Author Twinkle Zaman Revisits a Childhood Dream in It’s Got to Be You

Twinkle Zaman drew from her private journals and the character she imagined as a child to create a romantic novel set inside the world of country music.

Writing first became a refuge for Twinkle Zaman when she was still a little girl carrying responsibilities that made childhood feel distant. She worried often and felt more like an adult living in a child’s body. Her imagination offered relief from that weight.

That was where Lucy began.

Zaman pictured the character’s style and personality long before she knew Lucy would eventually lead a novel. Lucy represented the life she hoped to create when she was old enough to make her own choices.

“I was always mentally trying to get away somewhere,” Zaman said. “Writing helped me do that. I created Lucy and imagined who she would become because I wanted to believe I could build that kind of life someday.”

Lucy now appears at the center of It’s Got to Be You, a semi-autobiographical novel shaped by country music, romance, and Zaman’s early desire to find joy in everyday life.

Lucy DeLuca Meets Chip Wayne

When nineteen-year-old Lucy DeLuca bumps into rising country star Chip Wayne before his show at a local honky tonk, she’s not impressed and she’s not looking for love. But seeing him perform changes everything.

Not only is Lucy transfixed by the way the singer works the crowd, she catches his eye. When she meets him a week later at a private show and he remembers her, she’s convinced fate has intervened and they’re destined to be together.

Before long, Lucy locks in Chip’s interest and gets a taste of another life - tour buses, swanky hotels, backstage passes. Chip’s world makes Lucy feel alive rekindling a desire she's always had to write. After all, she’s entitled to cultivate her purpose once she’s found it. Only the story Lucy’s writing is theirs and Chip doesn’t know anything about it.

Twinkle Zaman Transforms Her Journals Into Fiction

The novel’s personal roots made the writing process difficult for Zaman. She considers herself a private person, and much of the emotional material began in her journals.

Transforming those thoughts into fiction required her to reveal parts of herself without simply reproducing her life on the page. Lucy gave her a way to explore those experiences through a separate character.

“Turning my journal into a novel was challenging because those thoughts were never meant for everyone,” Zaman said. “I still felt that I had to tell this story. It explains a lot about who I am and how Lucy becomes the woman she is.”

The connection between Twinkle Zaman and Lucy reaches further back than the events described in the novel. Zaman created the character while imagining adulthood from the perspective of a child who wanted more ease and happiness around her.

Lucy became a picture of possibility.

“I thought about what she would wear and what her personality would be like,” Zaman said. “I could see the woman I wanted her to become. In many ways, I was also trying to see who I might become.”

It’s Got to Be You does not present Lucy’s transformation as the simple result of meeting an ideal man. Zaman sees Chip as someone who gives Lucy a sense of safety and helps her begin building the life she once imagined.

The relationship matters because Lucy feels chosen. She also finds someone whose leadership allows her to place faith in what they are building together.

“For me, it is about feeling secure with someone,” Zaman said. “Lucy wants to know she has been chosen and that she can trust the person beside her. That gives her room to create the life she wanted.”

The Ending Returns Lucy to an Early Promise

The final portion of the novel is Zaman’s favorite because it brings Lucy closest to the future the author imagined for her as a child.

Earlier chapters take Lucy through difficult emotional territory. The ending shows what she is able to make from those experiences.

“The ending means the most to me because Lucy finally creates what she had always been looking for,” Zaman said. “I can see my younger self in that part of the story. She wanted to believe that joy and love would eventually become part of her life.”

That connection gives the conclusion personal weight for Twinkle Zaman. Lucy is no longer limited to the imagined adulthood of a worried child. She has reached a point where she can participate in shaping her surroundings instead of only dreaming about escape.

Music provides the setting for much of that transition. Chip’s performances and life on the road surround Lucy with movement and attention, while her own work develops privately.

She is close to someone whose career places him in front of an audience. Her writing begins where no one else can see it.

That contrast creates one of the novel’s central tensions. Lucy feels entitled to pursue her purpose after rediscovering it, yet the story she has chosen to write belongs partly to Chip as well.

Twinkle Zaman Writes for Readers Who Still Believe

The novel is intended for women, music lovers, and readers of contemporary romance. Its country music setting and emotional focus also position it for book-club readers.

Zaman hopes readers will understand where Lucy came from and why her search for freedom feels so urgent. She wants them to see the child behind the adult character and recognize how long Lucy has been waiting to feel at home in her own life.

“If my younger self had known how to write a whole book, this is the one she would have written,” Zaman said. “It contains the things she wanted so badly and hoped she would find later.”

Twinkle Zaman hopes to write more books in the future, although she is currently preparing to focus on other personal ambitions. Writing It’s Got to Be You allowed her to finally find the magic she longed for as a little girl.

The lesson she carries from that process is direct.

“Stay true to yourself,” Zaman said. “I believe that when you stay true to who you are and keep your heart sincere, the joy you have been searching for can eventually find you.”

For Twinkle Zaman, bringing Lucy to the page meant giving form to a character she had carried since childhood. Readers now meet that character at the moment when longing begins to turn into choice. It's Got to Be You is set to release on September 8, 2026, wherever books are sold.