Here we are again! Another year and another yearly review, thank God! To start, I’m giving thanks for seeing the end of another year. This year was a perpetual rollercoaster with wins and lessons. Like, literally, the wins and lessons were 50:50 split for me! And while 2022 had its share of lows, the highs were everything. Let’s start with the books, though!
I Released Four Books In 2022
What does that even mean, right?
Let me explain.
With every year and the books published in that timeframe, I realize my stories follow a certain theme. One year, I centered most of my books on my characters letting love in after resisting it. Another year, almost all my books dealt with redemption and forgiveness after my main characters made questionable decisions in their pasts.
Based on the theme for Home Before Midnight–my last release for 2022–and the books I will work on in 2023, they seem to all center on my characters nurturing the love they‘ve cultivated in their relationships after their happily ever after.
You know what I love the most about this journey as an independent author? The lessons I learn along the way. I’ve gone through different phases as an author. Going from wanting to write but not being able to finish a single book. To writing the books but not knowing how to market them. To marketing them but not really knowing my audience. And on and on it continues to go with the realizations, adjustments, and challenges that blossom into lessons learned and the proper moves being made.
It sounds overwhelming but honestly, it’s something to be grateful for. I’m growing and with growing there are growing pains, but baby, I am not where I started and if I had to start all over again, I won’t ever start from the beginning. I’ll always start from experience.
And that brings us to today…
I have one more book to release before the year ends. And appropriately, it’s a New Year’s Eve story!
Home Before Midnight is a follow up to Home Before Christmas – a short holiday story that follows a separated Jaleel and Eva Gordon as they fulfill their son’s one and only Christmas wish… for his separated parents to spend the holiday under the same roof.
Home Before Midnight brings us three years after that story, and things are better than ever, with a new challenge sprinkled in.
Home Before Midnight is due out later this month. Check out the cover and synopsis below…
I’m hosting two sales this weekend for my eBooks and paperbacks. On Amazon, over 15 of my eBook titles are on sale for 99¢, including my recent spring release So This is Love. In fact, there are two series with books that are on sale! This is an excellent time to build your digital library with my books.
This sale ends November 28th at 11:59pm EST.
Book 5 in the Love is Cure, Vol. 1 – Vices & Virtues series, Gluttony, is available now for pre-order.
Gluttony is fittingly the longest book in the series and is chock full of layers. I really love how dynamic and thematic this story is and I’m looking forward to sharing teasers and at least one sneak peek. Below is the synopsis and link to pre-order.
Gluttony will be available on January 27, 2023.
I’ll have a “what to expect” post live in the coming weeks.
When I make trailers for my upcoming releases, that’s when I know it’s really happening. As well as when I create the synopsis, since I take extra time and pay special attention when creating the synopses for this series.
I published the character trailer for Gluttony on YT, so of course I had to share it here too. I have a couple of other trailers on the way since I love making them so much.
The characters and their story are really appealing to me.
Gluttony’s “What to Expect” post might be my favorite thing to write for Gluttony’s promo season. I’ve spent so much time with these characters and their story, and I can’t wait to share all there is to know about them.
Let me just drop this trailer here and be back with that write up, because I have a lot to say.
Stay tuned for teasers!
I’m about a handful of chapters away from typing “the end” on the fifth book in my Love is Cure, Vol. 1–Vices & Virtues series, Gluttony, and it’s really got me thinking. While this book has been a real labor of love (I’ll write about that experience once I’m done), I’ve had many other stories challenge me so much I almost didn’t finish them.
One of those stories was Last Comes Love (LCL).
When I combined two separate stories and made them one (Rylee’s story was a solo story and so was Lennox’s), I did so after many months of thinking. A bittersweet love story was uncommon, especially in romance, a genre I predominantly write in. This is one reason I listed LCL under Women’s Fiction instead of Romance on Amazon where it was published.
As someone who empathizes deeply, whether I experience things first-hand or vicariously, the initial idea of bringing this story to life was a decision far from easy to make.
But I did it, boldly, and with foreknowledge that it might anger some readers and possibly land me on some do not read lists. Most romance readers read love stories in search of the coveted HEA. I also enjoy reading love stories for the coveted HEA. However, my soul’s urge was to tell this story for two reasons – representation matters and because I just really wanted to tell this story.
And here’s why.
My Reason
I’ll admit – I was a little hesitant to publish a story on Kindle Vella. I’m still not completely sold on it, maybe because I’m still learning what it is, but I do like the idea of creating a serialized story with plans to do something more with it in the future.
While working on Gluttony, I’ve enjoyed working on side projects to get that satisfying feeling of finishing something in the middle of working on something long, and Kindle Vella is giving me that, so we’re on good terms right now 🙃.
Anyway, I had this storyline sitting in what I like to call my “swipe file” which is just a OneNote folder of random story ideas. It was a story that wasn’t yet completed, but I really liked the premise and the overall conflict in the tale.
I published a Glimpse for Mello and Rayelle from They Call Me Mello. The update is live now on my readers’ website, BKBookLounge.com. If you want to know what Mello has been up to in Miami, check out his Glimpse.
And I know I said he wouldn’t get another book, but ever since I created his Glimpse, I’m having second thoughts.
Click below to read…