Serena Bell's Blog, page 3

Can’t Hold Back is, well, BACK.

Can’t Hold Back, book two in my Returning Home series, re-releases today! Nate and Alia are back in business. 

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Readers often ask me, Where do your ideas come from?

My books come together a little like recipes—the casual kind your grandmother passes along (a pinch of this and a handful of that), not the perfectly calibrated kind you clip out of glossy magazines. Here’s my recipe for Can’t Hold Back:

Start with a big helping of what worked last time. Because Hold On Tight was a USA Today bestseller, and readers loved its wounded military hero, I knew the sequel would also have a hero who’d been injured in both body and spirit.

Add some Cyrano d’Bergerac. That’s the trope in Sierra Burgess is a Loser, Roxanne, and The Truth About Cats and Dogs. It’s when the main character is too afraid of rejection to speak their own truth, so asks another character to approach the love interest … Then, mistaken identities and other hijinks ensue! I’ve always loved the heck out of this trope—maybe because I spent most of middle school and early high school in unrequited love, writing love notes I lacked the courage to send.

Throw in a healthy portion of pain management techniques. At the time I wrote Can’t Hold Back, I was struggling with pain in my upper body (neck, shoulders, arms, hands). As a writer, it was a pretty scary time, because I thought I might lose the ability to tell stories. But some pretty great physical therapists gradually showed me how to work with, around, and through my pain. Those healers felt like heroes to me. They were patient and thoughtful and determined. They believed that we would work it out and that I’d be able to do what I loved. This book is an homage to them.

Sprinkle with sister issues. I’m the older of two girls. My sister and I have always had a great relationship, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t get in each others’ ways, even with the best of intentions. Like that time in high school I fixed her up with a guy who had a crush on me (eep!) … luckily for us, it never got quite as complicated as it did for Alia and Becca. (Instead my sister did what any self-respecting romance heroine would do and married my husband’s best friend and best man, and they’re living happily ever after!)

Spice things up with some truth-is-stranger-than-fiction stories. There’s a scene in Can’t Hold Back where Nate has a panic attack while swimming in the lake. That really happened to a friend. She was a crazy-strong swimmer—she was actually training for a triathlon at the time—but she panicked, and she almost drowned. She was swimming behind a friend who had a weird feeling something wasn’t right and turned back to look — which saved my friend’s life. When I heard the story, I didn’t think, Hey, I’m going to put that in a book someday, but when I started to write the scene at the lake, that story came back to me, and I knew it was part of Nate and Alia’s tale.

Wave the magic wand. Writing a book is a little more like a wizarding spell than a recipe. Because in the end, you can throw everything, including the kitchen sink, into a story, and you still don’t quite have a book. There’s something amazing that happens when you start to write—most writers call it “the magic.” It’s when the characters come to life and start doing things you didn’t expect, when new characters suddenly spring up and assert themselves, when something happens you never planned for. Like one of my favorite scenes, the one where Alia is trying to convince Nate to focus his attention on his pain, and he has other ideas about where he wants to focus … it just happened. Nate opened his dirty mouth, and there we were. 

Here’s an excerpt:

© Copyright 2019 Serena Bell | All Rights Reserved

He wanted her to finish what she’d started. He felt he was on the brink of something life-changing, because the woman who had climbed on top of him, who had tilted her hips down, was familiar—

MenInUni242, is that you?

Except now she was all business again.

“I want to try something.”

As if they could forget the weight and heat of her on him. The way they’d found a rhythm together. How close they’d come to chasing it home.

He snorted. “I want to try something, too.”

“Not that.” She crossed her arms, ruining the view.

“Yes, that. Get back here. Alia. Seriously. Don’t try to play like you weren’t—”

Instead, she stepped away and sat in the desk chair. Her nipples poked through the thin fabric of her T-shirt. He rolled onto his side and winced as pain shot up his back and spiraled in his neck.

“See, you’re in no condition for that.”

“I’m in perfect condition for that,” he said, indicating the steel rod in his athletic pants.

Her gaze flicked to his groin, then away. Then her eyes met his. There was a challenge in them. “I want you to meditate.”

“Not that again.”

“Yes, that, again.”

“I have a better idea,” he said. “I think you should meditate. You can use this as a focal point.” He dropped his palm to the bulge in his pants, and ground his hand there. It was only the barest relief. There wasn’t going to be any relief for him until he was buried in her, and then—then he bet he’d be ready for her again ten minutes after they were done.

She was staring at the slow rock and squeeze of his hand, her face soft and intense. Her fingers twitched against her flannel-clad thigh. Her tongue came out to wet her lips. Bingo.

He elaborated, a slow drawl, his eyes on her face the whole time, watching the effect of his words. “I want you to focus on it and make it the sole object in your mind. I want you to consider all its aspects thoroughly until you reach enlightenment. Or I do. Whichever comes first. I’m all for both.”

Want more? (Nate does.) You can find Can’t Hold Back here. 

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Can’t Hold Back is, well, BACK.

Can’t Hold Back, book two in my Returning Home series, re-releases today! Nate and Alia are back in business. 

AmazonAppleKoboNookGoogleGoodreadsBook Bub

Readers often ask me, Where do your ideas come from?

My books come together a little like recipes—the casual kind your grandmother passes along (a pinch of this and a handful of that), not the perfectly calibrated kind you clip out of glossy magazines. Here’s my recipe for Can’t Hold Back:

Start with a big helping of what worked last time. Because Hold On Tight was a USA Today bestseller, and readers loved its wounded military hero, I knew the sequel would also have a hero who’d been injured in both body and spirit.

Add some Cyrano d’Bergerac. That’s the trope in Sierra Burgess is a Loser, Roxanne, and The Truth About Cats and Dogs. It’s when the main character is too afraid of rejection to speak their own truth, so asks another character to approach the love interest … Then, mistaken identities and other hijinks ensue! I’ve always loved the heck out of this trope—maybe because I spent most of middle school and early high school in unrequited love, writing love notes I lacked the courage to send.

Throw in a healthy portion of pain management techniques. At the time I wrote Can’t Hold Back, I was struggling with pain in my upper body (neck, shoulders, arms, hands). As a writer, it was a pretty scary time, because I thought I might lose the ability to tell stories. But some pretty great physical therapists gradually showed me how to work with, around, and through my pain. Those healers felt like heroes to me. They were patient and thoughtful and determined. They believed that we would work it out and that I’d be able to do what I loved. This book is an homage to them.

Sprinkle with sister issues. I’m the older of two girls. My sister and I have always had a great relationship, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t get in each others’ ways, even with the best of intentions. Like that time in high school I fixed her up with a guy who had a crush on me (eep!) … luckily for us, it never got quite as complicated as it did for Alia and Becca. (Instead my sister did what any self-respecting romance heroine would do and married my husband’s best friend and best man, and they’re living happily ever after!)

Spice things up with some truth-is-stranger-than-fiction stories. There’s a scene in Can’t Hold Back where Nate has a panic attack while swimming in the lake. That really happened to a friend. She was a crazy-strong swimmer—she was actually training for a triathlon at the time—but she panicked, and she almost drowned. She was swimming behind a friend who had a weird feeling something wasn’t right and turned back to look — which saved my friend’s life. When I heard the story, I didn’t think, Hey, I’m going to put that in a book someday, but when I started to write the scene at the lake, that story came back to me, and I knew it was part of Nate and Alia’s tale.

Wave the magic wand. Writing a book is a little more like a wizarding spell than a recipe. Because in the end, you can throw everything, including the kitchen sink, into a story, and you still don’t quite have a book. There’s something amazing that happens when you start to write—most writers call it “the magic.” It’s when the characters come to life and start doing things you didn’t expect, when new characters suddenly spring up and assert themselves, when something happens you never planned for. Like one of my favorite scenes, the one where Alia is trying to convince Nate to focus his attention on his pain, and he has other ideas about where he wants to focus … it just happened. Nate opened his dirty mouth, and there we were. 

Here’s an excerpt:

© Copyright 2019 Serena Bell | All Rights Reserved

He wanted her to finish what she’d started. He felt he was on the brink of something life-changing, because the woman who had climbed on top of him, who had tilted her hips down, was familiar—

MenInUni242, is that you?

Except now she was all business again.

“I want to try something.”

As if they could forget the weight and heat of her on him. The way they’d found a rhythm together. How close they’d come to chasing it home.

He snorted. “I want to try something, too.”

“Not that.” She crossed her arms, ruining the view.

“Yes, that. Get back here. Alia. Seriously. Don’t try to play like you weren’t—”

Instead, she stepped away and sat in the desk chair. Her nipples poked through the thin fabric of her T-shirt. He rolled onto his side and winced as pain shot up his back and spiraled in his neck.

“See, you’re in no condition for that.”

“I’m in perfect condition for that,” he said, indicating the steel rod in his athletic pants.

Her gaze flicked to his groin, then away. Then her eyes met his. There was a challenge in them. “I want you to meditate.”

“Not that again.”

“Yes, that, again.”

“I have a better idea,” he said. “I think you should meditate. You can use this as a focal point.” He dropped his palm to the bulge in his pants, and ground his hand there. It was only the barest relief. There wasn’t going to be any relief for him until he was buried in her, and then—then he bet he’d be ready for her again ten minutes after they were done.

She was staring at the slow rock and squeeze of his hand, her face soft and intense. Her fingers twitched against her flannel-clad thigh. Her tongue came out to wet her lips. Bingo.

He elaborated, a slow drawl, his eyes on her face the whole time, watching the effect of his words. “I want you to focus on it and make it the sole object in your mind. I want you to consider all its aspects thoroughly until you reach enlightenment. Or I do. Whichever comes first. I’m all for both.”

Want more? (Nate does.) You can find Can’t Hold Back here. 

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Hold On Tight Is Back!

Today is a big day for me. It’s my first official day as an indie author. Today is the day Hold On Tight re-releases. For the first time, I am my own publisher. And I love it.

In honor of that, I am going to tell you a very special story, the story of how I fell in love with not knowing what the fuck I was doing.

But first, a super quick word from our sponsor:

Hold On Tight is the story of Jake—a guy who comes back from war, broken in body and spirit, to discover that he has a kid he never knew existed and a baby mama he’s been trying really hard to forget. It’s also the story of Mira, a single mom who has been working her butt off to hold all the pieces together, and does not need the complication of being attracted to a man who got her pregnant and disappeared off the face of the earth. Aaand, it’s the story of Sam, who—well, he’s seven, and just trying to figure out how all the pieces fit together, especially in light of the fact that his mom told him that his dad was a sperm donor.

You can find it here:

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How I Fell In Love With Not Knowing WTF I Was Doing

This is my story, but it could easily be your story, too, if you’re an author and you think you might like to take the plunge into indie publishing but need a push, or if you’re recently gone indie and feel like you’re in over your head. Like many stories, this one starts waaay before page one with a lot of backstory, which I am going to omit, because no one likes a back story dump. Instead, I am going to start you where the story starts. Like so:

There was an author, and she decided that she wanted to be in control of her own destiny. Declared like that, it sounds like an easy decision, but actually, it was terrifying. She had two kids and a husband and for many years she had centered most of her decisions around them. She focused most of her energy on being there when they needed her in every way possible, even when that meant not spending time or money on her business. She didn’t resent that focus, not at all—it was just a fact of how she did things, and she’d gotten in the habit of thinking of her writing as a little bit more like a hobby than a job. There were some great perks to thinking like that, namely that she could have leisurely weekends and enjoy her vacations without worrying that something might go wrong … plus she got to spend lots and lots of time with her delightful children.

But there were some downsides, too. The main one was invisible to everyone except her. For years she had been telling herself a teeny, tiny lie: namely, that she was a hundred percent okay with this version of her career, and she didn’t have any ambitions for it to be otherwise. She told herself this lie because if she didn’t, she would had to admit to herself that there was another reason she didn’t do anything to make herself more successful. The reason was, She was terrified of screwing it up.

Screwing what up, you might ask? Good question.

She was terrified of screwing everything up. She was terrified of doing any of it less-than-perfectly.

Her husband frequently teased her by saying she wanted to be valedictorian of everything, and–well, he wasn’t far off.

So, let’s return to the moment when our heroine decided she wanted to be in charge of her own destiny. She had some really good reasons to make that decision. Her kids were older, and much more independent. The publisher where she’d found a home for many years was closing the imprint that had nourished her. The romance market was, frankly, kind of a hot mess–and many of the people who seemed to be navigating it with the most grace were the ones who knew it most intimately, from the ground up—indie authors. And she was ready, for a whole variety of other reasons, to make her own decisions and write the stories she loved most.

When she decided to become an indie author, at first, she wanted to be the valedictorian of that, too. But it turns out that it’s really hard to be the valedictorian of that, because everyone does it differently and there’s no one right way. (Also because our heroine, being who she was, decided she wanted to re-release three books in rapid succession, wide (to all the e-retailers), while writing a brand new book, and do as much as she could herself. Semi-pro Tip: If you go indie, you don’t have to do it that way, because everyone does it differently and there’s no one right way.)

But, let’s return to our story. Wait, said the author. Let me get this straight. There’s no instruction manual for this thing?

The next few months were the hardest thing she had ever done. Every time she did something new, she had no idea how to do it. When she asked for help, everyone told her a different way. There were no instructions about what software to use (except for Vellum; freaking everyone agreed about that), what vendors to hire, how to weigh quality against speed, whether to “go wide” or “do KU exclusive” or any of the other options on the table. She listened and took lots of notes, but in the end, no one knew the answers except her (and she still felt like she didn’t).

What’s more, it wasn’t a perfectable process at all. Like most creative things, it was messy. It wasn’t clear when something—a manuscript, a cover, a promotional teaser graphic—was the best it was going to be, and perfect was clearly the enemy of progress.

Our former valedictorian-of-everything was not always gracious about all of this. Sometimes she ranted and swore, like on the day when she discovered (in the middle of about twelve other crises, work and home) that she’d failed to activate the quirky auto-renew on her hosting subscription and her site had been down for only-God-knew-how-long. Sometimes she yelled at no one in her empty kitchen, like when a certain e-retailer told her for the eighth time that the problem would be fixed tomorrow. Sometimes she laughed that scary, about-to-go-over-the-edge laugh, like when that certain e-retailer told her for the ninth time that the problem would be fixed tomorrow. (As it turned out, that time, it was. Go figure.)

She actually said, on more than one occasion—OUT LOUD—I can’t do this.

The first revelation was that it didn’t help to say that. Not at all. What helped was to say, I can do this. So with a monumental effort of willpower, she quit, cold turkey, saying, I can’t do this and started replacing that sentence with I can.

The next revelation was that she could do it even though most of the time she had only the vaguest idea of what she was doing. The trick was to spend most of her time doing whatever she thought the next thing was, and only a small fraction of her time trying to figure out what the big picture was. As she tackled one “next thing” after another, the big picture slowly, slowly, painfully began to come into view.

Every time she tackled what she thought the “next thing” was, it would turn out that she’d skipped several other key steps, and each time she wound back to pick up those missed steps, she’d realize that each one of those items had missed steps, too. (This happened even though she asked lots and lots of amazing and generous people for help and advice, because when people with experience explain things to people without experience, they sometimes (always) leave out steps.) So it often took her ten times as long to do something as she had thought it would. But she started to see how the pieces went together

And one day she had the biggest revelation of all. She liked—not just didn’t hate but actively liked—not knowing what the fuck she was doing. And she was (this was maybe the weirdest moment of all, ever) seriously in love with the process of figuring it the fuck out, even when she screwed stuff up.

As a side note, she did screw stuff up. But she was less and less shaken when it happened, because (shocker) most stuff could be fixed. Or redone. Or done better next time. And the world kept not ending, which was a surprise and a pleasure every time.

Plus, as she began working on re-releasing the second and third books in the series, it became apparent that it was getting easier. A LOT EASIER. So she wasn’t going to not know what she was doing forever. Eventually, she was going to know what she was doing.

That made her a teeny, tiny bit sad.

Luckily for her, if there is one true thing about book publishing, it is that it changes so fast, there is no danger that you will ever suffer from a lack of things to not know what the fuck you are doing about.

So. If you have been telling yourself that you are too much of a perfectionist for indie, too much of a control freak for indie, too easily stressed out for indie, or, well, really anything about how you can’t, I am here to tell you: You are not. And you can.

Anyway, to return to our author, she and her not-knowing are currently living Happily For Now, and the first piece of evidence is Hold On Tight. You can find it here:

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Can’t Hold Back will be out (with considerably less swearing behind the scenes) on March 26, To Have and to Hold on April 23, and Holding Out on May 21.

Sleepover is Live!

Sleepover is live!

I’m always equal parts excited and nervous when a book goes out into the world. But this time, excited outweighs nervous by more than usual. Because early readers are loving this book.

One wrote to me a couple of days ago to say:

“It’s all your fault! I’m falling asleep in a training I’m at today because I stayed up waaaay past my bedtime last night reading Sleepover. OmG I LOVE this story!

Head Over Heels is Out!

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We lie to ourselves all the time to keep our hearts safe. We tell ourselves our motives are better than they are, that we don’t feel what we feel, that we can stop any time. How many lies have you told yourself since breakfast?

What would happen if you finally had to tell yourself the truth?

Welcome to Chase’s house. Things have changed a LOT in the last year, since five-year-old Katie came to live with him. But the biggest change of all is on the horizon: Chase’s BFF, Liv, will be staying with him and Katie temporarily. She has a few weeks till she has to be in Denver, and Chase needs someone to watch Katie until he can find a new nanny.

Little do Chase and Liv know how small Chase’s house will seem with both of them in it. All the ways they’ve kept each other at bay, all the reasons they’ve given each other for why it could never happen between them–they’re not working any more.

Here’s a little taste:

“She wants a braid,” he says, and the desperation in his usually hyper-competent voice makes me laugh.

“You can do this,” I tell him.

It would be easy for me to take the brush and the elastic and do it for him, but that’s not what I want for Chase and Katie.

“Is it brushed?”

He shakes his head. “I keep making her cry.”

“The trick is to hold it above where you’re brushing.”

I take the brush and show him, then hand it back to him. He gets through the rest of her hair without sending her into sobs again.

“Now put the brush down so you have both hands free,” I instruct.

He sets it on the table.

“Divide her hair into three parts.”

The fine corn silk of Katie’s hair catches on the roughness of Chase’s hands, on the tiny curls of hair below each knuckle and the callused skin of his palms.

“Right side over center, then left side over center—no, the new center. See how the right is the center now?” I step close behind him and put my hand over his. He smells fresh from the shower, and my spidey senses identify Ivory and Old Spice, two of my favorites. Funny; I guess whenever I’ve hung out with him before, it’s been in the evening.

I show him how the braid works.

“Oh!” he says. “I get it.”

He winds the hanks around each other with surprising dexterity. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Those are hands that tie flies from tiny feathers and filament strands. A braid is big work by comparison. Right over center, left over center—I realize I’m staring, almost mesmerized.

He fumbles again trying to get the elastic on, and I have to step in to show him. “Over, twist, over again. Like so.”

He takes the elastic from me, and his hand brushes mine. I’m suddenly hyperaware—of that touch, but also of how male he is. It’s one of those moments of attraction that happen from time to time between people, when you can feel the chemistry prickle through the air, one body speaking to another. Only, Chase’s body doesn’t usually—doesn’t ever—do that to mine.

It takes just a few more of these intimate moments before it’s time for some truth-telling. I loved writing this book because it let me witness the unfolding intimacy between Chase and Liv. It let me watch them bare their souls–and find themselves and each other.

I hope you’ll be as glad to follow Chase and Liv on their journey as I was to write it for you.

As always, thank you so much for reading!

Love,

Serena

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Head Over Heels is Out!

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We lie to ourselves all the time to keep our hearts safe. We tell ourselves our motives are better than they are, that we don’t feel what we feel, that we can stop any time. How many lies have you told yourself since breakfast?

What would happen if you finally had to tell yourself the truth?

Welcome to Chase’s house. Things have changed a LOT in the last year, since five-year-old Katie came to live with him. But the biggest change of all is on the horizon: Chase’s BFF, Liv, will be staying with him and Katie temporarily. She has a few weeks till she has to be in Denver, and Chase needs someone to watch Katie until he can find a new nanny.

Little do Chase and Liv know how small Chase’s house will seem with both of them in it. All the ways they’ve kept each other at bay, all the reasons they’ve given each other for why it could never happen between them–they’re not working any more.

Here’s a little taste:

“She wants a braid,” he says, and the desperation in his usually hyper-competent voice makes me laugh.

“You can do this,” I tell him.

It would be easy for me to take the brush and the elastic and do it for him, but that’s not what I want for Chase and Katie.

“Is it brushed?”

He shakes his head. “I keep making her cry.”

“The trick is to hold it above where you’re brushing.”

I take the brush and show him, then hand it back to him. He gets through the rest of her hair without sending her into sobs again.

“Now put the brush down so you have both hands free,” I instruct.

He sets it on the table.

“Divide her hair into three parts.”

The fine corn silk of Katie’s hair catches on the roughness of Chase’s hands, on the tiny curls of hair below each knuckle and the callused skin of his palms.

“Right side over center, then left side over center—no, the new center. See how the right is the center now?” I step close behind him and put my hand over his. He smells fresh from the shower, and my spidey senses identify Ivory and Old Spice, two of my favorites. Funny; I guess whenever I’ve hung out with him before, it’s been in the evening.

I show him how the braid works.

“Oh!” he says. “I get it.”

He winds the hanks around each other with surprising dexterity. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Those are hands that tie flies from tiny feathers and filament strands. A braid is big work by comparison. Right over center, left over center—I realize I’m staring, almost mesmerized.

He fumbles again trying to get the elastic on, and I have to step in to show him. “Over, twist, over again. Like so.”

He takes the elastic from me, and his hand brushes mine. I’m suddenly hyperaware—of that touch, but also of how male he is. It’s one of those moments of attraction that happen from time to time between people, when you can feel the chemistry prickle through the air, one body speaking to another. Only, Chase’s body doesn’t usually—doesn’t ever—do that to mine.

It takes just a few more of these intimate moments before it’s time for some truth-telling. I loved writing this book because it let me witness the unfolding intimacy between Chase and Liv. It let me watch them bare their souls–and find themselves and each other.

I hope you’ll be as glad to follow Chase and Liv on their journey as I was to write it for you.

As always, thank you so much for reading!

Love,

Serena

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Do Over is Out!

I’m so excited to welcome Jack and Maddie to the book world! They have been my companions and friends this last year. When I first started writing Do Over, I saw it as being about first love and second chances—which for sure it is—but lately I’ve realized it’s also about people having faith in each other. Maddie was the first person who had faith in Jack, and in many ways, that faith shaped Jack’s life. I’ve thought a lot lately about people who’ve had faith in me—my parents, my teachers, my friends, my husband, my kids—and I’ve been so grateful for their love and support. When you read Jack and Maddie, I hope—well, I hope you find yourself wanting to save Jack the way Maddie always has. I hope you find yourself wanting to keep Maddie safe and close, the way Jack always has. And I hope you can find something to identify with in their crazy-hot chemistry. But most of all, I hope they remind you of the people in your life who’ve made you into your best self!

Love,

Serena

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Toe-curling? Check. Sheet-twisting? Check. But is that enough for a second chance?



Jack: I’m pretty much as tough as they come. But when a woman comes to me in tears, I’m jelly. Scratch that—when Maddie Adams comes to me in tears, I’m jelly. That’s how we ended up making our incredible son five years ago, and that’s why I practically beg her to move in with me when she’s in a tight spot. Of course, the last time I got the chance to be the hero, I let her down, but I’m not making the same mistake twice. This time, I’m going to be the man she deserves—and then I’m going to lay every ounce of sexy on her until she lets me back into her heart.

Maddie: Jack Parker is hot, and he knows it. What he’s not is a family man, something this single mom had to learn the hard way. Still, moving into his place until I get back on my feet makes all kinds of sense. He’s an old friend. He’s, ahem, the father of my child. And let’s face it, now that I’ve just been colossally dumped, we’ve got nowhere else to go. The truth is, I never could resist Jack. Living under the same roof puts dirty thoughts in my head. And when my brilliant plan backfires, my whole body is begging for a do-over. . . .

Do Over is a standalone novel with no cheating, no cliffhangers, and a satisfying happily ever after.

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Do Over is Out!

I’m so excited to welcome Jack and Maddie to the book world! They have been my companions and friends this last year. When I first started writing Do Over, I saw it as being about first love and second chances—which for sure it is—but lately I’ve realized it’s also about people having faith in each other. Maddie was the first person who had faith in Jack, and in many ways, that faith shaped Jack’s life. I’ve thought a lot lately about people who’ve had faith in me—my parents, my teachers, my friends, my husband, my kids—and I’ve been so grateful for their love and support. When you read Jack and Maddie, I hope—well, I hope you find yourself wanting to save Jack the way Maddie always has. I hope you find yourself wanting to keep Maddie safe and close, the way Jack always has. And I hope you can find something to identify with in their crazy-hot chemistry. But most of all, I hope they remind you of the people in your life who’ve made you into your best self!

Love,

Serena

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Toe-curling? Check. Sheet-twisting? Check. But is that enough for a second chance?



Jack: I’m pretty much as tough as they come. But when a woman comes to me in tears, I’m jelly. Scratch that—when Maddie Adams comes to me in tears, I’m jelly. That’s how we ended up making our incredible son five years ago, and that’s why I practically beg her to move in with me when she’s in a tight spot. Of course, the last time I got the chance to be the hero, I let her down, but I’m not making the same mistake twice. This time, I’m going to be the man she deserves—and then I’m going to lay every ounce of sexy on her until she lets me back into her heart.

Maddie: Jack Parker is hot, and he knows it. What he’s not is a family man, something this single mom had to learn the hard way. Still, moving into his place until I get back on my feet makes all kinds of sense. He’s an old friend. He’s, ahem, the father of my child. And let’s face it, now that I’ve just been colossally dumped, we’ve got nowhere else to go. The truth is, I never could resist Jack. Living under the same roof puts dirty thoughts in my head. And when my brilliant plan backfires, my whole body is begging for a do-over. . . .

Do Over is a standalone novel with no cheating, no cliffhangers, and a satisfying happily ever after.

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Getting Inside is Out!

Happy New Year! Getting Inside, the first book in my Seattle Grizzlies series, releases today, and I am so excited to share this book with readers.

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They’re big. They’re hot. And they play hard. 

In the kickoff to Serena Bell’s sexy new football romance series, the heat between a female coach and a cocky linebacker turns the Seattle Grizzlies locker room upside down.

Iona: There’s nothing like the rush of going head-to-head with the boys. Football is my life, and I got my new job with the Seattle Grizzlies because I know how to play rough. But as a woman in a man’s game, I can’t afford any distractions—like panty-melting tabloid darling Ty Williams, my star linebacker. I’ve stared down plenty of good-looking players without losing my cool . . . and yet something about Ty’s intense gaze burns straight to my core.

Ty: Despite what they say in the press, I save my best moves for game day. The Grizzlies aren’t just my teammates, they’re my brothers—no way am I going to let some new coach shake up our defense. But Iona Thomas isn’t just some coach. It’s so tough to keep my head in the game when I’d rather be in bed with her. She may take charge at practice, but if I had her in my arms, I’d be choosing the plays. I just need to figure out what makes her tick—and what makes her want to break the rules.

Advance praise for Getting Inside

“Readers will look forward to getting to know more of the Seattle Grizzlies. . . . [Serena] Bell scores a touchdown with her fresh and fast-paced first Seattle Grizzlies sports contemporary.”—Publisher Weekly

“Forbidden love, high stakes and a delicious slow burn. I loved Getting Inside by Serena Bell.”—USA Today bestselling author Kelly Jamieson

“Serena Bell brings her flawless writing to a football romance that will keep you on the edge of your stadium seat! Great chemistry and an irresistible hero.”—Sarina Bowen, USA Today bestselling author of the Brooklyn Bruisers series

“Serena Bell scores a touchdown with this hot football romance—the chemistry between Iona and Ty is searing!”—Christi Barth, author of the Naked Men series



“Getting Inside is Serena Bell at her best! An excellent start to her new series. Highly recommended!”—Wendy S. Marcus, award-winning author of All I Need Is You

“Somehow I fell in love with two people and learned a ton about football. Don’t start this one unless you’ve got the day to yourself. Magic!”—Samantha Wayland, author of the Ice Cats hockey series

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Can’t Hold Back is out!

Can’t Hold Back is out! (Scroll down for some information about giveaways …)

Meet Nate. He’s strong, stubborn … and hurting, in the aftermath of an attack on his army base in Afghanistan.

Meet Alia. She hopes that if she can heal Nate’s pain, he might forgive her for breaking his heart.

It’s not a slam dunk or a sure thing. It’s a messed up, rule-breaking, physical-therapy-table sort of affair.

But sometimes you can’t help what you need.

Or who you want.

Welcome to R&R, a veterans’ retreat, where the strong and the brave learn how to live, and love, again. I hope you find R&R as healing as Nate and Alia.

You can visit my Facebook page to enter a $10 gift card giveaway for the retailer of your choice, through December 20, 2015.

I’m also doing an exclusive giveaway for my current newsletter readers (and for new subscribers before January 4). One lucky winner will receive a $20 gift card from the e-tailer of your choice. You must be 18+, a subscriber (by 1/4/16), and able to receive an email gift from an e-tailer I can purchase from in the U.S., to enter. Click here to enter!

And thank you, as always, for reading!

Hugs,

Serena

P.S. Can’t Hold Back is available now at:

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