Kathryn Nolan's Blog, page 2

Surprise...it's a cover reveal!

Just know that on Friday, November 11th (so soon!!!!) OFF THE MARK — my steamy, friends-to-fake-dating-to-lovers romance — will be live on Amazon, free in KU, and ready to steal your hearts. ❤❤❤

You can add it to your TBR here. Next week I’ll be sending out Rowan and Charlie’s fun, feel-good playlist…and I’ll continue to tease you with snippets until release day, I promise. There will be a preorder but it’s usually short, about four days before release day, and I usually share that announcement in my reader group only (so be sure to join!)

Fake dating my hottest friend was not my smartest move…

The cocky ex-baseball player—and flirty playboy—is the one man I’d never fall for. Which is why I stupidly thought he’d make the perfect fake boyfriend.

As the reigning queen of the dirt bike racing circuit, my only goal is to win this next championship race. Except I’ve got a bit of a…reputation problem. While my fans love my tattooed, bad girl image, my fancy new sponsor hates it. And after a recent media fiasco, I’m on the brink of losing everything just when my family needs my help the most.

So I asked Rowan O’Callaghan to fake date me to rehab my image for the cameras.

We’ve known each other since I was just his favorite bartender and he was the charming baseball god who swaggered into my bar to seduce every woman in sight. And left a trail of broken hearts in his wake.

Not me, though. I always knew better than to be tempted by his wicked grin and massive shoulders. Until now—when I suddenly have the huge, hunky flirt pretending to worship the very ground I walk on. Every fake kiss, every filthy promise he whispers in my ear, is starting to feel real.

But it turns out that falling for my fake boyfriend is my biggest mistake yet.

Friendship is the best ship. ❤

That one time I flew an airplane ✈

Yepppppp you read that right!!! I’m - honestly — still vibrating with happiness over this experience. Our first day in Florida, I woke up early and hit the beach with my amazing friend Avery Maxwell and our morning consisted of floating in the warm, still ocean for, like, three hours and brainstorming love stories. So I was already having the best day ever, basically.

Until my #tacotwin Lucy Score (and the very handsome Mr. Lucy) picked us up for a day at the airport, where our friend Nathan Van Coops (local author of time travel adventures and local awesome pilot!!) offered to take us up in his Cessna!

Here you can see Avery and I looking like two newlyweds about to embark on their honeymoon adventures 😂😂 Not only did we get to see how gorgeous St. Pete’s Beach is from the air (all that turquoise water!!) but Nathan gave me a mini-lesson on how to fly it — and I just about screamed myself hoarse with sheer delight. I have never, ever experienced anything like that before — I’m smiling just thinking about it even a week later!

You can watch the video that Nathan took in my FB group by clicking here. And Avery made an amazing video on TikTok you can see here!

I would say I’m a natural 😉

LITERALLY LOOK AT THESE VIEWS! ❤❤❤❤

Forever the reminder that a little bit of awe and astonishment does the heart good.

^^^ an accurate depiction of my friendship with the incomparable Lucy Score — going on five years now! ❤❤❤

The NINC (Novelists, Inc.) conference was one big, happy vibe of authors from so many different genres, there to increase their knowledge of craft, storytelling and marketing. I’ll let you in on a little secret about writers — we freaking love hanging out with each other and dishing on all things storytelling. This is a strange and brilliant and beautiful and complicated job that we do, and knowing there are folks out there who get it, who have your back and understand what you’re venting about or squealing about (and why) means more than I can say.

The theme for so many writers this year is healing from a collective creative burnout, brought on by these pandemic years and the loss, grief and disruption caused by it. One year ago (almost to the week) I was at one of my lowest points, creatively, attempting to rediscover the part of my brain that lives for the reckless, thrilling joy of a damn good story.

It has not been an easy journey for most of us, but we’re getting there. Rest, laughter, reading, messing around, being bored, learning something new, doing something fun, doing something brave, drinking beers on the beach with your writer friends just because — all of it heals. All of it paves the way forward for more stories, more love, more joy.

That’s what NINC taught me. ❤

^^^ I’m sorry but LOOK AT THESE BEAUTIES!!!

And yep — that’s the lovely and talented Melanie Harlow in the middle there, who is not only brilliant, kind, hilarious and so fun to be around — but she also gave two packed presentations at NINC that were magnificent.

Besides all the learning-workshopping-brainstorming that we did, there was a fair amount of drinks-on-the-beach, tasty martinis, tacos, some tipsy Spice Girls singing, a piggy back ride from Avery when my shoes broke, an amazing attempt on my part to (tipsily) teach the Electric Slide, and so much laughter my cheeks hurt.

Not pictured here, but I was also utterly thrilled and delighted to meet authors Tia Louise, Tess Summers, Renee Rose, Vanessa Vale, K.K. Allen, Tina Gallagher, Cecilia Mecca and — of course — James Blatch and Mark Dawson from the Self-Publishing Formula!

3.5 months of joy!

3.5 months on the road! 12,000+ miles (plus a couple oil changes and a new set of front tires) and we’re home!

Rob and I made the decision to work towards a semi-nomadic lifestyle in 2017, something I’ve spoken about a lot in this newsletter. We’ve been lucky to kick around some of the prettiest places on these summer adventures (Vermont, the Berkshires, Maine…) and it never gets old or boring. There’s only more gratitude, more amazement and an endless craving to do more, see more and experience more.

In early May, the trip started with one of my lifelong dreams —- a solo road-trip! Well, solo plus Walter, the most important canine travel companion I coasted down the Blue Ridge Parkway all the way to the Great Smoky Mountains, then all the way to Nashville to pick up Rob from his weekend trip. (I wrote about the 570 mile journey here if you missed it).

From there, we stayed in Sacramento (our former home and Rob’s hometown!) for a whole month, soaking up love from friends and family we hadn’t seen since 2018. Then we had a fun weekend in Oregon with a family wedding before heading up to Vancouver Island for a week of gorgeous beauty I’ll never forget.

After, we saw Vancouver, hiked big mountains in Whistler and Squamish, returned to our favorite places (Banff, Jasper and the Icefields Parkway), hung out in the chill lake town of Coldstream, kayaked down a giant river in Golden and stared, wide-eyed, at the Canadian Rockies.

We saw family in Montana, drove through Yellowstone (twice) and finally saw the Grand Tetons for the very first time (I cried!). We soaked up sunrises in Pinedale, Wyoming, celebrated my birthday in Cody and then spent our last week enjoying the natural hot springs of Saratoga. (12/10 recommend soaking in hot springs every night when you’re on deadline!)

Nothing makes me happier then the sound of boots on a hiking trail, the smell of campfire smoke in the morning, the freedom to drive without a destination. This world is astonishing, regardless of the view — and we owe so much to each other, so much to this earth and to the communities that have lovingly stewarded this land long before it was stolen from them.

I’m no expert when it to comes to the cultures and communities of indigenous, native and First Nations people in the US and Canada. But I’ve learned so much (and continue to learn) from indigenous creators, from writers like Robin Wall Kimmerer and Stephen Graham Jones, podcasts like This Land and TV shows like Reservation Dogs. If you’re an outdoorsy person like me, I highly recommend studying land acknowledgement projects and checking out organizations like Recreate Responsibly.

On our travels, we visited the ancestral homelands, traditional territories and unceded/stolen land of many people, including the Shoshone, Treaty 6, 7 and 8 and the Métis Nation homeland, the Squamish First Nation, Lil’wat and Coast Salish people, Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation, Kwakwaka’wakw First Nation and the Nuu-Chan-multi First Nation. This is definitely not a comprehensive list and any mistakes are absolutely my own.

Every single time we return from traveling, the same truths are revealed: leave no trace, do no harm. Caring for each other and every being on this earth (plant + animal) in radical abundance is the future. Collective liberation is how we do it.

ON THE ROPES is live in audio!

ON THE ROPES is now live in audio and I am over-the-moon about it! Plus, it’s whisper-synced, so if you own the e-book you can grab the audio on the cheap.

This sample chapter features Dean and Tabitha's adorable meet cute, when she accidentally falls into his lap and he sees the entire solar system because (spoiler) he's been crushing on Tabitha Tyler since foreverrrrr.

Haven't read (or listened) to ON THE ROPES yet? Dean and Tabitha are the cutest -- and steamiest -- friends-to-lovers on the block, and I promise this feel-good romance will put a big, happy smile on your face. (And the e-book is free in KU!)

One-click if you love: Yearning, pining, horny friends that really wanna kiss, hot-sex-during-a-thunderstorm, a sunshine-y bisexual heroine, a broody ex-boxer hero, more yearning, Parks-and-Rec vibes, a cozy neighborhood, summer time nostalgia. ☀️🏳️‍🌈❤️

ON THE ROPES means *so much* to me and getting to hear Dean the Machine, Tabitha and the 10th Street neighbors come to life is so heartwarming. It's narrated by the fabulous Lila Winters and Wayne Mitchell (Wayne also voiced Max Devlin in NOT THE MARRYING KIND and I just knew he'd make a great Dean) -- their performances are truly amazing.

Hello from Canada!

*tumbles out of the van, pulls leaves from hair* We made it back from our off-the-grid week in Vancouver Island! (more on that down below) And we spent the past few days in gorgeous Vancouver (which I’ve wanted to come to since I was a horny teenager and learned that parts of The X-Files had been filmed here)…but now we’re packing up (again!) and heading back into the woods for three days of camping and hiking. I promise even more pictures when I return!

I’ve got literally so many pictures to share with you the next couple weeks (and sooooo many book recommendations!) and some fun updates. A few things:

RIVAL RADIO has been out for six whole weeks already…and has almost 700 reviews, which is sending my heart into full-on rainbow mode. If you’re looking for a steamy, fun, feel-good story to escape into this weekend, you’ll find this beauty free on KU!

I did my big read-through of Rowan and Charlie’s messy first draft and freaking loved it so much — rare for me, since during this stage I usually hate it. I also had some great chats with both of my story editors and I’m officially starting the second draft next week. Rowan is the ginger, cinnamon-roll hero of my dreams and Charlie is the kind of tough-as-nails, take-no-shit heroine I would crawl on my knees for (and lololol guess what that’s Rowan’s thing too 😉) so I’m excited to dive back in.

I’ve got some ON THE ROPES audio news to share with you…probably next week (!!!) So if you haven’t read this one yet, it’s a great time to start my sweet and sexy friends-to-lovers romance (sunshine-y, bisexual heroine + serious, soft-grump ex-boxer have hot make-outs on a South Philly stoop)

Also — the world is on fire all around us but we can still take care of each other. Maryhouse Sacramento has some new items they are seeking for their drop-in center...and if you're not local, you can order them from their Amazon wishlist (click here)!

Maryhouse will always have a special place in my heart -- I can personally speak to the safe, welcoming space it provides for unhoused women and their children. A hot breakfast, mail services, showers, diapers, hygiene items...it's a place that honors each person and meets them where they are, standing together in community always. ❤️

With love from the road,

Kathryn

Hitting deadlines while on the road...

It's our second-to-last morning here in sweet, sunny Sacramento. Next stop: Oregon for a weekend, and then we're trekking up to Canada for a week-long vacation out in the pretty wilderness. And I'm extra giddy (and sleepy/unshowered) because last night I heaved a messy, kinda unwieldy, first draft into my developmental editors' inboxes (it also, maybe, was missing 20k words of an ending, but don't worry it )

While this draft was extra messy, I was immediately obsessed with my charming flirt of a playboy/giant golden retriever hero (Rowan) and my tough, tattooed, Bad Girl/bad-ass heroine (Charlie). Obsessed, as in, this-close to making them both a bunch of sexy mixtapes and declaring my undying devotion, obviously!

This love story will change a lot in the drafting process, but *so far* I can say we've got some fake dating (!!!!!!!!), a touch of reverse-grumpy-sunshine, and some wholesome friends-to-lovers magic. By which I mean one friend (Rowan) is like "I don't care that you turned me down, I'm here for a good time, ladies, so excuse me while I DON'T try to smell Charlie's hair or stare at her pretty face, I am super fine with this hahahahaha" and then the other friend (Charlie) is like "As if I ever have time for Rowan's nonsense, I am much too busy being a cool, confident Bad Girl who Doesn't Have Feelings and I'm definitely not jealous when Rowan dates other people, who am I to say anything, I'm just here, being Really Hot and Not Caring."

That's it...that's the book so far. Subject to change dramatically -- and really, isn't that what makes this 'writing a novel' thing so breathtakingly beautiful?

Lighting up the airwaves with my gratitude ✨

RIVAL RADIO has been out for almost a week already (can you believe it?) and it's #154 in the Amazon store with over 150 reviews already. I'm sitting here in Sacramento, absolutely blown away and full of gratitude!

RIVAL RADIO is 350 pages long, about 100,000 words, and let me tell you, all 33 chapters (plus epilogue, plus the bonus epilogue!) took a beautiful village. I want to light up those airwaves with my abundant thanks to the community that made this book possible:

Jessica Snyder, my story and line editor, who has a knack for plot, stakes and detail that continues to amaze me (and always leaves hilarious comments, sprinkled throughout the manuscript). This book had way less sleep-deprived voice mails involved then ON THE ROPES, but if it had I know she’d have listened to them – and responded with kind yet brilliant suggestions every time.

Faith, my best friend and also my story editor -- many of you have had the pleasure of meeting her at Indies Invade Philly, where she's always my assistant. We've been best friends since we were 18 years old, connected over our love of writing, storytelling and The X-Files, and let me tell you, is there anything better in this world than a friendship that spans half of your life?

Jodi, Julia, Bronwyn, Mel and Lizette -- my beta readers and sensitivity readers, who all manage to be incredibly stellar human beings while also making receiving revisions and feedback fun. How do they do it? I DON'T KNOW THEY ARE JUST PERFECT PEOPLE.

The giant support system that gets me through every book: the Hippie Chicks, Joyce and Tammy (also the literal best), Lucy, Claire, Pippa, LJ Evans, Avery Maxwell and Stephanie who continue to be some of the best people in our romance community. Plus the team at TWSS, who are directly responsible for the beautiful book you hold in your hand. When I say I couldn’t do this without them, I absolutely mean it.

In my acknowledgments, I mentioned that almost every memory I have as a kid involves the indie radio station WXPN playing in the background --- long summer days, long drives, concerts in Philly, festivals at the pier. My mom told me she sent a picture of it to my brother, who wrote back that he and his fiancée have WXPN playing in the background every day in their house too.

Radio stations, man. What would we do without 'em?

A hodge-podge of some of my favorite lines from RIVAL RADIO (Sexual Tension Edition)

The air crackled around us, like it usually did, but this tension had a sexier kind of edge to it. A seductive quality that had my fingers itching to fist my hands in his shirt and kiss that smug look right off his face.

How did I tell a woman I couldn’t stop arguing with that she made me feel utterly alive?

I didn’t think true intimacy was possible without true honesty. But it didn’t matter how this relationship with Daria progressed, whether we were friendly cohosts or two people who had desperate, angry sex in closets. Our authentic selves were at permanent odds. And for the first time in my life, I couldn’t find it in myself to care.

There it was. That feral-sounding growl Theo made in my presence, presumably because I pissed him off. But the energy vibrating from his body was a different kind of frustrated—a coiled, controlled sexuality I wouldn’t have expected from him.

It had been two days since Daria and I had unleashed three months of irritation and sexual frustration on each other in that closet. I was now a man suspended in a permanent state of desperate longing for my raven-haired rival.

RIVAL RADIO

Rival Radio is live!

You’re listening to K-SUN FM…which means RIVAL RADIO is now live and free in KU!

Enemies-to-lovers. Workplace. Forced Proximity. Stephanie Rose read it and declared Chapter 26 “one of the steamiest scenes I've ever read from Kathryn or period, gave me a new life goal” so you’ve got that to look forward to.

But don’t just listen to me. RIVAL RADIO’s early reviews had me doing happy cartwheels in the front lawn:

What Emily Is Reading ~ "This book was anything but ordinary! It was full of joy, steam, and so much love, I couldn’t put it down!"

Preet K's Reviews ~ "Kathryn Nolan comes through with a romcom that hits you big in the feels."

Tied Up In Books ~ "Character development was *chefs kiss*. Supporting characters were perfection. Full of sarcastic remarks between Daria and Theo. You can really feel the tension. Enemies-to-lovers GOLD"

Devon Wolf's Reviews ~ "Kathryn Nolan's best book to date!"

Since you’ve got some on-air enemies to enjoy, I won’t keep you long. I will say that writing Theo and Daria falling head-over-heels in love brought me so much joy.

I hope they bring you a little bit too. ❤️

When it comes to this being-a-human thing, none of us are experts. So I hope you get to sing a little, dance a lot, and roller-skate beneath disco balls while eating a funnel cake, because life’s too short not to. (a very specific reference that will make much more sense once you’ve finished reading 😘)

Go have fun in Sunrise Beach this weekend. And thanks, as always, for tuning in.

One week 'til RIVAL RADIO! ❤️‍

Theo: You’re listening to K-SUN FM, radio for the people. And it is a gorgeous Friday here in Sunrise Beach. I’m your host….what, may I ask, are you looking at?

Daria: Me? Nothing. Nothing at all. Just sharing the airwaves with my favorite coworker. The one who never annoys me by being a smug jerk with a stick up his —

Theo: Oh, yes please, do entertain our listeners with your creative insults, Daria. It will only make people respect our new show more.

Daria: I think the listeners like it. I think the listeners agree with me that you, Dr. Theodore Chadwick, need to loosen up a little. Have some fun. Go wild. When was the last time you got laid?

Theo: None of your business. And that’s also not the only way a person can go wild. Long walks on the beach. A candle-lit dinner just for two. A romantic ride on the —

Daria *muttering*: You are so fucking boring it’s insufferable.

Theo: The fact that you find romantic gestures to be ‘boring’ and ‘insufferable’ shows me that whoever risked your wrath in the past to bring you a bouquet of flowers was doing it all wrong. Maybe you just need someone to do it right.

Daria: Oh, and that person would be you, I’m guessing?

Theo *smirks*: Please, Daria, I spend way too many hours of my life with you in this damn sound booth. Taking you on a date is my idea of a waking nightmare, yet I’m wondering why you’d jump to that conclusion. You weren’t…asking me on a date, were you?

Daria: Is the sky purple? Have frogs started falling from clouds? Has a portal from Hell suddenly opened up and —

Theo: Why I thought I could ask a simple…listen, just tell them why we’re here? Please?

Daria:…our book comes out in seven days. Friday, May 20th. Be there or, uh…miss out on whatever shitshow is happening between me and the good doctor over there, currently gripping his microphone like he’s about to break it in half.

Theo: You are….very frustrating to me. As you, the listeners, our entire staff and all of Sunrise Beach is aware of now.

Daria: Such a gentleman. Oh, look, here come the frogs now.