Liza Street's Blog: not your grandma's romantic fiction, page 10
November 5, 2019
Recent Reads
The past couple of months have blessed me with good books! They’re listed in the text below in case images don’t work for you.
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You can view each of these as a recommendation–I enjoyed them all!
1. Prime Minister, by Ainsley Booth and Sadie Haller. Contemporary romance. This was a re-read.
2. Wings of Time and Fate, by Skye MacKinnon. YA fantasy.
3. Smut, by Karina Halle. Contemporary romance. This was a re-read.
4. The Vampire Diaries, Book 1: The Awakening, by LJ Smith. YA paranormal romance. This was also a re-read.
5. Wicked Fall, by Sawyer Bennett. Contemporary romance.
October 29, 2019
Our Favorite Tropes
One of the greatest things about the romance genre (other than the swoony feels, the witty banter, the steamy sexytimes, and the happily-ever-afters) is the vast number of tropes we get to enjoy. With everything from enemies-to-lovers, to secret babies, to May-December romances, and more, there is something for everyone!
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I recently polled the people who receive my newsletter to find out their favorites, and they could pick as many as they wanted. Here are the results!
*Note: results are slightly skewed because about 8 people took the survey before someone clued me in that I’d accidentally made it a “choose one” form instead of a “check off as many as you like” form. Oops!
55.3% – protector/bodyguard
50.6% – enemies to lovers
47.1% – friends to lovers
44.7% – second chance
44.7% – close proximity (trapped, snowed in)
37.6% – secret baby
37.6% – forbidden love
32.9% – fake relationship
28.2% – marriage of convenience
23.5% – May December (with one person specifying they especially like when the heroine is the December and the hero is the May)
WRITE-INS – These are the ones I didn’t include in the survey, which people helpfully added for me:
best friend’s sibling/sibling’s best friend
reverse harem (3 people specifically mentioned this one)
military men
slavery turns to romance
fated mates
mainly shifter stories (2 people specifically mentioned shifters)
doctor/patient, teacher/student (anything with a professional role and a person they’re supposed to serve/interact with professionally)
time travel
In case you’re curious, my favorites are second-chance and friends-to-lovers. I love it when there’s an existing connection between the hero and heroine because I like mining those backstories.
And obviously I love shifters, and reverse harem as well!
Thank you to everyone who participated in the poll! 
October 22, 2019
Ruthless Rogue – Coming Soon!
Four weeks until Ian’s book is available! I can’t wait. This bear shifter is all rogue on the outside, and all squishy teddy bear on the inside. When I started writing, I had no idea he’d be so sweet and tender, and I fell in love with this character!
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Sleep didn’t come. He was listening so intently, he though he imagined the soft knock on his door.
He jumped up. The sheets tangled around one of his legs and he nearly fell on his face. But he caught himself just in time, disentangled his foot, and rushed to the door. He pulled it open, and there she stood, tears tracking down her cheeks.
“Babe,” he said, tugging her forward.
Her arms wrapped around him and he held her tight.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I want to stay with you,” she said.
Somehow, he got the distinct impression that it had been incredibly difficult for her to say those words. He maneuvered half out of their hug so he could bend and reach around the backs of her knees, then he carried her into the cabin like she was his bride.
By the time he slammed the door shut with his foot, her tears had stopped.
“Do you want to tell me what’s going on?” he asked her.
“Not really.”
He brought her into the bedroom and laid her down on his bed. Their bed, if she would stay with him. He didn’t have much to offer, and likely she was used to a nice house or apartment in town. But if she would agree to be with him, he’d do whatever it took to make her happy here.
Climbing into bed after her, he tucked the blankets around them and pulled her close. She wasn’t crying anymore, so that was a good sign.
His dick was happy to be so close to her, but he willed it down. In his experience, women didn’t cry because they wanted sex.
Eventually, her breathing evened out, and her heart rate, and he contented himself with holding her close. This was all he needed—to be close to his mate.
Pre-order your copy now so you get the release price!
October 15, 2019
Soundtrack for Savage Penance
Finding music for Doug and Gwyn’s book was a blast–these two had such chemistry!
Here’s a link to the playlist on YouTube, and below you’ll find the list of songs.
1. “I Did Something Bad” (Taylor Swift cover), Shoshana Bean and Cynthia Erivo
2. “Beat the Devil’s Tattoo,” Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
3. “The Devil You Know,” X Ambassadors
4. “Bad Things,” Rayland Baxter
5. “I Put a Spell On You,” Creedence Clearwater Revival
6. “Bittersweet Symphony,” The Verve
October 8, 2019
Bear Shifter Round-Up
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I have a new bear shifter hitting the ebook shelves on November 19th, so it’s high time I rounded up some sexy bear shifters to share here on the blog!
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Ruthless Rogue by Liza Street
Here’s that pre-order I was talking about. 
October 1, 2019
All the Shifter Round-Ups in One Place
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Throughout the year, I’ve been rounding up books with specific shifters–dragon shifters in one round-up, wolves in two others, big cats, and (coming soon) bears. It’s been a blast to see what other authors are creating and add new books to my TBR list.
To keep them all together (a round-up of round-ups, if you will), I made a single page for them here on the site.
Click here for the collection of round-up links, all in one easy place!
September 24, 2019
Orphan Entangled – Newly Released
Just last week, Savage Penance was released, and I’m back here celebrating with another book already!
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Orphan Entangled is a reverse harem retelling of The Jungle Book. Imagine if Mowgli was a young woman raised by a pack of shapeshifting wolves, and Baloo and Bagheera were freaking hot grizzly and panther shifters. (We gave them all new names, so you won’t have to worry about envisioning any childhood cartoons singing and dancing during the suspenseful scenes or sexytimes!)
Please note, this book was previously published as part of the Fated Mates anthology back in June. There are no significant changes to it.
You can get your copy on your favorite retailer!
Also, we’re already talking to Phoenix McKay, who narrated the audiobook for Hope Reclaimed, about narrating this one as well!
September 17, 2019
Savage Penance – Out Now!
I’m so excited to announce that Savage Penance is now available through your favorite bookstores! You can snag a copy on Apple Books, B&N, Kobo, Google Play, or Amazon…or all of them, if you like switching between e-readers.
September 10, 2019
Survey Results – Your Favorite Shifters
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I asked, you answered, and now we can see what everyone said! As the chart shows, there were 311 responses, which included quite a few write-in nominations!
Graph of Results
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Shifters Broken Down by Number
All or multiples – 6
All felines – 2
Any bears, even koalas – 1
Brown bear – 1
Corvid – 1
Dingo – 1
Direwolf -1
Dolphin – 1
Dragon – 87
Griffin or Phoenix – 3
Grizzly bear – 56
Hedgehog – 1
Hellhound – 1
Kodiak bear – 1
Lion – 8
Mountain lion – 18
Mystical creatures (e.g. unicorns) – 1
Panther – 27
Polar bear – 16
Sabertooth tiger – 1
Tiger – 16
Wolf – 61
If this doesn’t add up to 311, well…there’s a reason I’m an author and not a math teacher.
September 3, 2019
Writing Savage Penance
Some books are hard to write. Just…difficult beasts, with the words fighting me the whole way.
I wouldn’t say writing Savage Penance was easy (in fact, I remember whining about Chapter 21 being a pain in the ass), but it was certainly fun. Doug’s transformation was a challenge, that’s for sure.
In the previous book in the series, Savage Redemption, Ben’s transformation was already on its way–he not only needed to change, he wanted it. Doug, however, was a lot harder to redeem. He doesn’t want redemption; in fact, his mantra in Ben’s book and in the short prequel, “Irredeemable,” is “Fuck redemption.”
So how do I take a big, potty-mouthed, unlikable guy and turn him into a hero?
With the same special sauce that drives all romance novels–love.
While Doug doesn’t recognize it immediately, he falls prey to the pitter-patterings of his deeply-buried romantic heart and starts falling in love and falling in line. There’s some growing to do, sure, for both him and Gwyn, but this is a dance heroes and heroines of romance novels have danced millions of times. It finally becomes more painful for the alphahole to walk away. The proud, snarky heroine must admit that she’s self-sufficient…but hell, she needs his love. Evil is overcome, and love wins.
Love wins, y’all.
And that’s why I keep writing these stories. They give me hope–and that’s what I want to give you, too.
Savage Penance is coming out in just two weeks (you can pre-order it on your favorite retailer), and I am so excited to share it with you! While you wait, there’s a free prequel up on Apple Books. If you don’t have an Apple device, you can grab it on BookFunnel.
