Archetype Deep Dive: Cadence Knight (nee Nice)

I might’ve maybe said this about a few of my FMCs, but I mean it when I say—Cadence is one of my favorites. She’s not like my usual heroines. She isn’t the hopeless romantic she had the potential to be. When we first meet her in Unsilent Knight, we’re dropped right into the moment she ends a long-term, stalled relationship. She doesn’t hesitate. Hands him the key, walks away, and doesn’t look back.

Cadence is all about work and planning. She thrives on control, especially in a life that’s felt anything but stable. So it makes sense that the moment Meki Knight becomes her new neighbor—and an unpredictable presence in her very ordered world—she’s thrown off balance. Love was the last thing on her mind in Unsilent Knight and most of A Love Deferred. And while the man she tried to keep at arm’s length eventually confesses his love before she does (technically… because yelling “I love you” during sex doesn’t count, according to her), Cadence’s resistance to emotional vulnerability is central to who she is. She truly believes she’s better off alone than risking another heartbreak… especially if it doesn’t match the tidy mold she’s created in her mind about what love should look like.

So what archetype does that make our girl?

The Skeptic.

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Character Q&A: Kelli Sutherland

We’re outside Bellyful, the Caribbean-African fusion bistro owned by Kelli’s best friend, Serenity Payne. The air smells like spice and comfort. Jerk chicken, plantains, and warm patties wafting through the open windows. It’s midafternoon in Rose Hill, New York, a town that feels like Manhattan and a small village blended together… skyscrapers towering above rows of mom-and-pop shops, coffeehouses, and boutiques lining cobblestone side streets.

Kelli Sutherland, Bellyful’s manager, is on her break, insisting we sit outside on the bench across the street from the bistro. The crisp autumn air carries the faint sound of laughter from a nearby café terrace, and the trees lining the block are painted in shades of gold, orange, and brown.

“Look at these leaves,” Kelli says, her gaze softening as the wind sweeps a few across our feet. “Rose Hill is beautiful all seasons of any year, but in the autumn? Unmatched.”

She’s relaxed but alert, her energy grounded in gratitude and joy. Between managing the bistro and building her new business, Kelli’s clearly in her element… content, but still evolving.

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The Turning Point: Leo Vanguard’s Choice in Raising Love

Throughout my friends-to-lovers romance Raising Love, Leo Vanguard did not make the transition from bachelor to dad an easy one. Every step of the way, he reminded both us — and Ivy — how unprepared he was to take on the role of guardian to their late friends’ newborn.

Though he came around eventually and stepped up as a partner in co-parenting Baby Love, the changes Leo underwent were like a shock to his system. Parenthood wasn’t on his radar, and neither was a family of his own. But when he loosened his grip on the life he knew and opened himself to the promise of something better — even though it wasn’t planned — that’s when everything began to shift.

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Inside the Character: Getting to Know Ryder Wallace from From Friends to Forever

Ryder Wallace became an instant favorite the moment I began shaping my reality-show romance, One Mic. Even on the page, he had the kind of presence that refused to stay in the background. Ryder is an anomaly in the best way… tough on the surface, but soft-spirited beneath it, especially when it comes to his best friend, Kelli Sutherland. We first met him in One Mic, but truly witnessed his heart in From Friends to Forever. Now, we get to peel back more layers.

Let’s get to know Ryder a little more intimately.

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Entering My BK Year-End Discovery Challenge

Let me start here…

I remember when blogs first became a thing. Before Instagram became a diary. Before Threads. Before we all started using social platforms to say the things we used to save for long-form posts.

I had at least three different blogs before I ever had an author website, so to say blogging has been part of my writing journey… it’s an understatement. Writing my thoughts has always been just as important as writing my stories.

And speaking of stories…



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Truth or Dare: Episode 4 – Truth – She Still Gets to Me

MALIK

“What do we got?” I said, moving swiftly toward the paramedics.

Seconds ago, BBMC’s automatic ER doors slid open and a stretcher barreled through, pushed by two paramedics—both already talking fast.

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Preparing for Here Comes Love: Recommended Reading, Cameos, and the Journey Ahead

So, what can you expect from Here Comes Love? In short Here Comes Love is a love story born after loss, written for the readers who stayed through the storm.

Here’s my long answer…

There are stories you write, and then there are stories that follow you. Here Comes Love is the latter.

Rylee Daniels has lived in my book world since 2019. Her love, her loss, her motherhood, her resilience, all of it shaped the way I write today. And now, as we get closer to her final chapter, I want to make sure you’re ready for what’s coming.

Because this story… it doesn’t start in the fire.

It starts in the ashes.

It is about everything that happens after the storm. The grief you learn to carry, the pieces you choose to keep, the life you dare to rebuild, and the love that surprises you when your heart thought it was done.

And since I want us all ready for this final chapter, I have the recommended reading order and a note on cameos

Tentative Release Window: Winter 2026



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Alternate Story Ending: Keith and Alexis (Second Serving)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Second Serving, my first Thanksgiving romance, turned one year old a few weeks back, so of course I had to give you an update on our favorite couple. We checked in on them in Glimpses, Vol. 2, but that peek was through Alexis’s perspective.

This time, we’re in Keith’s head… and it is such a fun place to be.

Enjoy!

KEITH

I bobbed my head to the R&B joint drifting through the rooftop lounge, lifted my drink, and let my eyes do what they’d been doing all night…find her again. My attention had been drifting to my girl, Alexis, since she walked in with her friend and business partner, Maven Avery.

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So This is Love Chapter 10: “I love that girl”

Chapter 10 is the chapter I was waiting so patiently to write. I am, without question, Dominick’s biggest hater… Dallas’s brother Dominick, to be clear. From the moment we met him in Ayanna’s short story from Forbidden: An Anthology, I just knew he wasn’t going to be my kind of character. And that was by design. I poured everything I personally don’t care for in a man into Dominick and ended up creating a villain readers would love to hate.

So when the time came to humble him—and put him flat on his ass—I was all fingers and keyboard. This moment, set around the Thanksgiving dinner table at the brothers’ childhood home in Jersey, was necessary. It was history in the making. The day Dominick wrote a check his mouth couldn’t cash.

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