Julianne Hough Had an ‘Awakening’ While Writing New Novel, “Everything We Never Knew ”(Exclusive)
"I feel more clarity and understanding of what matters to me and what I want to put out into the world … I feel creative. I feel so in love," Hough tells PEOPLE
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Julianne Hough has a story, and she’s ready to share it.
In 2020, while going through what she calls a “huge transformational period,” Hough asked herself, “How can I create something that I can pour my experiences into without giving all of my details away, but that we'll all be able to relate to?”
The result — after four years of introspection and writing — is Everything We Never Knew, a novel rooted in the 36-year-old’s life experiences. “What I found, it’s so overused and cliché but it really was an awakening,” Hough tells PEOPLE about writing the book, which comes out on Aug. 13, with author Ellen Goodlett. She adds, “I was starting to feel things and see things and have these really heightened awarenesses and senses activated in a way that I was like, ‘Whoa, this feels like magic and nobody's going to understand this because this is wild’.”
Sourcebooks
The Dancing With the Stars host channeled this “magic” into the story of a woman named Lexi who realizes that she can feel other people’s emotions and see into their personal memories. But that ability comes at a cost: she must also confront her past, which she has tried hard to suppress.
“I realized I can use the universal themes that everybody experiences: loss, grief, abandonment, betrayal, violation, all these things that we experience as the human collective,” Hough says. “I've been very, very intentional the last four years of just being as authentic and real as I can and not worrying about the narrative from the outside in, but from the inside out.”
Connecting with the character she was writing meant gaining a better understanding of herself, something Hough admits was not easy to do.
“It just opened this new curiosity up for me, and it started unraveling all the systems of protection that I had put into place for myself to keep me totally fine,” the Safe Haven actress says. “It was not the most easy journey to go through, but it was the one that allowed for all parts of me to exist, come out and then really, truly have a clean slate of who I am and what my intention is in this next phase of life.”
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As Hough did the work of recognizing “patterns and behaviors that were hiding her from her best, highest self," she had to dig deeper than she originally expected.
“I thought all of my trauma really was from 10 years old to 15, but I've realized, ‘Oh my gosh, I had so much before that’,” Hough recalls. “Our parents do the best job that they know how to do in the moment, so it's not about blaming or shunning or shaming. It's about acknowledging, confronting and then recognizing that we can take ourselves and heal generational wounds.”
Hough says her life now feels like it is in full blossom. “I really feel like a harvest, like an absolute abundance of planting seeds for many years, unraveling things that weren't working before,” she says. “I feel more clarity and understanding of what matters to me and what I want to put out into the world … I feel creative. I feel so in love.”
While the Footloose actress says she is not in love with anyone or anything specifically, she tells PEOPLE she is ready to open her heart again after separating from ex-husband Brooks Laich in 2020 and divorcing in 2022.
“I needed time for myself. I needed to sit in the uncomfortable stillness of, ‘I feel so alone right now’,” Hough says. “I will say in the last year and a half, my heart has been able to start opening ... I have so much love to give. I cannot wait to pour it out.”
As she looks ahead to her book release, Hough is excited for people to connect with the story. “My experiences from this book, Lexi's experiences in this book, I don't think that they are unique to individuals,” she says. “I think that everybody has the ability to tap into these spiritual senses, and it's all about timing. It's about openness, curiosity and willingness to surrender to what's possible.”
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As for the next chapter in her life story, Hough is taking her own advice and welcoming whatever comes next. “I want to just be in a place that feels really easy, calm and vibrant, and allow things to come in that are supposed to be for me,” she says. “The fear of change has turned into the joy of transformation.”
Everything We Never Knew is out Aug. 13 from Sourcebooks Landmark and is available for preorder now, wherever books are sold.
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