This is a celebratory announcement that also doubles as a confession.

I turned 40 last December (not the announcement or the confession), and the universe answered with a book deal (announcement!!). I’ve been swimming in the editorial process since the spring, and like many other things, civics went on the back burner (confession).

Here’s what happened. I sh*t you not, this is a publishing fairytale.

When I first moved to NYC, I was newly divorced, an actual baby (still in my 20s) and hell bent on making something of myself. I wanted desperately to become an entertainment lawyer. I felt like I was living someone else’s life, because it was SUCH a different life from the one I had before. I went from a very young marriage, to three very intense years of law school, to wanting to be Carrie Bradshaw in a power suit.

I remember the exact moment I opened my laptop and started writing. I was living in my Carrie Bradshaw-era studio apartment on Perry Street in the West Village (literally opposite Carrie’s brownstone in the show, still pinch me).

I had just watched the movie adaptation of Emily Giffin’s novel Something Borrowed and I was feeling every.single.ounce of my career girl in NYC chapter with a dose of loneliness, because the city got lonely in those early days. I started writing a book about a woman who gets married and divorced in her twenties, then moves to New York to start over. Little did I know that the ending of the book was still years away. I had to live the story first.

But I did. And as I lived it, I wrote it. Not all of it, of course. The ten-year journey to becoming — not finding myself, but creating myself — is in this book.

I finished writing the second half during Covid, and finished it in 2021. I had just started the process of querying literary agents (exhilarating! painful! humbling!) when I suddenly got pregnant, learned we were moving to LA, and decided to get married before we left New York. The manuscript went into a metaphorical drawer and I didn’t think about it again until last year, when someone who I now owe everything to emailed me out of the blue asking if I’d ever sold my book. The publisher bought it in January and it will be released February 1, 2026.

It’s called Soft Launch, and it’s a story I think you’ll love: a love letter to reinvention, New York, and new beginnings, told from the heart.

Here’s what the book is about, in the publisher’s own words (with some of mine):

In her captivating debut, author Sarah Vacchiano tells an exciting “coming of adulthood” story about a young woman who takes a bold new path in her early thirties, leaving her old life—and starter marriage—behind.
When Sam walked herself down the aisle at the age of 22, she never imagined wanting more than the life she had in that moment. Seven years later, with the ink still drying on both her law degree and her divorce papers, she arrives in Manhattan ready to start adulthood over and chase her dreams of becoming an entertainment lawyer, determined to prove to herself that upending her life was worth it.
As Sam navigates the high-pressure world of Big Law– heady and demanding, and full of magnetic and powerful people – she finds an unexpected ally in her charming, supportive officemate, Charlie. But just as he begins to tear down the walls Sam has built around herself, she lands her first big client, a “Poker Princess” facing federal charges for running high-stakes games for Hollywood’s elite and discovers just how high-stakes “fake it till you make it” can be when you’ve given up everything to become someone new.
Emotionally nuanced and delightfully frothy, Soft Launch is a sharp, witty novel that explores the messy reality of starting over and asks whether life is about finding ourselves, or about the power to reinvent ourselves.

Having written a book about reinvention, I’m now having to reinvent myself again, this time as a debut author. Soft Launch is newly available to pre-order, and pre-orders matter so much for debut authors. I also sold this book unagented, which means I am my own agent, and if I make that mental distinction it’s a lot easier to put myself out there.

I’ve also decided that TikTok probably isn’t the marketing outlet for me… but not before I unleashed this gem into the algorithm!

So instead of making reels, I’m going to tell you reasons why I think you’ll love this book.

If you love books about women finding themselves between deadlines and downtown apartments, this book is for you!

If your early 2000s DVD collection looked like this, you will love this book.

If you’ve ever quit a job, left a relationship, cut your hair or dreamed about moving to New York to start over, this book is for you!

If adulthood came with a few more rewrites than you expected, this book will totally land.

If you were flipping through JANE magazine & sipping bodega coffee at any point in your life, Soft Launch will be a fun read.

If you can’t wait for the sequel to this classic, Soft Launch comes out a full THREE MONTHS before THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA 2!

Thank you for reading this Substack, hopefully reading Soft Launch, and forgiving my civics lapse.

More soon,

Sarah

Civic EQ with Sarah Vacchiano

The Adulthood Edit