it’s been like after the big success of her recent release, Fake Skating. Check out the interview below, but don’t forget to pre-order Trust Falland pick up any other Lynn Painter reads that you’re missing from your collection!
There’s something so iconic about your covers! You can spot one and know it’s a Lynn Painter novel!
I feel like I just lucked into it because usually there's a lot of back and forth. You see a sketch, and you're like, I like it. I don't like it. Here's what I like. It's a lot of back and forth. With Better Than the Movies, I think the first sketch they ever showed me was the one that ended up being the cover. Sarah Creech, who is the head of the art department, and the artist, bring these amazing things to me and I'm like, Yes, please!,
It’s New York in the fall and it's all pretty fall colors. I feel really fortunate. I had nothing to do with the way my YA covers are all branded and they're all kind of similar. I love it so much. It's amazing.
Like a book cover, a title can also come and grab a reader. Why did Trust Fall seem right for this read?
The title ended up being a fun play on words. It's set in the fall, so that's really kind of funny, and her family comes into an inheritance. But overall, the kind of arching theme is the back and forth between these two characters. Her in this new world, not really being able to trust anybody. Can she trust Damion once they start to get to know each other? He has his own little baggage of trust issues. As they become friends and get past their enemies phase, fall into trusting. Does it bite them later?
I love to say that I came up with the title, but I didn't. My title was New Money. It was actually an editor at Simon and Schuster, his wife, came up with the title. It's so funny how these things happen. It was just so perfect!
Tell us more about Julia! She has such a deep connection to you with her Nebraskan roots, but now she’s living in this big city.
This was the most fun for me, because like most of the world who doesn't live in New York, a lot of us are obsessed with New York. You visit New York and you love everything about it. Most of my books are set in the Midwest, because it's what I know, so I had the most fun being able to play with the two worlds. Suddenly she's living in the Upper West Side, going to an elite prep school.
In January. I was like, You know, I think we probably have to go to New York for a weekend for book research. It occurred to me, as many times I've been to New York, I never stayed in the Upper West Side and I hadn't really taken the subway. I was always Ubering or walking everywhere. So I said to my husband, I can literally live Julia's experience. It was so much fun viewing the city from that way.
Did anything feel different the first time you saw it in real life?
Usually, you're setting things in a fictional world, I'm not like, This is 55th and fifth. I'm not putting it in a real location. But, I had found online this building on like 106th and Riverside Drive that, in my head, was the house they were inheriting. It's actually for sale right now. So I was able to look in the window an it was really fun.
I had to change a bunch of stuff. When I was picturing if she left the house and walked two blocks, this is what it would look like. And I thought I knew it. And then you get there and you're like, Oh no, no, no, it's not that way at all. In my nerdy mind, it was like fiction and real life colliding.
What about Damion? There’s a big enemies-to-friends-to-possible-lovers thing going on here that is very exciting!
I had a lot of fun with this one because I love enemies-to-lovers, but as a writer, I have a hard time writing it because I like want them to be kissing on page five. I like friends-to-lovers. I like the banter, so it's kind of hard to be like, They don't like each other. It’s hard for me to hold on to that. It was really interesting in this scenario, because it's she doesn't know this connection he has that, underneath it all, he's blaming her family for stealing something from his family that meant a lot. He kind of has all of this inner dislike for what he thinks has happened that she doesn't know about it. She just kind of assumes they have bad vibes, because he's a jerk, but it's fun to slowly peel that away and have, as any enemies-to-lovers story does, them start to see each other in a different light. He seems like a rich jerk, but wait, do I see him feeding a cat in the alley? She comes from this family who stole something from us, but then you her family being, organically, just like a cute family of four who really loves and respects each other. It was just so much fun to kind of throw everything at both of them.
There’s a certain campiness that you get to play with in this wild world of rich kids like in Gossip Girl. Did you get to have fun with that?
It was so much fun! I had to dip in and out of it a lot, because Gossip Girl was so fun to watch, but it's like, This is absurd, the things that are happening. This is not high school. So it was really fun to throw in some elements of that. Then I'd get super into it, right? The next day, I would be like, Whoa. That's like, way too unrealistic. But when we're all reading stories about the ultra wealthy, you want it to be a little unrealistic. You don't want to be like, This sounds just like with my family, but with more money. I want them to be at parties where they're teenagers, but they're dressed in formal wear and drinking from lowball glasses, and you want a little bit of that. So it was really fun to kind of throw some of that in.
You started quite a frenzy with the playlist you posted about.
I have so much fun with the playlists, because I never really intended on doing that. When I wrote Better Than the Movies, it was just very intentional. Then it became my habit when I start writing a book. It's just vibes. They hate each other. It's prep school, it's fall. So I would start looking around on Spotify for angsty songs, about heartbreak, about somebody being bad. She's coming off of heartbreak from where she moved from, so there’s a couple things from her. It kind of just starts to build a life of its own.
It's kind of fun to drop it and have people be like, Oh my God, “Father Figure” by Taylor Swift is on there. What the hell does that mean?
You’ve had such a prolific career so far. Does it feel different announcing this book compared with your first experiences?
Oh, it's 1,000% different. My first book came out in 2021. It's only been a few years, but before that, the part nobody sees is the 15 years I was writing and getting rejected. It took that long to sort of make it happen. When Better Than the Movies came out, I think I probably had 100 Instagram followers, most of them like relatives. It’s been such a joy that it's been an organic, slow climb with word of mouth. Then, on the next book, there was a little bit more action. And then on the next book, you know, we got to announce it in a different thing. And now it's like, Cosmopolitan. Are you kidding me?! Like, what?! Every day is like, Are you kidding me with this? It's unbelievable. It's been the most incredible ride.
I’m sure it’s also special hearing from younger readers on how you’ve inspired them to get into reading.
It is amazing. Like, I love adult readers, but there's nothing like YA readers. When I was a kid, I was a huge reader, and reading was kind of a solitary hobby. But now, there's this beautiful community where it's their hobby; discussing books, creating their own playlists, annotating books. Then you meet them and they have these beautiful stories about what books they love. It's just magical. It's such an unreal blessing.
We have to talk about the success of Fake Skating. It feels like it’s really grown into a major moment on its own!
It is crazy. Fake Skating has just been bonkers. It came out in October and it hit the list the first week it was out. The thing that is really incredible is that YA readers will make book aesthetics and they'll tag me to be a collaborator. How am I lucky enough that on my Instagram I have all these people basically making trailers for my book because they liked it? And they're like, Would you maybe share it? And I'm like, Aren’t you the sweetest?! Like, you made this for me? Of course, I'm gonna share it. Are you kidding me? I cry happy tears like once a day, because I'll scroll past something about my fictional characters. And now there's going to be like a movie! It's just…it's mind boggling!
There’s a sort of adaptation renaissance happening right now! What’s it like to be on that journey?
It's really interesting because of streaming and stuff, there's so many different directions things can go. I've had other works that have been optioned, and you're like, Oh, hopefully something will happen someday with it. I think we had a deal with Sony in December or the beginning of January, and now we've already had a bunch of meetings where we're talking about casting and filming within the year.
This one is the dream like when nerdy Lynn would sit and daydream about what if somebody had something I wrote and they wanted to make into a movie. I've got these women producers who are strong and brilliant and collaborative. It’s been this amazing experience so far!
Especially as a pop-culture love like yourself, you just never imagine this actually happening!
It's funny because I was like, I wonder if I get a chair with my name on the back of it. My husband's like, We're going on Etsy, if you don't.
Oh my gosh, yes, you absolutely need one!
Don’t worry! I’m bringing a chair with me!
Trust Fall,by Lynn Painter will be released on September 29, 2026 from Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers. To preorder the book, click on the retailer of your choice:
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