It’s Abby Jimenez’s world and we’re just living in it.

Specifically, it’s the Abbyverse, which is what the romance writer’s fans dub the fictional world in which all of her characters exist, often recurring from book to book. Characters from the 2025 romantic comedy “Say You’ll Remember Me” pop up in her new “The Night We Met” — in which gig economy worker Larissa is dating Mike but is really into his best friend Chris — and Mike will return as the star of Jimenez’s next book.

“Even my very first book, ‘The Friend Zone,’ there are connections all the way up to the book I’m working on now for 2027,” said Jimenez, who has sold 3 million copies of her books and lives in the Twin Cities.

Readers seem to love that, although Jimenez says it complicates things for Hollywood, which would like each story to stand alone. But the New York Times bestseller writer and owner of Food Network-famous bakery chain Nadia Cakes is trying to fix that, having recently signed to develop projects with a film and TV agency.

Between the calls from Hollywood, the cupcakes and finishing the last 10 chapters of the next book, Jimenez made time to talk to us.

On her last book’s wild publicity tour:

Jimenez’s social media — she has 400,000 Instagram followers and nearly 900,000 on TikTok — documented the response to her tour for “Say You’ll Remember Me,” including a Des Moines stop where turnout quadrupled the 500 expected attendees and a packed Toronto event interrupted by a fire alarm and the arrival of “ a crew of hot firemen.”

She had a talk with her publicist after the tour ended.

“I took over 40 flights. I was absolutely exhausted after that tour and I said, ‘We’re selling out these events literally, sometimes, in 20 seconds. We announce the tickets and they’re gone. I can’t keep doing smaller events that sell out immediately, when I could do something larger.’ So, for my Minneapolis launch[at Heritage Center in Brooklyn Center], they got me a venue with 1,500 tickets. And it sold out in two days,” said Jimenez.

One issue is that the more time she spends publicizing her books, the less she has to write new ones for her fans.

“My readers are, honestly, the best. I’m sitting here talking to you, looking at my bookshelves and I have all of these beautiful things my readers made or bought for me. I have a whole jar of friendship bracelets and things people knitted for me and crocheted,” said Jimenez.

On a nut allergy being a major plot point:

“I like my characters to feel like real and layered people with relatable life issues,” said Jimenez of the severe allergy Larissa deals with in “Night We Met.” “And it was a good way to depict the carelessness of some people in her life who should have been looking out for her but really weren’t.”

Jimenez knows about food allergies, with a daughter who has less-severe reactions than Larissa’s and Nadia customers with dietary restrictions.

“We have cupcakes that do not contain nuts but because we are not a nut-free facility — or gluten-free or dairy-free, for that matter — we do not recommend that people who have really severe allergies eat at Nadia,” said Jimenez.

The author usually weaves shout-outs to Nadia Cakes into her Minnesota-set books. She opted not to do that with “Night We Met,” for which consulting allergist and TikTok celeb Zachary Rubin helped her make sure she had all her EpiPens in a row.

On her favorite romance novel trope:

“I love ‘enemies to lovers.’ It’s very hard to pull off because you have to be convinced these two hate each other for a reason that is legitimate and then convinced they changed their minds,” said Jimenez. “To write, I like ‘friends to lovers.’ I feel like it’s such a natural way to fall in love. ‘The Night We Met’ is definitely a ‘friends to lovers’ and a bit of a love triangle.”

Jimenez recalls getting the idea for “Night We Met” back when she was writing her first book, “The Happy Ever After Playlist” (she wrote it first, although it was her second book published). But it took years for her to feel ready to capture the nuances of her three flawed leads.

“It took two years to write, and it lived in my brain a lot longer than that,” said Jimenez. “I wanted the romance to be realistic. I didn’t want us to hate anybody or to villainize anybody. So I waited to write it until I was a good enough writer to pull it off.”

On a scene set at a karaoke night:

After Mike declines, Larissa asks Chris, who secretly loves her, to join her in a karaoke duet, which leads to awkward attempts to pick a song that’s not too canoodling-forward (among the rejects? “You’re the One That I Want”).

“There’s so much going on, if you unpack that scene. Mike’s greatest fear is looking silly in front of people and what’s really sad is that because Mike is afraid of looking silly, he drinks. And, as a result, ends up looking bad in front of people, anyway,” said Jimenez, whose go-to karaoke song is Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams.”

On readers, who help her get things right:

“With ‘The Friend Zone,’ my first book, I wish I had had the foresight to have a sensitivity reader. That book [and its treatment of fertility, which some readers objected to] taught me that if you write a book without due diligence, it could cause harm,” said Jimenez.

Now, she checks in with experts on hot-button topics. While she’s still writing her books, she shares them with trusted readers to make sure the story is coming together how she intended. And, even when she thinks she’s done, she listens to editors who spot missing pieces.

“I know that I can make people laugh, give them an escape from the real world,” said Jimenez. “But I also know my books touch people and can be a road map for people in bad situations.”

That’s why “The Night We Met” opens with a spoiler-filled author’s note that offers trigger warnings. And why it reminds readers that, although books in the Abbyverse come with cartoony covers, there’s a whole lot more waiting between their pages.

The Night We Met

By: Abby Jimenez.

Publisher: Grand Central, 389 pages.

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