Announcing My Adult Debut | Furthermore June 2026
A behind-the-scenes look at a very long journey
Last week I announced my adult debut on Instagram, and after years of keeping it a secret, I’m so excited to finally have it out there. It’s been a long time coming, and I thought it would be fun to dedicate this month’s newsletter to sharing the behind-the-scenes journey of how When the Woods Called Us Home came to be.
If you missed the announcement, WOODS is an atmospheric, slow unraveling of a mystery with a hint of the supernatural (scroll down to read the full copy!). It’s releasing March 2, 2027—almost a decade after I first had the idea—and is available now for preorder.
You can get WOODS for 25% off when you preorder through Barnes & Noble with code preorder25. Hurry, the sale ends today!
I wrote the first draft of WOODS (then called The Cliffs at Night, a title I still love but doesn’t fit as well as it used to) in 2018, as young adult. I was querying The Nature of Witches at the time and needed something to take my mind off my uneventful inbox. For me, working on the next thing was how I dealt with querying. It not only served as a distraction, but it reassured me that the book out with agents wasn’t my only shot, my only egg in the basket. Getting excited about a new project makes me feel hopeful, and hope is crucial in this industry.
I had just finished the first draft of WOODS when I received an offer of representation for The Nature of Witches, so I set it aside and got to work on revising NATURE. Once NATURE went out on submission, I turned my attention back to WOODS. NATURE ended up selling in a two-book deal, and I assumed WOODS would be my second book. I was so ahead! I already had my second book drafted! I would avoid the second book heartache!
[Narrator: she did not, in fact, avoid the second book heartache]
When I reread WOODS before starting revisions, I promptly realized it wasn’t YA—it was adult and needed to be entirely rewritten.
I once again set it aside and got to work on fulfilling the second book in my contract, and WOODS sat on the back burner for years. Right around when NATURE released, I sold two more YA novels, which had to take priority over WOODS. I never stopped thinking about it, though, and I was eager to get back to it.
I finally picked it back up in 2022, four years after writing the first draft. “Picking it back up” isn’t really the right way of wording it, though, since I didn’t consult the original draft at all. I wrote an entirely new outline and drafted it from scratch, not wanting the original YA draft to influence the new adult version. I was a stronger writer in 2022 than I was in 2018, and honestly, I don’t think I was ready to tell the story the way it needed to be told back in 2018.
I kept working on WOODS in between deadlines for Bring Me Your Midnight, and by the fall of 2023, I had a 35,000-word proposal that was revised and ready to be sent out on sub. We received interest very quickly (an experience I hadn’t had before), and it sold in a pre-empt to Atria. I was absolutely elated.
Two months later, I fell and suffered a traumatic brain injury, losing my ability to read and write.
As the months went on and it became clear I wasn’t getting better, I asked to turn the book in later than we’d originally planned. My editor was really understanding, and we pushed the book.
And then we just kept pushing it.
I must have asked for six or seven extensions before we finally decided to scrap a deadline altogether, and I’d just let my team know when I was healthy enough to make consistent progress on my draft.
It was a very weird experience going from the sale, in which there was so much excitement and momentum for the book, to just… nothing. I felt like I was letting everyone down, and I hated that this was my new editor’s first impression of me: someone who couldn’t hit a deadline to save her life.
My agent continually reminded me (bless him) that everyone’s top priority was for me to heal, and that the pressure I was feeling was put there by me and me alone. And truly, he was right. Both Sourcebooks and Atria were so very understanding throughout the entire process, and it gave me an even deeper gratitude for this career.
I ended up turning in my first draft of WOODS in May of 2025, over a year and a half after selling it.
It took me a while to get back into the story. I hadn’t touched it in so long, and I wasn’t the same writer I was before my injury. Sure, my process changed to accommodate my new limitations, but I had also changed. The stories I wanted to tell had changed, and I had to reacquaint myself with WOODS, relearn it through the lens of who I was post-injury.
Thankfully, that ended up being a wonderful experience, and I fell in love with the book all over again. It really challenged me, and I know I’m coming out the other side a much stronger writer. I’m SO excited that it’s finally making its way out into the world, that ARCs will be here in just a few short months and readers can dive into this story that has been solely mine for the better part of a decade.
It’s different from my young adult—it’s darker and eerie and firmly set in this world. But it’s also very much a me book: atmospheric, with an existential ache at its center and utterly steeped in the natural world (maybe more so than any of my other books).
So that’s the journey thus far, and I can’t wait to see where we go from here. I said this on Instagram recently, but I feel like I’m taking a bit of a risk with this book, and on most days, I find that overwhelmingly exciting.
I can’t wait to share it with you. 🤎🌲
In Case You Missed It
Today is the last day of the Barnes & Noble preorder sale, which means you can get your most anticipated reads for 25% off (my cart is overflowing). Don’t forget to use code preorder25 at checkout!
And for those interested, here’s the jacket copy for When the Woods Called Us Home!
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Rachel Griffin comes an atmospheric and haunting adult debut in which a disappearance rattles a small town, forcing one woman to confront her fate and unravel the dark secrets of the past—perfect for fans of Once There Were Wolves and The Unmaking of June Farrow.
In the rural town of Bone Creek, Emma Pierce has devoted her life to caring for the wind-battered trees of the rugged Washington coast, feeling more grounded one hundred feet up than with both feet planted firmly on land.
When she’s climbing, Emma can almost convince herself that the curse claiming the Pierce women’s lives is nothing more than hollow gossip. When she’s climbing, the changes in her sister don’t seem so alarming.
But when her boyfriend Eli’s brother goes missing, not even the trees can calm the dread in Emma’s gut. Both Eli and her sister fall under the town’s suspicion, and Emma throws herself into the search for answers. Soon, she discovers that the town is holding onto secrets—and so too is her own family.
Forced to confront what the people she loves most are capable of, Emma must uncover her forgotten memories from the night her mother died. A generations-old feud has been simmering beneath the surface of Bone Creek...and it’s coming to a lethal boil in the very woods where Parker vanished.
A Moment of Gratitude
This has been my dream career for as long as I can remember, but I developed an even deeper gratitude for it after my brain injury. Recovery became my full-time job, and my books and publishing teams waited patiently as I took the time and space I needed to heal. If this had happened in any of my previous jobs, I would not have had that luxury, and I’m grateful every single day that I could prioritize my recovery without fear of losing my job. For anyone out there balancing a recovery with all of life’s other obligations, I see you. 💚
That’s it for today! As always, thank you so much for being here.
Love,
Rachel
I am really looking forward to this one! I loved The Sun and the Starmaker, and I'm even more excited to read an adult novel from you. I'm so glad you've recovered your health enough to write and publish again!
So happy for you, Rachel! The cover is lovely, the title is so atmospheric, and I can already tell it has all of the amazing things that make Rachel Griffin books excellent. Congratulations, friend! Can't wait to read!