Rachel Lynn Solomon: Each Book Has Its Own Journey
In this interview, author Rachel Lynn Solomon discusses wanting to paint Amsterdam in a romantic light with her new romance novel, What Happens in Amsterdam.
Rachel Lynn Solomon is the New York Times-bestselling author of The Ex Talk, Weather Girl, and other romantic comedies for teens and adults. Originally from Seattle, she’s currently navigating expat life in Amsterdam, where she can often be found exploring the city, collecting stationery, and working up the courage to knit her first sweater. Visit her online at RachelSolomonBooks.com, and follow her on Instagram.
In this interview, Rachel discusses wanting to paint Amsterdam in a romantic light with her new romance novel, What Happens in Amsterdam, the pressure in publishing her 10th novel, and more.
Name: Rachel Lynn Solomon
Literary agent: Elizabeth Bewley
Book title: What Happens in Amsterdam
Publisher: Berkley
Release date: May 6, 2025
Genre/category: Romance
Previous titles: Adult romance: The Ex Talk; Weather Girl; Business Or Pleasure; YA: Today Tonight Tomorrow; Past Present Future; See You Yesterday; We Can’t Keep Meeting Like This
Elevator pitch: What Happens in Amsterdam is a romantic comedy about a woman who takes a job in Amsterdam and ends up renting a room from her first love: the Dutch man who lived with her family as an exchange student ten years ago…and who now desperately needs to get married so he can inherit his family’s canal house.
What prompted you to write this book?
I moved to Amsterdam four years ago after spending my life in Seattle, and it’s been a thrilling, nerve-wracking, completely eye-opening experience. I’d never been to Europe and generally considered myself a homebody—nothing wrong with that, but I wasn’t the type to drop everything and move halfway across the world. So, when my husband and I said yes to this opportunity, we didn’t know what to expect or how long we’d be here. I figured I’d eventually set a book in Amsterdam, but it took some time to get to know the city and the customs. It’s such a quirky, fascinating place that doesn’t get the same attention as London or Paris or anywhere in Italy, and I wanted to give Amsterdam its big romantic moment in the sun. Although Dani’s journey is far more scandalous than mine, there’s definitely a lot of my own expat story in this book.
How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?
This one took a little longer than my other books, in part because my initial idea was literally just “Amsterdam” with no characters or plot yet! The adult romance I’d just finished had characters who began the book as strangers, so I wanted these characters to have some kind of past relationship. I landed on a second-chance romance: They’d been in love as teenagers when the Dutch character lived with the American’s family as a foreign exchange student. From there, I brainstormed how to bring them together in the present tense. My first thought was fake dating, but I love marriage of convenience and it’s such a tricky one to make realistic in a contemporary setting. This book felt like it would be perfect for it—Dani would need a way to stay in the Netherlands after she moves there for a job that quickly falls apart.
Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?
When writing romance, I find that sometimes the characters have fantastic chemistry on the page right away, and sometimes I have to work for it. This one was the latter. In my early drafts of the book, Dani and Wouter were much too polite to each other for there to be any kind of romantic tension. It wasn’t until I properly excavated their past relationship that I tugged through some additional tension I could bring to their present.
What do you hope readers will get out of your book?
I hope this book can be a romantic, escapist adventure, and I’d be especially thrilled if it helps readers view Amsterdam through a new lens. The city is often boiled down to its stereotypes: weed, the Red Light District, tulips. As with any city, there’s far more depth here, and I tried my best to capture as much as I could in this book.
If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?
Each book has its own journey. This will be my 10th published book, and while I was working on it, I gave that number so much weight—to the point where I put an inordinate amount of pressure on myself to craft some kind of masterpiece, as though number 10 had to represent the entirety of who I am as a writer. Shockingly, that did not make the writing any easier! So, when the book turned out to be much trickier to figure out than some previous projects, I thought, Welp, I’m going backward. I wish I’d been a little easier on myself and accepted that each book needs what it needs. Ultimately, I’m very happy with the finished product, but I could have saved myself a bit of anxiety!
Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Editor of Writer's Digest, which includes managing the content on WritersDigest.com and programming virtual conferences. He's the author of 40 Plot Twist Prompts for Writers: Writing Ideas for Bending Stories in New Directions, The Complete Guide of Poetic Forms: 100+ Poetic Form Definitions and Examples for Poets, Poem-a-Day: 365 Poetry Writing Prompts for a Year of Poeming, and more. Also, he's the editor of Writer's Market, Poet's Market, and Guide to Literary Agents. Follow him on Twitter @robertleebrewer.
