About the Book:

A Song I Wrote for Charlotte follows Connie Moore who ends up studying English Literature at university after she does not get into the Royal Academy of Music. Connie is determined to stay focused, but music production student Charlotte Owen drags Connie into university life. As their friendship grows, Connie begins to wonder if there is more to how she feels about Charlotte. But Charlotte isn’t the kind of person you can hold onto forever. And Connie might have to consider whether the life Charlotte has built for her is one she can sustain alone.

Find on Goodreads. Find on Bookshop.org UK (affiliate link).

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About the Author:

Caitlin Devlin studied English and Creative Writing at Warwick University before graduating to work in music and theatre journalism. As a teenager, she started writing novels as Christmas presents for her younger sister and brother. Her work has been recognised by competitions such as the Iggy Litro Young Writers award, the Flash500 short story competition, the Exeter Writers short story competition and, in the music world, by the UK Song Writing Contest. She is also a performed playwright. Her debut adult novel, The Real Deal, was published by Lake Union in February 2024. It was  followed by another stand-alone adult novel, Born for This, in 2025. Her YA debut, A Song I Wrote for Charlotte will be published in spring 2026 by HarperFire, with the second stand-alone novel to follow in spring 2027.

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Why we need more books set at universities

Being a teenager was, for me, constant self-assessment. Was I succeeding at it? Was I doing what a teenager was supposed to do? Was I checking the right boxes, ticking off the right experiences? Young adult novels were a touchstone, a useful point of comparison. These characters would expose their own anxieties to me more readily than the other real-life teenagers around me. I often found myself comparing my own milestones to their fictional ones, and took comfort in the characters who, like me, were never sure if they were getting it right. I especially liked reading about characters who were a year or two ahead of me – they gave me some kind of roadmap, and the tools to deal with the trickier parts of adolescence when I encountered those obstacles myself. 

University was a blind spot. Campus novels have risen in popularity in more recent years, but often they’re jam-packed with either spice or murder – both fun, but neither would have given my seventeen-year-old self a particularly accurate idea of what awaited. So, in my second year of university, I began writing the university novel I would have wanted to read. 

I wasn’t just writing it for myself. My younger sister was starting her own university journey. Our bond had been built around storytelling since we were very young, and we had a tradition whereby every year for Christmas, I would write her a book. The year that she moved into her university halls, I gave her A Song I Wrote For Charlotte, in its very earliest form. In it were my reflections on university life, on identity, on belonging, and on finding the people who accepted you as you came. I was lucky enough to meet people in my university halls who would stay in my life forever – including the person I would one day marry. I knew that those lifelong connections were heading her way too, and I was absolutely right. 

Years later, at the suggestion of my agent, I revisited that book. This time I brought to it all the things I had learned at university that I hadn’t yet realised were setting me up for adult life. How to open myself up to friendships with people who were different from me, who I didn’t trust at first meeting to understand me. How to think outside of myself and accept other people for who they were, too. How to let go of old expectations of how my life should look and – as my character Connie learns to do – follow what truly makes me happy. Into the story was woven both mine and my sister’s own search for identity and self-definition, and the hope and optimism that other young people deserve to feel about their future.

Of course, university isn’t right nor accessible for everyone, and not everyone is lucky enough to have a positive experience or make connections that last. But those years post-school are still a vital part of the young adult experience, a part that I would have loved more literature on when I was going through them myself. It’s not an easy time in history to be stepping out into the world as a young adult. It’s especially not an easy time to believe that the world will have a place for you. I hope A Song I Wrote For Charlotte and other books like it can encourage young people that community is out there, and that no one has to make that transition alone.

Thank you, Caitlin!