“I couldn’t be prouder of this book. I hope it makes you feel loved.“
I wrote this book for my sister. I honestly believed no one else would ever read it. Obviously, I was wrong.
Ella and I are eighteen months apart in age and often felt more like twins growing up, partly because we had a younger brother who we both got to be tyrannical big sisters to. We lived in shared imaginary worlds and had a jar in which we collected our in-jokes and secrets. The night before I left for university, about a year before I started writing A Song I Wrote For Charlotte, she slipped a note inside it.
I can’t bear the fact that you’re leaving when you’ve always been here, it read.
When her time to leave came around, I wanted to pass on something helpful. So, I did what I’d been doing for her since we were kids: I wrote her a story. I gave her the first (very messy) draft of this book as a Christmas present all the way back in 2019, and for a long time, it was just hers. I’ve written lots of books since then, but this one has always been her favourite.
“Connie, the lead character of this story, isn’t Ella, and she isn’t me either. But so much of both of us got into her all the same.“
Connie, the lead character of this story, isn’t Ella, and she isn’t me either. But so much of both of us got into her all the same. She’s someone who isn’t always sure if she’s following the right social rules, but she discovers that with the right people, that doesn’t matter. She has to learn that when you hang your self-worth on academic achievement, you’re in danger of blinding yourself to all the other incredible things you have to offer this world. Crucially, she’s also on the brink of exploring her queer identity. I’d come out to Ella about a year before writing this story, and she’d been endlessly supportive.
A couple of years ago, I returned to this book, and I reshaped it into what it is now. At the time you’re reading this, the ambitious eighteen-year-old I wrote it for is now a qualified doctor, and lives on the coast with her amazing girlfriend. I couldn’t be prouder of her, and I couldn’t be prouder of this book. I hope it makes you feel loved.
Caitlin x
About the book
26 April 2026
A beautifully written coming-of-age YA romance, perfect for fans of John Green, Alice Oseman, Stephen Chbosky and Jennifer Niven.
Get ready to meet a truly one-of-a-kind heroine: Connie Moore.
Connie Moore has never failed at anything. That is until the Royal Academy of Music decide her piano playing isn’t good enough and she finds herself pursuing her back-up plan: moving into student halls to study English Literature. With her grandmother piling on the pressure and her father’s absence weighing on her, she knows she has to stay focused this year – mediocrity must be avoided at all costs.
Just across the corridor, Music Production student Charlotte Owen has other ideas. Sweet, sociable and not a girl who takes no for an answer, Charlotte drags Connie determinedly into university life. As an unlikely friendship blossoms between them, Connie begins to wonder if there’s something more to the way she feels about Charlotte – and, even more terrifyingly, whether there’s something more to the way Charlotte feels about her.
But Charlotte isn’t the kind of person you can hold on to forever. And Connie might have to consider whether the life that Charlotte has built for her is one that she can sustain alone.
Caitlin Devlin’s exquisite eye for detail perfectly captures a particular moment of adolescence, effortlessly moving between hilarious, laugh-out-loud writing on one page to heartbreak and poignancy on the next.
With an irresistible voice and an absolutely one-of-a-kind heroine, you’ll fall in love with A Song I Wrote for Charlotte from the very first page – a perfect coming of age debut celebrating difference, self-discovery, and LGTBQ+ and neurodivergent identities.