Why I’m Rewriting The Letter Series: A Fresh Beginning for Sarah and Andrew
Some stories never really leave you.
For me, The Letter series is one of those stories. Sarah and Andrew have been part of my writing life since 2009, and even after the original books were finished, I kept thinking about them. I kept thinking about the scenes I loved, the moments I wished I’d explored more deeply, and the characters who deserved more room to breathe.
That’s why I’m rewriting The Letter series.
I’m not replacing the story readers already know and love. I’m giving it the version I believe it was always meant to have.
The Same Love Story, With More Heart
At its core, The Letter series is still about Sarah and Andrew.
It’s still about an ordinary woman whose life changes after a letter leads her into an extraordinary romance. It’s still about falling in love with someone whose world is completely different from your own. And it’s still about two people trying to hold onto each other while fame, jealousy, friendship, mistakes, misunderstandings, and the relentless attention of the media keep getting in their way.
Those pieces aren’t going anywhere.
The relationships, major events, emotional turning points, humor, heartbreak, and romance that made The Letter series by Shelly Meyer what it is are being preserved.
What’s changing is how the story is told.
Why Rewrite a Published Romance Series?
When I originally wrote these books, I loved the characters and the story, but I’ve grown tremendously as a writer since then.
I’ve learned more about pacing, dialogue, emotional tension, character development, romantic chemistry, and allowing important scenes enough space to have the impact they deserve.
As I returned to The Letter, I realized I didn’t want to change Sarah and Andrew’s story.
I wanted to strengthen it.
The rewritten editions have more natural dialogue, stronger pacing, deeper emotional moments, better-developed romantic tension, more humor, and smoother transitions between scenes and books.
I also wanted the books to feel more like the contemporary romantic comedies I enjoy reading today while still sounding like me.
In other words, this isn’t a completely different The Letter.
It’s a fuller one.
Sarah and Andrew Aren’t Becoming Different People
One of the most important things to me throughout this rewrite has been protecting the characters.
Sarah is still Sarah.
She’s funny, stubborn, emotional, impulsive, loving, occasionally infuriating, and fiercely loyal to the people she cares about. Her life before Andrew still matters, including the five years she spent working as a production assistant in Vancouver.
Andrew is still the charming British actor who can be romantic one moment and maddeningly stubborn the next.
Trevor is still the loyal best friend who frequently finds himself caught between them.
Chris is still an essential and complicated part of Sarah’s life.
Mary still pulls absolutely no punches.
And Karen Steele is still very capable of creating trouble wherever she goes.
The goal was never to turn these characters into different people. It was to make them feel even more alive.
More Romance, More Humor, More Emotion
One of the biggest changes in the rewritten contemporary romance series is the emotional depth.
When Sarah and Andrew are happy, I want readers to feel that happiness.
When they’re flirting, I want the chemistry to be obvious.
When something is funny, I want readers to laugh with them.
And when these two stubborn people break each other’s hearts, I want readers to understand exactly why it hurts so much.
The new versions spend more time inside those moments instead of rushing past them.
There’s more romance between Sarah and Andrew, more playful dialogue, more interaction among the supporting characters, and more of the emotional consequences that come from the decisions they make.
Some scenes simply needed room.
Now they have it.
Better Pacing and a Stronger Chapter Structure
The original books contained long chapters that sometimes covered a great deal of story at once.
As part of the The Letter series rewrite, I’ve restructured the books into shorter, better-paced chapters with more natural stopping points.
That doesn’t mean chopping scenes into tiny pieces simply to increase the chapter count.
The goal is momentum.
Each chapter should make readers want to turn the page.
Important emotional moments have time to land, while scenes that moved too slowly have been tightened.
It’s still the same story. It simply moves more naturally.
Expanding The Letter Series
The rewrite has also given me an opportunity to look at the series as one complete story rather than separate books written at different times.
The refreshed series includes:
- Book One: The Letter
- Book Two: Andrew & Sarah
- Book Three: Yours Truly
- Book Four: With All My Heart
- Book Five: Love Always
That larger structure lets Sarah and Andrew’s relationship develop across several books rather than forcing too much of their story into one volume.
It also allows supporting characters and ongoing conflicts to develop more naturally.
Readers will have more time with Sarah, Andrew, Trevor, Chris, Mary, Karen, and the rest of the people who make this fictional world what it is.
Yours Truly and With All My Heart
One of the biggest decisions I made during this process involved Yours Truly.
As the revised story grew, it became clear that forcing everything into a single book would create an unnecessarily long novel and hurt the pacing I was trying so hard to improve.
So the story was divided naturally.
Yours Truly became Book Three, while With All My Heart continues the story as Book Four.
Nothing important was discarded simply to create another book. The additional space allows the original storyline to unfold at a pace that feels right.
And, as anyone who knows Sarah and Andrew can probably guess, giving them more pages doesn’t necessarily make their lives easier.
Keeping the Original Story Matters to Me
This has probably been the most important rule throughout the entire rewrite:
Don’t lose the original story.
I don’t want readers who loved the earlier books to open the new editions and wonder what happened to the characters they knew.
The plot remains intact.
The relationships remain intact.
The major twists remain intact.
The choices the characters make, including some spectacularly bad ones, remain intact.
Even the cliffhangers remain where they belong.
This isn’t about rewriting history.
It’s about improving the storytelling around it.
Why Do This Now?
Because I finally feel ready.
There comes a point when a writer can look back at earlier work and see both what worked and what could have been stronger.
I could’ve left these books alone.
Instead, I kept hearing Sarah and Andrew in my head.
Their story wasn’t finished with me.
I wanted to give longtime readers something familiar but richer, while also creating a stronger entry point for readers discovering The Letter romance series for the first time.
Most importantly, I wanted to create editions that reflect the writer I am now without erasing the writer who originally created these characters.
A New Look. The Same Love.
That has become the philosophy behind the entire project.
New chapters.
Stronger pacing.
More emotion.
More humor.
Deeper romance.
More time with the characters.
But the same heart.
If you’ve read The Letter series before, I hope returning to Sarah and Andrew feels a little like seeing old friends after several years apart. They’re still recognizable. You still know why you loved them. There’s simply more to discover.
And if you’ve never read the series, this will be the perfect time to begin.
Sarah and Andrew’s story started with a letter.
It became something much bigger.
And now I finally get to tell that story the way I always wanted to.
Stay tuned for more news about the newly rewritten and re-released The Letter series by Shelly Meyer, including The Letter, Sarah & Andrew, Yours Truly, With All My Heart, and Love Always.
And as a spoiler…I’ve said there may be a book after Love Always, titled Always and Forever. I’ve decided it needs to be written. Will Sarah & Andrew get married? Will she meet his parents face-to-face in London? What other challenges will they face before their happily ever after begins? I have the story in my head, and once the first five books are written, I’ll begin that one, which will probably be published in February (around Valentine’s Day). We’ll see. Stay tuned.
