Hi All,
Wow okay, so it’s been a minute…turns out when those more experienced authors tell you book 2 is gonna take its pound of flesh, they’re—uh—not wrong?
Book 2 — has a title!!
ALL THE STARS ALIGN
Book 2 — has a tagline!!
Will Fate choose her love, or love choose her Fate?
Book 2 — has a release date!!
4.1.2025
That is not an April Fool’s Joke.
And most importantly— and the reason for this email…
Book 2 — has COVER!!
Description:
All the women in Piper’s family know their true love at first sight, complete with butterflies, heart eyes, and a gut instinct. The kind of fated love that lasts forever. Piper grew up with her ancestors' epic love stories repeated like fairy tales, and yearns for the day she’ll start her own. Already singled out in her family due to her physical disability, Piper collects a second strike against her when her parents announce their divorce, which convinces her family that she’s doomed.
When she finally finds her true love at a party, she’s more determined than ever to attain her love story and earn a spot in her family. But after completely botching their first meeting, she realizes that she’ll need help from her best friend Leo, who is sort of a love expert. The catch—he and Piper haven’t talked in six months, since he needed a “break” from their friendship.
To win over the love of her life and a place in her family, Piper must convince Leo to teach her his ways. And it’s all going as planned…until Leo confesses his own love for Piper. Now, she must decide which fate to follow.
Pre-Order Links
Amazon ~ Barnes & Noble ~ Target ~ Bookshop.Org
Events
July 18 2024 - Creator Cafe - Burbank Public Library Register Here I’ll be doing a fun lesson on story structure and a Q&A.
August 9 2024, Ripped Bodice (LA) — Ticketed Event I’m hosting Nalini Singh’s launch for her new Psy-Changeling Novel: PRIMAL MIRROR.
Debut Diary
Honestly— post debut my writing life sort of went from zero to splat. The long and short of it all was that 2 weeks after my debut I found myself without an agent (this is through no fault of my agent), 2 weeks after that my first round of edits for ATSA were due. I was emotionally a wreck. (I do have a new agent but dealing with that + writing was a TIME)
This also coincided with some big projects with my day job — if you’ve heard of the writing fellowship LitUp I came up with it and run it. Which on the one hand is wildly cool that I get to do something that is literally my wildest dream on the other hand it’s a lot of my time—final committee + retreat. Best sort of problems.
Two, three? I took on a freelance gig that in hindsight…I shouldn’t have…but you know inflation.
Biggest Lesson: give yourself something to look forward to. Me, personally, I book a Walt Disney World trip for December. Other friends have booked other trips, or even just a nice afternoon out.
Basically there’s this huge let down after book launch — and I don’t mean “let down” as in the book did bad, I mean just emotional exhaustion, let down? You’ve climbed this big mountain that in most cases you’ve been attempting to summit for years.
What’s next? That whole blank page shock hits quite hard.
Disability Pride Month
For those who don’t know July is disability pride month. We celebrate this in July because it makes the passing of the American's with Disabilities Act (passed in 1990) which gave disabled Americans a lot of basic rights…
If you don’t know anything about the ADA or Disability Pride Month I suggest hanging out on the hashtag on pretty much any social media site. You can learn about the Capitol Crawl, the layered meaning of the word pride, and some great books.
I curate a non-exhaustive list of books by disabled authors with disabled characters. It gets updated when I get angry at publishing for ableist stuff. (I do not make a commission off this, Amazon just makes it easy to manage the list)
On My Nightstand…
Reading: There has been so much dayjob reading (which I can’t tell you about). I’ve still been on my romance kick some of my recent favs are:
Not Another Love Song by Julie Soto
Chaos by Jack Whitney
Also a healthy dose of YA:
We Shall Be Monsters by Tara Sim
Garden of the Curse by Katy Rose Pool
Watching: The latest season of Top Chef. I always love looking at which direction they go in this season it was much more, what I call, chef-y. (aka Fine Dining).
Fun Fact: I usually watch a documentary while I’m drafting and ATSA’s “documentary” was Top Chef (I’m using the term loosely…)
Also loving MY LADY JANE (her littlest sister is METTLE) and MAXTON HALL
Youtube: Jenny Nicholson (hello 4 hour deep dive into the Starcruiser…), waaaaaay too many rabbit holes mostly about WWII
Crafting: look I need to constantly be doing something with my hands and I’ve picked up crocheting again. I’ve made approximately 300 granny squares since February… I’m fine.
Planning: option material, tinkering with an adult idea, and a cool new series about how I draft a book.