Costco member and bestselling author Colleen Hoover never planned for there to be a sequel to her hit novel, It Ends with Us. But because of fan requests—a tremendous amount of them, with some readers begging her for years—she wrote one.

“This book [It Starts with Us] picks right up where the first book left off—on the same day of the epilogue,” Hoover says. “It focuses on Lily and Atlas. I wanted to give readers some of the background from Atlas’ point of view that we had gotten from Lily’s letters as a kid. It’s also from Lily’s point of view, so we see her interactions with Ryle and how she handles it. Most of the book is in present day—Atlas and Lily’s life today.”

Her fans might be surprised to know that Hoover nearly didn’t become an author at all.