To Tech Millennials, With Love: Lauren Appelbaum’s Latest Seattle Rom-Com
It’s often said that there is the technical and the creative, and ne’er the twain shall meet. But local author Lauren Appelbaum aims to show otherwise with the release of her debut novel Rachel Weiss’s Group Chat.
Appelbaum is a graduate of the University of Washington’s Informatics program, a technical editor in the Seattle tech industry, a mother of two, and a lifelong writer. Her book is the first of a two-book deal signed by Hachette Book Group, one of the “big five” publishers, stocking bookshelves across the country with a new author and story both based in Seattle.
Book cover for Rachel Weiss’s Group Chat
Rachel Weiss’s Group Chat is a lot of things: It’s an epistolary novel told through a group chat of friends. A Seattlite’s loving take on Seattle. A tech worker’s prodding take on the tech industry. A millennial tale of romance and friendship. Oh, and it’s a modern retelling of Jane Austin’s Pride & Prejudice.
The story follows Rachel Weiss (no relation to English actor Rachel Weisz) and her friends as they turn 30 and navigate the pivotal changes that come with life, love, careers, and friendship at that age. Appelbaum describes it as a romantic comedy written for lovers of classic ‘90s rom-coms like Bridget Jones’s Diary.
She penned the first draft in 2019, the same year that the book is set, and emphasized that unlike some of her more arduous previous projects, Rachel Weiss’s Group Chat was driven by a sense of fun—a key ingredient that may have helped her win over Hatchett.
“I was in a time of my life when I just wanted to entertain myself because I was feeling a bit hopeless about getting my previous book published, and I just needed something to cheer myself up. So I was really just having fun with it, and I think that that came through in the voice and the story, and it spoke to people, and I think that's what did it,” she said.
The story’s setting in Seattle is not just wallpaper—there is a strong sense of place throughout with references to real locations and cultural oddities that Seattlites can connect with.
“I loved setting the book in Seattle! It’s an interesting city. Rachel gets into some shenanigans that could only happen in Seattle and on top of that she works in tech…I’ve always been a little bit of an outsider in the tech world—as a woman and as a creative person who’s really only here for the paycheck, it was really funny to write about it from Rachel’s perspective and to see how she struggles with finding her place in the tech scene.”—Appelbaum