LONELY GIRL
An Unexpected Love Story
By Elizabeth Wilson
Launching June 22nd, 2026
Presale Beginning May 11th, 2026
Wild meets Netflix’s Working Moms in this emotionally raw and heartwarming memoir
Lonely Girl is a memoir about when motherhood and divorce force identity shifts and a hard look at connection and belonging.
Forensic scientist Elizabeth finally has it all: the wife, the baby, the deep friendships, and the clear path to the promotion of her dreams. Her found family buoys her through early motherhood and a global pandemic, until her world fractures and she’s suddenly left with nothing but her wife and daughter, and a desperate need to start over.
A cross-country move and a flooded RV later, the mountains of Colorado force Elizabeth to learn her value, demand her worth, and confront her deep loneliness. After years of effort, she can no longer deny the cracks in her marriage and is forced to face the question: if she’s not a wife and not a scientist, who is she? Elizabeth meets many who assist on her path of self-discovery, but one person in particular forces her to question what she believes about love, relationships, and her sexuality.
This is a story about feeling chronically lonely in every room, even when surrounded by others, and doing a deep self-exploration, finding self-love, worthiness, and a sense of belonging no external circumstance can shake. Journey with Elizabeth through the raw emotionality of abortion, sexual assault, sobriety, and divorce, and find healing in the most unexpected of love stories.
Reviews
“I thought about the story even when it wasn’t in front of me (while walking the dog) and I always think this is a great sign of a good book.”
— Adrien TerrellElizabeth bravely reveals her inner thoughts through some of her deepest moments while navigating the uncertain path from loneliness to community. She tenaciously faces the challenges of addiction, financial instability, and co-parenting with her ex-wife while also walking readers through her memoir-writing process. Lonely Girl reminds us of some of our most core human needs: to be known, to be loved, and to belong—and how sharing our stories fosters connection.
— Lara Richardson“I absolutely adored this book. It’s a unique story, and yet it’s one I think everyone can relate to on some level. The story sucked me in immediately, and I had a hard time putting it down!”
— Samantha RossHow it started
In January 2023, my sister signed up for an email-based month long writing workshop that was meant to take a person from idea to finished book in 30 days. She asked me to join her in the challenge, and I said yes! Little did I realize at the time that the program, while intended for nonfiction writing, was sorely insufficient for writing memoir.
An early version of my manuscript, completed by March 2023, was a combination of self-help and memoir with the intent to show the reader how to find community in a new place and combat loneliness associate with a lack of belonging.
After hiring an editor for developmental editing of the manuscript, I confirmed my gut feelings that I should take out all the self-help advice and move the entire manuscript to memoir, my favorite genre. I became overwhelmed by the amount of writing still ahead of me and put the manuscript on the backburner through the summer.
Life shifted around me and my safety net came crumbling down when my former wife and I separated that summer and subsequently got divorced. I had to reinvent myself as a stay at home mom and felt confronted by the fact that I was writing a book about loneliness but hadn’t disclosed the loneliness I felt in my own marriage. I started to write again with a whole new fervor and mission.
Fast forward to 2025, I’d started a writing business and podcast, The Inspired Writer Collective, gotten into a new relationship, and taken the manuscript though another major and final shift. Through a weekly writing group, I chipped away at the rewrites and edits.
Now here we are in 2026! The publication date has been set, and I have professionals working around the clock on edits, book cover design, formatting, and helping me construct my promotion calendar!
What others are saying about Elizabeth’s writing:
“I would have never embraced this journey of self-love had it not been for the extreme void of it in my romantic relationship. I needed to feel that level of rejection in order to go searching for it within myself.”
— Elizabeth Wilson, Lonely Girl Manuscript