Voorhees native Isabel Bandeira can’t remember a time in her life when she wasn’t writing.
Even back to the time when she was just beginning to learn how to write, Bandeira describes making her own “books” featuring the scribbles and stories she created.
Fast-forward to adulthood and a lifetime filled with writing, and Bandeira now finds herself both terrified and excited as she prepares for the launch and signing of her debut young adult novel “Bookishly Ever After” set for Saturday, Jan. 16 at Marlton Barnes and Noble, 200 W. Route 70.
In “Bookishly Ever After,” Bandeira introduces readers to 16-year-old Phoebe Martins, a book lover who attempts to turn her favorite books into romance advice manuals when she discovers that Dev, one of the cutest boys around, might have a crush on her.
Complicating matters, another girl just so happens to snag Dev for herself right before Phoebe is assigned to be Dev’s co-counselor at a sixth-grade camp.
Readers then follow Phoebe on her journey as she navigates nature walks and bonfires while trying to avoid having her emotions completely destroyed.
Like Phoebe, Bandeira said she, too, was a teen who longed to become the characters in her favorite books, and so she wrote her debut novel as a love letter of sorts to young bookworms.
“I allowed Phoebe to let her book-nerd flag proudly fly and wrote the story without worrying if anything was too silly or too bookish,” Bandeira said.
Despite that love of reading and writing, Bandeira’s journey to actually writing a novel and getting it published had its own share of unique challenges, reaching as far back as her senior year of high school at Eastern Regional.
In her professional life, Bandeira now works as a mechanical engineer designing medical devices, but she still recalls the “very bad advice” she received from a well-known author who told Bandeira in her senior year that if she were to study engineering in college, she would never be published.
“Thanks to him, I gave up my dreams of being published and just wrote stories to pass the time,” Bandeira said.
It wasn’t until more than a decade had passed when she attended a book signing for a favorite author who, like Bandeira, had never formally studied creative writing.
“She made being an author sound realistic and not impossible — more about hard work and less about degrees,” Bandeira recalls.
It was then Bandeira decided she was going to give her dream of being an author another go.
Yet it was until she was querying her first manuscript that the idea for “Bookishly Ever After” entered Bandeira’s mind. She started the book as a fun escape that no one would ever see, and by the time she had finished, it had become something she wanted to share with the world.
“Forgetting about target audiences and what’s trending was the best thing I could have ever done, and it reminded me why I love writing in the first place,” she said.
Bandeira eventually took “Bookishly Ever After” to online pitch sessions, where her manuscript was with both agents and publishers at the same time, yet by what Bandeira describes as a twist of fate and luck, she found an agent who still chose to represent when she had already received an offer from her publisher.
“I’m not the best example for new writers,” Bandeira notes.
Yet now that Bandeira has her debut work ready to launch after years of work, she said it’s amazing to see her words out in the world.
“Once they’re out there, they’re not mine anymore and I can’t pull them back,” Bandeira said. “The book belongs to the readers, and they’re allowed to love or hate it and interpret the story however they want. It’s a weird feeling. Still, I can’t wait to see my book on shelves.”
“Bookishly Ever After” was scheduled to release in e-book and paper formats on Jan. 12 and can be preordered.
The novel is available in paper and e-book formats at several outlets, including Barnes and Noble, Amazon, independent booksellers searchable through Indiebound.org and online through stores such as Walmart and Target.
For those who plan to attend the Jan. 16 signing at the Marlton Barnes and Noble and want to ensure they have a copy of the book, Bandeira recommends reserving a copy at the store before the event.
