Flirting With Forever is here!!

Flirting with Forever is on the shelves today! This book has such a special place in my heart because, honestly, I don’t know if I’ve ever had a story flow so easily. Maybe because parts of it reflect my own love story?

Long before we fell in love, my husband and I ran into one another walking around New York City. We were casual acquaintances at the time and it was a warm, fall day so we thought, why not take a stroll through the park together? …and then we were both pretty bored.

Years later we confirmed with the other that we’d each had the thought “Is this a match? Nah.” Lol. Over the next year of bumping into one another in our social circle, we —very slowly— began to see different sides of one another. You can probably guess the rest. 

I assume there are some people who know exactly what and who they want and they go out and chase after it. And then there are people who have no idea what the heck they want and are (hopefully) lucky enough to bump into it a hundred times in a year. 

This brings me to Mary and John. Maybe my favorite couple I’ve ever written? They go from genuinely thinking they’ll never date to crushing on each other so hard they can barely see straight. They both want so badly to see one another with crystal clarity but, of course, that takes time. It takes communication. So when they are finally able to burn through the smoke screens of misconceptions and misunderstandings to truly, truly see one another, the sudden HD is shocking and overwhelming and life changing. 

For them it was, I like you I like you I like you BAM holy smokes, I love you. They love one another so much because they know one another. And, in a lovely surprise to both of them, they are able to know one another even better because they already love one another. Chicken or the egg? It doesn’t matter. 

Some books pop into your head out of nowhere with a single scene that shows you exactly who the characters are meant to be (this one involved some very cute, very dorky dancing just in the nick of time). Some books just make you happy to write. They make you happy to edit. They make you happy when the cover design shows that perfect time of day when light is finally mixing —surrendering— into the evening. They make you happy to hold in your hand. And most of all, they make you happy to share. Please enjoy Flirting with Forever. And take care of Mary and John for me!

Call Me Maybe is here!

Some of my earliest memories are of people I love reading a book out loud to me. These were my first thoughts when I contemplated writing an audio-only book for Audible. Usually, as a writer, writing is inextricable from the page, and writing a book that would only be listenable was intriguing, stymying… and a little scary. 

But then I remembered what it felt like to be read to in classrooms and before bedtime. I thought about podcasts and NPR and those moments when my husband is so full-body gobsmacked by something he’s just read that he HAS to read it out loud to me. I thought about stories a kid makes up at the dinner table. I thought about my own mom’s tried-and-true anecdotes, the ones that she’s told so many times that hearing her tell them becomes a part of that story. 

Stories out loud make the characters come along with you, wherever you are and whatever you’re doing. Because you can go about your daily life while listening along, these characters become your companions. Stories told out loud are company. 

I finished writing this book at the beginning of quarantine. And to me, company has never meant more than it does right now. These characters made me smile each morning when I had to block the world out and write. Cal and Vera are looking for connection and finding it with one another. Cal and Vera are kind to one another. 

I think at the heart of all my stories there are good people trying their best. And that’s what I wanted to give to the reader (listener) at this particular moment in history. I wanted to bring light and levity to your ears (and trust me, writing sound design instructions for a cat certainly brought light and levity into the life of this author). I also want you to feel like you’ve just met new friends. I want the window into their love story to make you smile and swoon, of course, but I also want it to feel like a moment of connection.

Can’t Help Falling is officially here!

Today is the release day for Can’t Help Falling. And, oh, how I want to celebrate this book. This was the first book I’d ever written under contract. I loved working with HQN and I wanted so badly to hand them an absolutely sparkling manuscript. I wanted to prove my worth. Of course, anytime you command yourself to be perfect, well, things… just kinda go sideways. 

Wanna know the main challenge? Fin, my main character, didn’t really care about falling in love. And I love that about her. At the beginning of the book, she wants so many different things for her life and none of them are a romantic partner. She is strong-willed and smart and unwieldy and so much fun to write. But Tyler had such a whopping big crush on her that I had to throw the poor guy a bone. The title of this book is apropos (if I do say so myself) because both of them fight the idea of love as hard as they can… unsuccessfully. When they do fall, when Fin softens and realizes Tyler has been in her heart for a long time, when they get sweet and open and flirtatious, the two of them are in an absolute tumbling waterfall of feelings for each other. These two don’t hold back in the manner they try to fight their feelings and they certainly don’t hold back in the manner that they ultimately love the hell out of each other. 

These were the first characters I’d ever written whose love story is a hot, prickly step-step-step up the high dive ladder and then an absolute free fall into love. 

Another challenge in writing this book was the otherworldly nature of Fin’s work. This book is not fantasy or paranormal in the least… and Fin is clairvoyant. Just as there are people in real life who move through the world with a more layered and nuanced understanding of reality, such is Fin. She is not preachy, she does not attempt to convince Tyler (or the reader) that she is the real deal, she simply believes what she believes and goes about her life. My journey in writing her, and understanding her, was a reflective one. In the same way that I was asking myself What’s under the hood of these characters? What more is in their hearts for one another? What more is in their histories that makes them who they are? I was also asking myself What’s under the hood of Fin’s reality? What are the layers of how she sees and interacts with the world? Is it possible for her to calmly live in a world with slightly different rules than everyone else? “Yes!” Fin told me, over and over. “Sure!” Tyler told me. “Why not?”

Ultimately, it was Tyler’s lead I followed. He starts out a skeptic and finds himself why-not-ing himself into a bigger world filled with mysteries and unexplainable truths and ultimately, the ability to truly know the love of his life. One of my favorite things about Tyler is how hard this dude tries. Much like Fin, I originally thought of Tyler as a silver spoon, a natural at everything because what doesn’t come easy to him? But no, Tyler’s greatest weapon is not his place in the world, but his huge heart that beat-beat-beats with one word: try. He is somehow polished and goofy and genuine and a huge mess all at once. And there’s nothing he doesn’t try his best at. 

So, that brings me to the ultimate challenge with writing this book. I was in love with Fin. I was in love with Tyler. I was in love with their love for one another. I wanted to write them forever. Thus… the manuscript was roughly 1.5 million pages long. At some point I had to stop writing. I had to trim and polish and edit. (Thank you into infinity to Tara Gelsomino and Allison Carroll). And then, the hardest part, I had to be done. 

This was especially hard for me because the phase of life I was in while writing this book was so very tender. I felt my baby kick for the very first time while I was writing Can’t Help Falling. I was sitting in our new apartment, looking out a new window at new trees, my laptop on my knees, thinking of Tyler and Fin and what happens next for them when —bop— my shirt moved over my belly. My eyes must have been the size of clementines. “I didn’t know you could do that!” I said to my pregnant belly. 

And that, really, is the essence of this book. This book is about the didn’t-know-that-was-possible-but-wow-thank-goodness-it-is moments that we are so lucky to get to experience. I wanted to expand the limits of what can happen between two people who are learning to love one another. I wanted to ignore the probable and write unabashedly into the rare, otherworldly, almost magical feeling of just letting yourself… fall. 

Here Are Some Ways to Support BIPOC Romance Authors:

Hi there! If you’re reading this, I assume you’re a romance reader, writer, or both. I’m writing this from the historic month of July, 2020. Here we are at the nexus of Covid 19 and a public reckoning with systemic racism. Never before (in my life at least) have economic disparities, political polarization, culturally-accepted bigotry, access to essential resources (such as medical care), a broken policing system, and systemic racism had a starker and brighter spotlight shone upon them. 

What does this have to do with romance novels, you might be wondering? Well, a lot, unfortunately. Diversity, equity, and inclusion in publishing is abysmal, and amongst those BIPOC authors who are getting paid, their paychecks are often insulting and shockingly low in comparison to white authors. 

This is (and should be) impossible to overlook. This is not a pothole to swerve around and keep driving. If this information had a road sign attached to it, that road sign would read: !Look out! !Bridge is Out! !Do Not Proceed! 

We, as the romance community, simply cannot proceed in the face of this injustice. This, essentially, is legalized discrimination that is perpetuated by the fact that it functions as part of a system made up of thousands of gatekeepers. 

So… want some good news? The number of romance readers absolutely dwarfs the number of professionals in the romance industry. We have !power! as consumers, review leavers, social media posters, and attendees. 

If you are a romance reader who would like to see your favorite BIPOC authors paid what they are worth and would like to see more BIPOC authors and stories on the shelves, you can:

-tweet, instagram, and tag when you read a book by a BIPOC author that you really liked. Make sure you tag their publisher! You can also tag other publishers to let them know that you are a consumer of books written by BIPOC authors and that you want to see more. 

-Leave positive reviews and comments in all the places that you normally leave those reviews and comments. 

-Attend romance events that feature BIPOC authors.

-Do NOT attend romance events that don’t feature BIPOC authors (and make sure to let the organizers know the reason you won’t be attending).

-Purchase books through Black-owned bookstores.

-Talk with your local bookstore about the selection of romance novels they currently have. If necessary, provide them with a list of the books and authors you’d like to see on their shelves. 

-Listen to BIPOC authors when they speak about their experiences in publishing. Have they listed specific publishers or people that acted as gatekeepers and further limited their opportunities and/or their money? If they have, I highly recommend not purchasing from those publishers any longer, and letting them know why! Tweet, Instagram, etc. your support for your faves. 

The publishing industry is filled with good and well meaning people who want to do right by BIPOC authors. Those people have a far higher chance of opening these gates and fundamentally changing the makeup of the industry if we, as their (humongous, gorgeous, accepting, loyal, hard working, righteous, kick ass, unbeatable) readership inform them that the time to change is now! We do NOT want BIPOC authors to be marginalized! We will not passively let this moment pass us by! Let’s meet the moment! Let’s do some good!

Book Release Day!

Today is the day my very first book comes out. Onto the shelves, into your mailbox, onto your reading device. It’s here. And today I want to praise the blinking cursor.

A few years ago I sat down in front of my computer, put my hands on the keyboard and started writing. I had one scene in particular that just wouldn’t leave me alone. I thought to myself, this scene needs a first chapter. So, I wrote that too. I thought to myself, this chapter needs the rest of the book.

I signed up for a writing conference where I’d get the chance to pitch my story to agents and editors. I bought my very first (and only) blazer (lol), charged a hotel room to my credit card, and the following weekend I took the train to New Jersey to attend the conference. On the first day, I took a workshop on how to pitch your story. I spent hours practicing my pitch. I only slept for two hours that night. That next morning I got ice from the maker in the hotel hallway and held it against my eyes. Four hours after that, I sat across a folding table from Jess Verdi. My hands shook, she smiled, I pitched, she asked if the book was finished. I said yes (it wasn’t). She told me to send it to her. I packed my things and got back on the train on wobbly legs.

The next day I started writing and didn’t stop for three weeks. I edited for two more days and then I sent her the manuscript. Two months later, she wrote me an email. “We want your book.” Crimson Romance was going to publish me. I spent three ecstatic months working with Jess to edit, polish, and spit shine the book. At the end of those three months, I got an email from Jess informing me that Crimson had unexpectedly been dissolved. They were a publisher no longer. The rights of my unpublished manuscript were reverted back to me and my book lived no where but my hard drive.

But all was not lost. The head editor of Crimson decided to start her own literary agency. And one day Tara Gelsomino called me and told me all the reasons I should work with her. I wholeheartedly agreed. I was no longer alone. I had Tara working hard to make sure my book wouldn’t die a lonely death on my computer.

Just a few months after that Allison Carroll told me that she read my book on the train home from work because she had to know what happened next. She wanted to work with me. Suddenly, I was blessed with a book deal with Harlequin and yet another unbelievably gifted editor. My book was going to be a paperback. It was going to have the Harlequin diamond on the spine. We polished the book even further and started from scratch on two others. What had once just been a word doc on my computer was now pages and pages of printed drafts, inked up and dog-eared and real. When Allison moved on to Audible (!) I had the privilege of working with Michele Bidelspach and now, Cat Clyne (yet another brilliant editor, seriously I must have done something right in my past life).

One day, I got a heavy box in the mail from Cat, I opened it up and there were twenty shiny galley copies of my book blinking up at me. The first thing I did was smell one of them. Because people, it smelled like a book, a real book. One you could hold and rifle through and squeeze to your chest. And now, and now, and right now… it’s in boxes on trucks, speeding through time and space to make it into the hands of (god bless ‘em) readers. I look back at all these words I’ve just written and I see so many people who didn’t have to believe in this book, but they did. At one point, this wasn’t even a book. It was just words in a doc on my computer. And before that? It was just a story in my imagination. And there I was, looking at that blinking cursor. So, today, I praise the blinking cursor. Thank you. Thank you for the beginning. 

Thoughts on how to open some of the gates that keep authors of color from being published in the romance industry:

Thoughts on how to open some of the gates that keep authors of color from being published in the romance industry:

What you can do as a romance reader: Look critically at your bookshelf. Are authors of color represented there, if not, why? Is it because authors of color are severely underrepresented in the industry, and thus, you don’t know any authors of color? (Likely, this is a reason.) Is it because you are used to reading your faves and don’t often deviate or look for new authors? (Possibly, because this is an industry made up of prolific writers, so it’s very easy to choose four or five and never deviate.) Is it because in our world where we are socialized to equate Whiteness with the norm, it can be challenging to make space and normalize other tropes and themes from different cultures? If the last two apply, challenge yourself to lead with curiosity into new niches of our genre. Reading can be an incredible way to become acquainted with worlds that are not our own and therefore can help us understand lives that are different than the ones we lead. Challenge yourself to get lost in a world that is (seemingly) different from your own. 

If you are a White reader and you find yourself turning away from books starring/written by people of color because you don’t identify with the characters, ask yourself what it might be like to be a reader of color who has read majority White romances. I don’t mean this in a tit-for-tat way, or to make you feel bad. I mean to say that reading is a skill and pushing yourself to step into the unknown is a muscle that can introduce you to some of the very greatest this genre has to offer. (Beverly Jenkins, Alyssa Cole, Theodora Taylor, Pepper Pace just to name a very few) 

What else can you do as a romance reader?  You can tweet, Instagram, review, and comment on stories that you like! The publishing world is complicated, sure, but in a nutshell, they publish what they think readers will buy. If you are buying books by authors of color, let the world know! Tweet at or tag your favorite publishers on your posts regardless of whether or not they had anything to do with that particular book. It will hopefully cause the people behind the scenes to realize what readers are interested in reading. 

If you are a romance author: Get in contact with your publisher and ask them about their action plan for opening the gates to authors of color. Ask to see their numbers on how many authors of color they work with and how many own voices stories they worked to publish and promote in the last year. Ask them about their hiring policies and if they have any diversity, equity, and inclusion hiring initiatives. Have they ever taken part in any sort of DEI trainings or workshops? If they can’t or won’t answer any of these questions, or their answers are not satisfactory to you, recommend they get in contact with organizations like the NYU Metro Center, the Human Root, the CARLE Institute, Dialogue Arts Project, or centerracialjustice.org. who can design and implement a series of workshops that can help them navigate conversations around DEI in the workplace. Additionally, make sure you know where your publisher stood on this past year’s RWA racist handling of… everything. Did they make a strong statement regarding their position that outlined action steps or was it simply a blanket statement? Did they stay quiet completely? Did they pull out of RWA 2020? Did the conversation in the romance community regarding racism in the industry spark a conversation at your publisher? As an author, were you looped in on that conversation? Were all authors equally looped in with consistency? 

Ask your agent the same questions. How many authors of color do they work with?How many own voices stories did they accept in the last year. Ask about any DEI hiring initiatives they may have at their agency. Ask them how they cull their slush pile of submitted manuscripts. Are there interns or junior agents who do that? Who are they? What are their credentials? Are they exclusively White? Ask them if they have ruminated on whether or not implicit bias could be factoring in to their selection process. Additionally, make sure you know where your agent stood on this past year’s RWA racist handling of… everything. Did they make a strong statement regarding their position that outlined action steps or a purely blanket statement? Did they stay quiet? Did they pull out of RWA 2020? Did the conversation in the romance community regarding industry-wide racism spark a conversation at your agency? As an author, were you looped in on that conversation? Were all authors equally looped in with consistency? 

It will take a lot of work to make real, systemic change in the publishing industry.You as an author who cares, will have to shoulder a lot of that work in order to hold your publisher/agent accountable. Power dynamics are tricky in this industry. As you have likely signed contracts with your publisher and agent, you may feel powerless or at the whim of whomever also signed that contract. If so, you can contact other authors at your agency or publisher and draft a letter outlining the changes you want (read: demand) to see. You can mobilize collectively. You can mobilize your readers. Ask them to tweet at or tag your publisher regarding the changes they would like to see. 

You can also show your publisher or agent this document and try to answer these questions together. Remember that you are not powerless in this process and that if we action, we can disrupt the processes of this biased and racist system. Check out this visual that explains exactly how (and which kind of) actions can break the Cycle of Socialization that we are all a part of. You (we) are likely not blameless, but being paralyzed by guilt only further fortifies our racist system.

If you are a reader in this industry, you have power as a consumer, a reviewer, a community member, and a trendmaker. If you are an author, you have power as a creator of material, a voice that will not be silenced or compliant in the face of unfair and biased cycles and systems, and as someone who (likely) personally knows many of the people in this industry who hold the keys to the gates that are keeping Black voices out. 

Origin Story (alexa, play my theme music)

When I was fifteen or sixteen I was digging around in my parents’ basement and happened upon a paper bag filled to the brim with thin, colorful books. 

Romance novels! I’d never really seen one before. I grabbed a couple and ran upstairs. Whose are these? I asked my mom. Oh, those were your grandmother’s. 

Now, they were even more of a question mark. I went back downstairs to further inspect the contents of that bag. Grandma’s romance novels? Interesting. 

She must have been into them because there were at least fifty. And looking at some of the tear away pages in the back, I realized that they were part of some sort of subscription service. She was being mailed a book a week. 

As someone who sometimes reads a book a day, this type of appetite for literature was something I really identified with. I promptly sat with my back against the washing machine and read the first fifty pages of one of them. I don’t remember the title, but I do remember it had a chippy real estate agent and used the secret baby trope. (Do people really sell houses to someone without telling them that eight years ago they gave birth to their baby? I wondered.)

Now, a lot of the books in that paper bag are ~not awesome~. For instance, the male main characters often “administer” a sharp slap to break the female main characters out of her “hysterics”. 

And then she drinks a brandy. (They always want brandy after getting slapped.)

Oy. Regardless of some of the deeply questionable content of these books, I was almost immediately hooked on the general concept. Immersive reads with happy endings? Sold. 

It hadn’t ever occurred to me to read straight up romance before. But when I thought about it, 

what were the most interesting parts about all the other books I was reading? The relationships between characters. In everything I’d read up until that point, I’d loved, more than anything else, reading about the ways in which characters’ feelings for one another could change over the course of a book. Whether those feelings were romantic, familial, respectful, filled with ire. Whether the characters were friends, family, enemies, acquaintances, it didn’t matter to me. Understanding how people feel about one another was always what kept me turning pages. And there, in that paper bag, were fiftyish stories in which the entire point was how the characters felt about one another. How those feelings come to be, how they change, how they die or grow. 

I didn’t have any idea then, but that paper bag is where my writing career started. 

I’m a romance writer.

I’m a romance writer.

People don’t really know what to do with that. 

Most often the follow up question is how did you get into that line of work?

For a long time I was a ghostwriter. And that’s the job title I would give when someone would ask me what I did for a living. I wrote novels of all kinds and sold them at a flat rate. Sci-fi, fantasy, thriller, some mystery, and a lot of romance. Mystery was the hardest for me. It’s complicated to balance character development and plot development in a way that keeps the reader guessing. It’s hard to unravel and wrap up a story all at once. I liked sci-fi a lot, but I knew the least about that genre and I always wondered if my stories were a little hacky. Fantasy and thriller I liked equally. But romance? That was my favorite. 

I started seriously writing for hire in the summer of 2016. One morning I was sitting at my desk at work. I was likely procrastinating washing my coworkers’ dishes, because that’s what I was doing at pretty much any given moment (it still doesn’t make sense to me why the receptionist has to scrape the crusty, microwaved pasta off everyone else’s lunch plates). I pulled up google and instead of typing in “Buzzfeed” or “NPR,” on a whim I typed in, “how to make money using your creative writing degree.” 

You’d think this would have been something I might have googled a decade before, when I’d started acquiring said creative writing degree, but here we were, waiting for the page to load and sipping the stale coffee I’d arrived early to make for everyone.

And there, suddenly, two search results down, was a link to a freelancing website. As I searched the site, I was astounded at the number of people who were searching for writing they could buy and then later sell, re-packaged, on Amazon. People were paying (very little) for any old story I might write and be willing to kiss goodbye. I made a profile that afternoon and applied to at least ten listings that evening. 

Two days later I had my first client. 

I started waking up two hours early to get some words in before work. I wrote novels with my thumbs on the train into Manhattan in the morning and back to Brooklyn at night. (This is not hyperbole. I was desperate for more hours in the day and the google docs app was as good a place as any to write a novel). I wrote for hours after work, stopping only long enough for my husband to put a sandwich in my hand and make me speak human words with my human mouth about my human day. 

I wrote stories set in space, in the future, in the mountains, in parallel universes. I wrote stories about aliens, werewolves, families, heroes, kids, loneliness, passion, fear, anger, intrigue, lust. My client base grew. My rates went up. I started picking and choosing projects. One day, I looked up and realized that I could quit my nine-to-five. 

In order to write full time. 

Because I was a writer…

…who wrote fiction…

…and was paid by the word.

I was a unicorn, baby.

Maybe a year after that, my husband and I were walking home from a party and he asked me why I still called myself a ghostwriter. I was still ghostwriting a lot, but I’d just signed my first book deal (Just a Heartbeat Away, out June 30th 2020!!) with a romance publisher. And if I really looked at the way I’d whittled my project list into shape over the previous months, almost all my projects were now romance. Why not call yourself a romance writer? he asked. 

Here’s the thing. 

People often laugh when I tell them I’m a romance writer. They immediately make jokes about heaving breasts and shirtless men on the cover of whatever joke of a book they assume I’ve written. 

Or, if they don’t make a joke, I’ll watch their eyes start to roam around, searching for someone else to talk to. I tell them my job and automatically become someone who creates drugstore art. Pedestrian and embarrassing. 

The fact that I made good money was neither here nor there. If I wanted people’s eyes to light up with respect at dinner parties, I needed to write in a different genre. 

Here’s the (other) thing. 

I have no interest in writing sad stories. Or stories where people are irredeemable or broken beyond repair or falling only to splat on the sidewalk. I love reading those stories. But to create them from scratch? Wake up with them, dream about them, put them down in indelible ink? Life is too hard, my friends. The news cycle is too soul withering. I love writing because, in many ways, it’s a break. 

The world is not always (or often) a safe and friendly place for a woman. It’s even less safe and friendly for women of color, people of color, trans people, queer people, immigrants, undocumented people. But you know where I was safe? Where the people I care about are safe? Inside my own brain.

And one of the greatest gifts I’ve ever given to myself was to allow myself to escape into the land of my own imagination. And I didn’t just steal moments there. I created universes. I created beautiful places where I would want to live. 

Writing, as a practice and profession, helped me create the kind of life I wanted to live. It helped me leave my job, start my own business. It allows me to be home with my son every single day while still building my career, my dreams, my inner world. 

What I’m really saying when I say I’m a romance writer? I write stories about love. Where the act of falling in love, of vulnerability, of connection, is the most important plot point. I write stories with happy endings. I do it with my whole self, every morning, at my laptop, with my son cooing at my husband in the next room. I write about things I wish would happen, and more importantly, things I’ve seen happen. I write about what is possible between two people. My job as the author is to believe these stories could exist. 

And when I put them on the page, in a book, in your hands, they do.