Welcome back to Sweet Valley.

Picture it. Christmas. 2008.

As part of a gift exchange, my BFF Sarah sent me Double Love and Secrets, the first two Sweet Valley High books. I think we were on a nostalgia kick at the time and I read both books that day. For some reason, I decided to start a blog about it.

My first blog entry was posted in February 2009. Over the next couple of years I read and recapped the entire original series, as well as Senior Year and Sweet Life. During that time I amassed a sizeable following. I was written up on Entertainment Weekly’s website, mentioned on Mental Floss, and was interviewed by the BBC News site about my take on Sweet Valley Confidential. It was all pretty fun.

When I was about a third of the way into recapping the Sweet Valley Twins series a whole lot of life got in the way and I abandoned my beloved blog.

Recently, a friend (incidentally, the same friend who sent me those books 16 years ago) told me my URL still worked. Looking at it was like walking into a house you used to live in and finding someone has been squatting there. An odd smattering of my recaps were available to view, but most of the links didn’t work and there were ads everywhere. I guess I didn’t notice that I never stopped renewing my domain name and some kind of free hosting situation took over.

Over the years I’ve thought about starting the blog up again, and I’m just now at a point where I can give it the attention it deserves. At first I thought maybe I would just restore my original posts and then pick up where I left off, but I decided to go full reboot. When I started blogging I was in my 20s, freshly married, living in Florida, and fairly miserable. Now I’m in my 40s, divorced, and living happily in my hometown with my amazing partner, Scott. Things have changed dramatically in the last fifteen years, both in the world and in my life. Skimming over my old recaps (which I thankfully still have saved on a hard drive) I noticed that I said some things back then that don’t at all reflect my thinking now. I want to start over from a new perspective.

So here we are! Thanks for taking the time to read this. If you’re new here, welcome! If you remember me from back then, welcome back! If you want to read my original recaps from back in the day, you can find them in an ebook here.