Betty Cayouette: This Book Taught Me How Magical Revising Can Be

Betty Cayouette is an author, viral video content creator, and cinematographer. She graduated Summa Cum Laude from Brandeis University in only three years, and currently lives in Salem, Massachusetts. Betty created @bettysbooklist, the viral TikTok/Instagram account which is one of the top book recommendation accounts in the world and is featured in outlets such as The Boston Globe, Euronews, Fox News, The London Times, and Glamour UK. Follow her on TikTok , Twitter , Instagram , Threads , and Bluesky .

In this interview, Betty discusses how concert culture helped inspire her new romance novel, I Kissed Her First , her hope for readers, and more.

Name: Betty Cayouette Literary agent: Lauren Spieller at Folio Book title: I Kissed Her First Publisher: Saturday Books Release date: August 25, 2026 Genre/category: New adult romance Previous titles: One Last Shot ; Tell Me How You Really Feel Elevator pitch: When a private chef is hired to cook for her favorite singer’s European tour, sparks fly, a new sizzling sapphic romance by Betty Cayouette

When I first started writing I Kissed Her First , concerts were finally back. My sister and I would hit refresh frantically while on the phone with each other as we waited in Ticketmaster waiting rooms. I refreshed the MLB website every day for a month until I got tickets to see Noah Kahan at Fenway, and I watched Taylor Swift in rain so hard it felt like I was standing in a shower at full blast.

There is something electric about seeing music in person, and for me there was something even more exciting about imagining what it would be like to be part of a tour. At the time, I was also watching a variety of creators on TikTok that were private chefs showcasing what they cooked in a day for their wealthy clients, who were billionaires, reality TV stars, and yes, pop stars. I decided that I wanted to combine my love for food with my interest in being behind the scenes on a career-defining tour. Specifically, an absolutely gorgeous tour through Europe that had a lot of potential for romance. And that is how I Kissed Her First was born!

I Kissed Her First was my third book at Macmillan, but my very first book with Saturday, which was so exciting! I was thrilled to be writing my new adult debut, because this book is more of a coming-of-age story than my adult romances were. Both protagonists in I Kissed Her First are learning who they are in their early 20s, and there was something so magical about that. I started writing in the fall of 2024, then spent basically all of 2025 revising with my amazing editors at Saturday! I Kissed Her First is releasing in August 2026, so this book has been a long haul! I feel so grateful that my team is so dedicated to working with me to make the story perfect.

I find that every book I write is an entirely unique experience. What stood out with I Kissed Her First is the amount of the revision I did. I revised this book more than any of my others, because that’s what this particular story required in order to shine and to accomplish what I wanted it to. I reworked a lot of things, I added a lot of chapters, and I spent a lot of time reading the lyrics of my favorite songs and looking up rhyming words while drafting the Luna Leya songs included in the book! All that being said, I personally am a writer that loves drafting and has historically not been as in love with the revision process. But this book taught me how magical revising can be, because it helped me uncover the story I wanted to tell, and it made the book so much stronger.

With my first two books, I primarily wrote in silence. I occasionally listened to music while I was taking a break, but I didn’t have a soundtrack for my drafting or revising sessions. But because I Kissed Her First is so music focused, I found that I often wanted to listen to music while I wrote. Specifically, I wanted to listen to concert recordings! There’s something about a fan-made recording of a concert, where you can hear fans singing along and you can hear the emotion of that particular day in the singer’s voice, that really hits differently. What I listened to the most was a video on TikTok that a fan had taken of Noah Kahan playing “The Great Divide” live on his tour. They had recorded the song in its entirety, and I would put my phone next to me and let the video loop while I worked. The song wasn’t released yet, so this was the only way I could listen to it, and that particular video got me through a lot of the hardest revisions of the book.

I hope that queer readers feel seen when they read I Kissed Her First . I think that we need more sapphic stories to be told in books and films and television, and I’m so happy I could write this particular story that is so meaningful to me, but also so fun . We have glamorous travel and parties and Provincetown and decadent food and so much hope. I hope that readers enjoy every second of I Kissed Her First , and that they love Luna and Riley as much as I do!

My advice would be to never forget that the writing is the fun part! I think that once you start trying to publish, and then get published, there becomes so much conversation about how to promote your books. But the writing is the best part, at least for me, and I hope that other writers remember to slow down and enjoy it.