Exclusive Interview
Hannah Brown Reveals How Her Past Relationships Inspired Her Book Characters
The Bachelorette alum Hannah Brown is gearing up for the release of her second romance novel, The Four Engagement Rings of Sybil Rain. The project is a follow-up to her 2024 book, Mistakes We Never Made, and is told from the point of view of Sybil Rain, a character who readers got to know in Brown’s debut fiction novel.
The Four Engagement Rings of Sybil Rain brings back the core four: Sybil, Emma, Nikki, and Willow, but this time the story is centered around Mistakes We Never Made’s runaway bride and the aftermath of her decision to leave her fiancé, Jamie, on their wedding weekend. Now, readers will get a deeper insight into why Sybil made her decision and what happened after the nuptials were called off.
“This became a lot more personal than I thought it was going to be,” Brown tells Swooon. “I haven’t experienced some of the things Sybil has, but some of her doubts and fears came from my own doubts and fears in relationships and thinking of the future. Especially just, like, her view of relationships sometimes definitely has been a part of me that I’ve been working to grow from, and to be able to kind of do that in tandem as I was writing the book … the things that I’ve learned and being able to implement that and talking to Sybil is like talking to a not-long-ago version of myself.”
Brown also says that all the women in the core four make up “different parts” of her, so she identifies with every single one of them. “We all have different parts of ourselves, we’re not one thing,” she points out. “So if I was an exaggerated version of myself, what character would I be? I feel like Sybil and Nikki are the closest to me, I would say. But probably high school/college me really, really connected with Emma. I hope one day I’m as cool as Willow.”
The Four Engagement Rings of Sybil Rain picks up a year after Sybil and Jamie called off their wedding. With her honeymoon vouchers to Hawaii about to expire, Sybil decides to take a trip where she can relax, but is thrown off when she arrives at the resort and sees Jamie is there, too.
He’s on the trip with his gorgeous work colleague, and when Sybil wants to save face, she pretends that she’s visiting with her boyfriend. Her lies catch up to her when another ex-fiancé, Sebastian, shows up and is forced to play along, leaving Sybil to juggle both men, as well as thoughts of her first fiancé, Liam, whom she never talks about.
Now that she has two books under her belt, Brown already has ideas for more. “From the very beginning of just the conceptualization of ‘I want to write books and what do I want this to look like?’ it started out with the four friends and my dream would be able to write a story for each of them,” she explains. “Emma came very clear to me, and as I was writing Emma’s story, I think it just became very clear that Sybil would be, if I had the opportunity, the next person that I would kind of want to dive into.”
So, yes, there are plans to tell Nikki and Willow’s stories if she has the opportunity. “I kind of started off with that being the dream, to be able to write for each of them,” Brown admits. “So I have ideas, but even just with the case with Sybil, sometimes pieces change, and it can be different as you get into it. But yeah, I do have ideas and dreams to be able to tell their stories.”
The Four Engagement Rings of Sybil Rain, Release Date, Tuesday, June 24
