As a lifelong geek/nerd, I have a healthy appreciation for pop culture that not only embraces but celebrates the nerdy/geeky things I love: literature, video games, superhero movies, science fiction, etc. I also absolutely love romantic comedies and cannot get enough of the good ones. One of the reasons I started writing rom-coms and romances is because there was a dearth of the kind of romances I enjoy reading about, so imagine how utterly, over-the-moon thrilled I was to stumble on Susannah Nix's romantic comedy series, Chemistry Lessons.

I picked the first one up on a whim and before I'd even finished it, I hurried to purchase books two and three. These books hit *all* my buttons. The heroines are smart, career-focused women with a healthy appreciation for various types of pop culture. They're not perfect, and the prickly Esther in particular, the main character in Intermediate Thermodynamics, is downright exasperating at times. But these characters feel so real, and they are the kind of nuanced, smart female characters I long for every time I pick up a book, turn on the TV, go to the movies, or fire up a video game.

As someone who's struggled with weight and body image issues, I can't even begin to express how much I appreciate Penny, the main character in Advanced Physical Chemistry. I wanted to cry when I read Nix's description of how Penny eats well and exercises, and is naturally a size 16. I could write an entire essay about how much I relate to that.

Not only are these ladies marvelous, their male love interests are *exactly* the kinds of male characters calibrated to make me swoon. Jeremy, the love interest in Remedial Rocket Science, has some alpha male characteristics--at least at first glance. But then he grows and develops throughout the book. Every male love interest in these books not only lusts after the female main characters, they admire and are fascinated by them, and they are *kind*. One of the things that really turns me off about so many romances and rom-coms is when the female characters are saddled with either jerky manboys who need their women to make them grow up or when the alpha male needs to assert his dominance over his woman, treating her in downright abusive ways as their "love" story develops. Those tropes are blissfully 100% absent from these books. And, trust me, these very nice, sweet, and caring men are SUPER sexy.

I do wish the books were available wide for my non-Kindle readers, but the upside is that they're free to Kindle Unlimited subscribers. Please, please read them so you can come back here and gush with me about how fantastic they are.

At long last, my newest release is finally available on several major retailers! It's a steamy contemporary new adult romance, and I hope you'll all love it!

Catalina Martinez is used to being alone. Only seventeen when her mother died, Lina has since built her life around a single purpose: honoring her mother’s legacy by seizing every opportunity her mother worked herself to the bone to provide.

Now a college student, Lina is ambivalent when she lands a part-time job that sounds too good to be true. The hours are flexible and won’t interfere with her studies, allowing her to maintain her grades and keep her scholarships, and the pay is generous. However, she’ll be helping restore an old mansion, doing the kind of physical labor her mother was determined to prevent her daughter from having to do.

When she meets Byron Eaton, her new boss, he opens up a whole new world of additional complications—and possibilities. Not only is he young, rich, and gorgeous, he’s the first person Lina has felt a connection with since losing her mother. Her growing attraction to him threatens to overrule her misgivings, but even so she can’t shake her discomfort over the contrasts between his privileged upbringing and her hardscrabble life, not to mention how reluctant he is to talk about his family.

Just as she’s finally on the verge of reaping the rewards of her years of hard work, she finds herself on shaky ground. Does Byron trust her enough to tell her the truth about his past, or will his secrets prove too great an obstacle for their love to overcome?

As if releasing a new book wasn't enough, I'm also participating in a group giveaway on instaFreebie. You can snap up a whole bunch of SFF romances (including A House Divided, the first Astoran Asunder book) to warm your e-reader. Click the image below to browse the titles.

Happy reading!

Here's the thing about me as a writer: I like to tinker. I don't just mean playing around with the plot of my novel or tweaking aspects of the characters. I mean that I like to challenge myself, to try new things, to experiment in ways that could lead to epic disaster or, hopefully, epic awesomeness.

And now I'll reveal a big secret to you: my least favorite part of being an author is self-promotion. Seriously, I don't like it. I'm interested in a lot of things, but marketing isn't one of them. I understand how important it is, and I get why some people are passionate about it and enjoy it, but I'm not one of them. If I could hide in my writing cave and do nothing but produce work, I'd be happy.

However, I also like it when people read my writing, so the question is how to let more people know about it. While reading a middle grade graphic novel written by an artist who started out doing webcomics, I hit upon the answer: put material out there, let people find it, and see what grows from there.

So that's what I'm doing. I started up a new, original new adult fantasy romance novel and I'm posting it chapter by chapter. The entire book will eventually be available on my site for free, both in its rough draft form and its final form. You can read more about my scheme here.

Some of you may already have read one or more of my books, and for that I thank you. Seriously, thank you very, very much. It still overwhelms me that people devote their free time to reading a book I wrote. And if you haven't read anything I've written before, I hope you'll like this. But regardless of whether you're new to my work or already familiar with it, I hope the novel in progress will keep you coming back for more.

Without further ado, I present to you Forbidden, chapter 1.

(Psst: I plan on serving up chapter 2 later today, so be on the lookout!)