Julia Kelly's Blog, page 21

#5forFriday

A super quick #5forFri from me today because this is so late!

#1 I’ve had a good run of writing days all in a row, most of them hitting or exceeding my writing goals. As any writer will tell you, building up that kind of momentum is huge.

#2 My brilliant sister has gotten her book review website off the ground in a big way! She’s a speed reader, so she’s already got a bunch of review up on I Should Read That, and her Instagram game is solid. (There are plenty of cats with books pictures to enjoy.)

#3 Last weekend I indulged and bought myself a JBL Clip 2 wireless bluetooth speaker to finally replace my old speakers that died years ago. I’ve been happily listening to a lot of KUSC but also rediscovering much of the jazz I danced to when I was in college and a serious swing dancer. Sydney Bechet, Count Bassie, Duke Ellington, and Charlie Parker.

#4 I’m running my first race this weekend — a short 4 mile loop in the park.

#5 This dance to that Ed Sheeran song I can’t get out of my head. (H/T my friend Sonia)



And that’s all for me! What are your five favorite things from this week?

What I’ll Be Reading This February

Since I’ve been writing both contemporary and historical romance this winter, I’ve been doing my best to read outside of the genre for relaxation. Judging packets for the RITA Awards came out this winter which makes taking a break from romance a bit tricky but here are a few of the books I’m reading off of my TBR pile this month:

I’ll See You in Paris, by Michelle Gable

This was a gift from my friend Mary Chris Escobar as part of a secret Santa present. This women’s fiction follows a mother and daughter as they return to the mother’s long-lost home in England. As the story unfolds, you get little bits of a mystery about a third woman as well.

The Swans of Fifth Avenue, by Melanie Benjamin

Every reader’s got catnip. Books about New York in the 1920s, ’30s, ’40s, and ’50s are mine. I haven’t started this book yet, but The Swans of Fifth Avenue came as a strong recommendation from a good friend who shares the same obsession as I do.

Unmentionable: The Victorian Lady’s Guide to Sex, Marriage, and Manners, by Therese Oneill

This was a birthday gift from my sister and her boyfriend. I’ve read through a couple sections already, and it’s a really irreverent, fascinating look at history. Think of all the unglamorous things you don’t usually read about the Victorians: poisonous cosmetics, menstruation, weight loss and gain. I can already tell it’s going to be really helpful for research.

The Mystery of Princess Louise, by Lucinda Hawksley

This book is strictly for research, although I really enjoy Hawksley’s other books I’ve read. Princess Louise was a talented artist in her own right and served as stand-in for her mother, Queen Victoria, at many state functions while Victoria was deep in mourning.

“The Princess Louise (born Louise Caroline Alberta),also known as Marchioness of Lorne and Duchess of Argyll,” Philip de László.

She’s also the subject of one of my favorite portraits. (One day, someone please paint a portrait of me that is as complimentary as this one.)

Grit:The Power of Passion and Perseverance, by Angela Duckworth

I’m tearing through this book about the psychology behind success and determination. A friend of my recommended reading it because it looks at the common traits that successful people share: passion and determination, or as Duckworth calls it, grit. (FYI, romance authors are some really gritty ladies.) Normally I don’t think of myself as a big fan of psychology books, but I’m really enjoying this one and I also thought Attached by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller was fascinating so I might have to revise my thoughts on the genre.

Five for Friday (With Kitties)

Last week I told you I’d be sharing this five things I’ve loved over the past seven days. Here’s this week’s edition:

1. If you’ve been reading my blog for awhile you might have noticed things look a little different. I’ve rebranded to reflect my new pen name for contemporary romance: Julia Blake! I’ll still be writing historicals as Julia Kelly, but this will help make it really clear which genre you’re going to get when you pick up one of my books. (PS You can check out what’ll be coming out from Julia Blake thanks to this preorder which just dropped in price from $4.99 to $1.99!)

2. Hidden Figures. Do yourself a favor. Buy yourself a ticket and treat yourself to a really enjoyable, positive movie. It was exactly the story I needed to see with everything swirling around in the world right now.

3. This excellent post from Cara McKenna on using the 28/40 method to create dynamic heroes (and yes you can absolutely use it for heroines).

4. I’m a RITA judge so I’m working my way through a stack of six books in several different categories. I can’t actually name check the author or title, but I’m practically bursting because I read an AMAZING RITA-potential book and I can’t talk about it at all! One of these days, long after the RITAs are awarded, I’ll slip it into a recommendation list and spread the good word and no one will know. How sneaky!

5. And finally, this photo of my sister and her boyfriends’ cats looking very judgmental.

Why I Started Writing Romance

Many authors’ stories start the same way, with some variation of “I’ve been telling stories since I was a little girl.” I’m not any different, although I don’t remember telling love stories when I was a little girl. Instead, my first “book” (which was one page long) was a mystery.

Both my parents are avid readers, and my Mum has what sometimes feels like an encyclopedic knowledge of mystery and crime fiction. Between that and hearing the woman wailing as she faints during the wonderfully macabre Edward Gory’s Mystery! opening credits from my bedroom every Thursday night as a child, I was pretty much destined to start off there.

I’ve talked before about reading my first romance novel. It was a sweet, wonderfully zany Zebra Regency Romance that I took home with about a half dozen others from a deep discount book store on Lake Avenue in Pasadena. While I’d always read voraciously as a child, I truly gobbled these books up, soon moving on to more complex plots with more intense romances (ie the hero and heroine started doing more than just kissing on the last page). The only natural step after that was to write one.

I started tinkering with an idea for a book the summer between my freshman and sophomore years of college. My family had just gotten a new computer, so I commandeered a desk that my sister was just using to store junk and parked the huge desktop on it. Then, I got to work.

The book, which I never finished, was called Charlotte’s Choice and it was a second chance at love romance. I wrote by the seat of my pants — something I would later learn through several long, painful lessons isn’t suitable for me — and finished about 25,000 words by the end of the summer. That alone felt like an incredible achievement. I’d never written that many words before!

This is where, unfortunately, I stalled out. I worked on that book on and off for the next three years, hauling a paper manuscript around with me from home to college and back again. Then, I graduated, and my focus became grad school.

I attended Columbia’s University’s School of Journalism in the broadcast program. I mention that only to say that the program compresses what most schools take two years to teach into 10 months long. They were the hardest 10 months of my life. I had two exacting introductory reporting professors who held marathon days of class on Mondays and Tuesday. Then there were radio broadcast and editing classes, TV broadcast and editing classes, workshops, law, ethics. If I wasn’t in the classroom or desperately trying to grab some sleep after late-night editing sessions in the Avid lab, I was probably out reporting in South Brooklyn (or with friends at a bar if it was Friday or Saturday night because I was still a grad student and let’s be realistic). It was a seven-day-a-week job getting that MS.

Somewhere in the middle of that mess of a year, I was laying on my futon late-night and watching Dancing With the Stars in an desperate attempt to turn off the analytical, journalism side of my brain. That was when I realized I wasn’t enjoying my life. Everything was so focused on getting this degree, I felt completely drained. I’ve since heard Sylvia Day talk about needing to top up the well, as though creatives — or anyone really — have a finite amount of creative energy and inspiration. We keep the levels high by consuming things that stimulate us. Books, movies, media. We need a mental break from whatever it is that we’re making in order to then go and do our job in a healthy way. Even though I didn’t know to call it that, I’d drained the well as a journalist and was running on dry.

That was the night that I decided I needed to exercise my long-neglected creative side. I turned the TV off, pulled my laptop out, and started writing. It was a historical romance about a poor relation who resorts to writing and the earl courting her cousin who falls for her hard. By the end of the night, I had the first chapter of To Woo a Writer.

Writing it, however, wouldn’t be quite so easy as that first chapter. For about three years I picked up and put down the book. In the meantime, I wrote a novella and shopped it to a now-defunct Harlequin line. I still have the slip of paper my rejection was printed on. I doubled down on my efforts to finish the draft of To Woo a Writer only to be distracted by other things because writing is hard and it’s easy to set aside things that are hard and get to them later.

Finally, in 2012, I decided that it was time to — for lack of a better phrase — put up or shut up. I’d been talking about wanting to get published for a long, long time and I still didn’t have a completed, full-length novel to show for it. I made the decision to finish the book and started saying no to some social engagements that would take me away from writing and leaving others early so I could go home and write. In two months I typed The End.

The book was a mess (first drafts are always a mess), but it was done. Done! I called Mum, told her I was revising it and I’d need her to read it if she was up for it, and began hacking away at book. After a couple rounds of revisions, I pulled out my copy of Writer’s Digest Guide to Literary Agents (bought and flagged with Post-In notes in an optimistic moment), and drew up a list of agents that accepted romance. I ranked the agencies, and began sending out queries for representation. By October, I’d signed with Emily Sylvan Kim at Prospect Agency who is still my agent.

The story of getting from representation to contract is another long one. To Woo a Writer is still bubbling away on the back burner of my hard drive. I love it, but with so much distance and growth since writing it, I can see its flaws. Before the Governess series was picked up by Pocket Books, I wrote two contemporary romances (one of which will be published this August and the other of which is so bad it will never see the light of day), and self-published two contemporary romance anthologies. Getting that first contract took a long time. Then again, so did writing that first book.

Five For Friday, Plus It’s My Birthday (and I’m Giving You Books!)

It’s my birthday! I’m actually not a huge birthday celebration person (except on all important milestone birthday), but I wanted to use today as an excuse to give something back to my readers!

But first, my darling friend Alexandra Haughton just started a new feature on her website. She’s calling it Five for Friday, and I love it as an idea to share some of the best things she’s run across during the week.

1) My best friend is getting married this fall, and so we went shopping for the bridesmaids. Her wedding is going to be a beautiful Hindu-Greek Orthodox blended ceremony, and the women will all wear saris. This was my first time trying on a sari, and I was almost overwhelmed by how many beautiful options there are (as well as how quickly the women in the shops could whip me in and out of them). We think we narrowed it down to a few great options, got some snapshots for the other ladies in the bridal party, and I just know it’s going to be a beautiful wedding to an incredible guy.

On Sunday I went shopping for bridesmaids’ saris for best friend’s beautiful Hindu-Greek Orthodox blended ceremony this fall. This was my first time trying on a sari, and I was almost overwhelmed by how many beautiful options there are (as well as how quickly the women in the shops could whip me in and out of them). You better believe I’ve already asked the mother of the bride, who is a pro, to help me wrap it and pin it into place on the big day.

A photo posted by Julia Kelly (@juliakellywrites) on Jan 17, 2017 at 5:42pm PST

2) I made this fantastic banana bread on Monday night because I had a bunch of bananas that was rapidly getting too ripe on the counter. It came out perfect, and I’ve been eating it for breakfast all week. Sometimes it’s the simple things.

3) I’m trying out Dragon Anywhere, an iPad and iPhone app that allows you to dictate long strings of text. Since I can speak faster than I can type, my hope is that this will help me get my first drafts down a little quick after some (admittedly hilarious) days learning how to retrain my brain for dictation.

4) The Bachelor is back! I know I’m late to the party (the show premiered during the last push for me to get edits in for my upcoming contemporary sports romance), but I’m already sucked in thanks to the NYC winter sending me inside for long runs at the gym. For those of you who don’t know, I’ve never been a Bachelor watcher, but I’ve loved The Bachelorette. However I can already tell I’m going to have a hard time resisting the soapy, dramatic goodness of the highly staged reality show.

5) And finally for the birthday part. I’ve got a stack of paperbacks — some signed by their authors — to giveaway to readers in celebration of my birthday. You can check out all of the details in the Rafflecopter giveaway below, but you’ve got six chances to enter. The contest runs until midnight on January 23rd. Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

How a Book Becomes a Book

On Thursday, I turned in the developmental edits for my upcoming contemporary sports romance which will be published under a new pen name, Julia Blake (more details on that soon). Authors know that this is cause for celebration. Developmental edits are a big deadline, and getting them out of the way is a huge relief. But others might be wondering what that actually means.

Even though I’d published independently before signing with Pocket Books, I had to admit to being fuzzy on the whole publishing process at traditional houses. Today I’m going to try to walk you through some of the major steps that gets a book from draft to publication using my experience with the second in my Governess series, The Governess Was Wanton.

The First Draft

It seems logical that the first step in publishing a book is to actually write the book. Depending upon where you are in your career and the terms of your deal, however, there might be a whole negotiation before you ever write a word of prose. (Selling on proposal is a topic for another day.)

When my agent sold the Governess series, we had one completed book (The Governess Was Wicked) and proposals for two others (Wanton and The Governess Was Wild). Those proposals were really just two to three page synopses of what would happen in the book were I to write it.

If you have a completed novel when you strike a deal, the editor can begin working on it immediately. However, you’ve sold on proposal or there are multiple books in a deal and not all are written, this is the time when an author’s got to get to work. When my Governess deal went through, my editor was able to get cracking on The Governess Was Wicked immediately, and that meant I had to get writing Wanton STAT.

I wrote Wanton over about five weeks, revising it up until the deadline. Then, blurry eyed and tired, I turned it in to my editor. That was stage one complete.

Developmental Edits

My editor took my first draft of Wanton and read it through. Then she wrote me an edit letter which is a document with recommendations about what to change, which parts need to be strengthened, and what new directions she’d like to see the story go in. Often these are very big picture changes to a book that develop character and plot (ie developmental edits).

In the case of Wanton, the edit letter included a big ask: rewriting the ending of the book because it was too similar to the ending of Wicked, which would be published immediately before it. Getting a note like that is nerve wracking because it seems like such a huge undertaking. (“I have to rewrite the whole end of a book? How do I even do that?!”) In the end, however, my editor was absolutely right, and the new ending has one of my favorite scenes I’ve ever written.

Accepted Into Production

Once you’ve handed in your dev. edits and your editor has gone through them, they might ask for another round of edits. However, if they’re happy with the changes made, your book will be accepted into production. Rejoice!

This is typically when authors get paid some part of their advance. (Advances are split up into parts. I’ve heard of a lot of different advance structures. So far I have been paid half on signing and half on acceptance of the manuscript.)

Line and Copy Edits

Next my editor did a line edit of Wanton (think a very close, line-by-line reading of the content of the text with lots of comments and markups in track changes) before she hands the book off to a copy editor. Some editors may send the line edits to their authors for approval and changes first, but the way we work I got the line edits at the same time as the copy edits.

The copy editor is looking for technical, grammatical problems with the manuscript. This is also the stage where the manuscript is checked for consistency. Copy editors have to be very detail oriented, and I’ve got a huge amount of respect for them because their job seems impossibly hard to me.

When Wanton went for copy edits, the copy editor made a list of all names, places, and dates referenced in the book. This is like a little bible that your book (and your series if you wind up writing multiple books in the same world) has to adhere to. They’re looking for consistency in names, timelines, physical descriptions. It turns out I’m not a strong timeline writer (I’m trying to get better!) so ages and dates are challenging for me. I received several notes on Wanton about whether someone was 28 or 30, what color some else’s eyes were, etc.

When I got back my line and copy edits, everything was marked up in track changes. This was my time to then accept or reject the changes in the manuscript. If I agreed with my editor and the copy editor, I would accept a change. If I didn’t, I would STET the edit in a comment, which basically meant, “I don’t agree with you, please leave the text as it was.” With historical romances you have to be particularly careful because not everyone is as familiar with conventions of the time like how siblings were addressed. (I’m the eldest of two sisters, so I would’ve most often been referred to as “Miss Kelly” and my younger sister would’ve been “Miss Justine” until either or both of us were married.)

This was also the time where I got to write my dedication and my acknowledgements pages.

Proofs

Once you send back your copy edits, it’s time for the pages to be set. This is the first time your book looks like an actual book. Since Wanton was published exclusively as an ebook, this meant that my editor sent me a PDF proof of what the book was going to look like on an eReader screen. This is particularly exciting because in my case it meant seeing the title page, pretty chapter headings, page breaks, etc.

The purpose of looking over a proof is to make sure that all of the changes from the copy edits made it in. It’s also a time to sweep for typos. Thankfully I was far from the only set of eyes on the book because at this point I’d read my own manuscript at least eight times. Try editing something you’ve written and read that many times. It’s…hard.

Proofs are the only time that I actually print out and hold my book anymore. I mark up actual pages with colorful pen (my favorite is pink which, now that I think of it, may delight or irritate my proofreader) and then send photographs of the galleys back to my editor to point out where I found typos.

Proofs are not the time for major content changes to a book. They are, essentially, a last check of the book to make sure everything looks okay.

Publication

Rejoice again! You have a book that readers can actually read!

There’s a lot more that goes into prepping a book for publication including back cover copy and marketing, but that’s a whole separate blog post for another day. In terms of the editorial process, you’re done and ready to move on to writing your next great novel because writers never stop writing.

How Bullet Journaling Changed Everything

Last year was a game-changer for me. My first books with a publisher came out, and I switched roles at my day job and took on more responsibility than I’ve ever had before. The only way I was able to keep on top of those big, big changes and everything that came along with them was because for the first time in my life I found a planning system that works for me.

Some people are planners and some people aren’t. I’m definitely the planning kind, but in 30 years of searching I hadn’t found a system that I liked. I’ve tried everything from simple pen and paper lists to complicated apps that give you lots of options to categorize and tag your tasks. Typically I’d use a system for a month thinking I’d found something I could stick with, but then each and every time I’d cast it aside because it didn’t fit.

It turns out, I was looking for a planning system that “looks like my brain” and mimics the way I think. I found it when I discovered bullet journaling.

I’m not going to teach you how to bullet journal. There’s a whole website dedicated to that and the video above is a good place to start. (I’m also not terribly artistic so I won’t be showing off inspirational, beautiful bullet journal pages.) What I am going to do is tell you why this system worked for me.

Remember how I said I needed an organizational plan that looks like my brain? Bullet journaling has stuck with me for more than a year because it’s flexible and nimble, just the way my brain is. I use a squared Moleskine Cahier notebook in a larger traveler’s notebook for my bullet journal. That means no strict calendar pages or pages that I’ll leave blank and that will bother me when I’m on vacation. Perfect.

My bullet journal is basically two types of to do lists and a meal planner. When I sit down each week, I start with a spread of two blank pages. This is my weekly spread. The left-hand side is a meal planning page with each day broken down into lunch, dinner, and an afternoon snack (especially important on days when I know I’ll be working out after my day job). I use that page to plan a week ahead of time when I’m going to be cooking and build a grocery list next to it.

A weekly spread with meal planning on the left and a weekly to do list on the right.

On the right side of the weekly spread I create a to do list for the entire week. This isn’t every minor task that needs to get done, but the big picture things or tasks I don’t want to forget about if they’re a few days out. I don’t separate out personal life, day job, and writing because I’ve found that if I do I neglect the tasks that I’m less enthusiastic about. (Who really wants to pick up their dry cleaning when it’s 18 degrees outside?) If it’s all in once place, I can’t avoid it.

Check out two daily to do lists for the price of one!

The second type of to do list I use is a daily one. I wanted to save paper in this example so I collapsed Saturday and Sunday onto the same page, but you can see that each task is listed. If I didn’t finish a task on one day, I carry it over and write it down the next day. The list is always changing and very flexible, but it’s always there. Since I’m adding everything from writing to appointments to household tasks, I always know what my time constraints look like at a glance. If I go on vacation, I can set the bullet journal aside and not worry about wasting paper.

Many people are attracted to bullet journaling because of the “collections” (more permanent lists that can easily be found because many bullet journalers also create an index and page numbers for their collections). I use a separate notebook to write down all of the books I read each year, and this year I’ve expanded to include a list of all of the movies I watched. For now, however, that’s enough for me. I’ve realized that the best organizational system is one that you actually use, and the weekly spread, meal plan, and daily lists are what works for me.

What if any planning system do you use? I’d also be really curious to hear what readers to do keep track of their books. Goodreads? A paper list? Let me know by leaving a comment!

Running in London

For me, the holidays mean packing up my suitcase and heading to my parents’ house in London. After growing up in LA, it’s home base now and I’ve been enjoying getting to know the city I’ve visited a lot but never lived in.

Last spring I picked up a new, healthy habit: running. A year ago, I would have jokingly told you that I only run when I’m being chased, but now I’ve been lacing up my shoes four or five times a week to hit the park or the treadmill. I decided to bring running shoes with me because I wanted to keep the momentum going through my vacation—plus I thought it would be a fun way to see the neighborhoods around the house in London.

I like running in parks because I don’t have to stop for red lights, and I’m lucky enough that the house is close to four major Central London parks: Hyde Park, Kensington Park, Green Park, and St. James’s Park. They’re all interesting in their own ways, and I wanted to run in all of them to see a bit more than I had while wandering with the dogs who are cute but not great running companions.

Meet Nick and Nora, the family’s adorable but dirty bichons.

Hyde Park, the biggest of the parks, is probably familiar to most historical romance readers because it’s the site of Rotten Row where gentlemen of the ton use to go to exercise their horses. It’s still used as a bridal path, but I stuck to the outer loop of the park which meant I got an excellent view of the Italian gardens at the top of the Serpentine.

Italian Gardens in Hyde Park

Hyde Park is situated right next to Kensington Park, which is where Kensington Palace sits. During my visit I made sure to run by the statue of Queen Victoria that stands outside its gates because it was carved by the queen’s daughter, Princess Louise, who is providing some of the inspiration for the heroine in the first book of my next historical series (it’s too early to give all the details away about that one, but you guys can be the first to be in the know when by signing up for my newsletter).

Princess Louise’a sculpture of her mother, Queen Victoria, in front of Kensington Palace

Green Park is a small park that sits right across the street from Buckingham Palace, and below the Mall is St. James’s Park.

The gates of Buckingham Palace

My sister and I goofing off outside Buckingham Palace

I ran through Green Park, down Constitution Walk, and into St. James’s Park on a bitterly cold morning last week. (It was so cold that when I ran into my sister, her boyfriend, and my Dad walking the dogs, my sister pointed out that my hat had frosted over.) There’s a beautiful pond in the middle of the park that you can run around but sadly I don’t have photos of because it was so cold my phone died. (See?) The ducks and geese looked at me like I was crazy, but it’s so pretty out there that it was worth their judgemental looks.

I also made it down to the Embankment near Westminster Abbey and ran along the Thames River, which is also wonderful. I’d have photos for you, but again, cold.

For more photos from my London trip, be sure to follow me on Instagram and Facebook!

Top 10 Books of 2016

The end of the year is naturally a time for reflection, and for writers and readers that often means looking back at the year in books. This year I’m rounding up my top 10 reads of 2016.

I’ve already talked a bit about four of my favorite books from the year over on my First Draught podcast. You can give it a watch here if you’re curious (and want to hear me gush about The Hating Game):

A couple caveats before I start. I’m not great at keeping up with new releases, so every year I read a smattering of books that have come out in the last couple years as well as older titles. I also read pretty widely across genres and always pick up a lot of British history every year. It turns out 2016 was no different.

So, in no particular order, here they are my favorite reads of 2016!

[image error]The Hating Game, by Sally Thorne (Contemporary Romance)

This was hands down my favorite book of the year. I actually read it via a wonderfully narrated audiobook, and I couldn’t stop listening. It’s the story of a workplace battle of the sexes romance and it’s jam-packed with snappy banter, a slow burn love story, and a smart, sharp heroine. I highly, highly recommend it, especially if you’re looking for an escape this holiday season.

[image error]Royally Screwed, by Emma Chase (Contemporary Romance)

Another audiobook with a great narrator (Shane East, your voice is delicious). This was a fun fantastical romance with a very dirty-minded yet dutiful prince and a coffeeshop waitress who fall in love over pie in Brooklyn. While Nicholas’s perspective sucked me into the narrative, it was Olivia’s POV that kept me engaged. She gets to be strong and sexy, vulnerable and stubborn. I’m not eagerly anticipating the next book, Royally Matched, which is set to come out early next year.

[image error]Fire Me Up, by Kimberly Kincade (Contemporary Romance)

I have a weakness for romances that center around restaurants and bars because they so often feature heroes who are chefs. This book sizzles with Adrian, the damaged motorcycle-riding chef, at the center of it, and the hero, Teagan is just the sort of strong, take-no-shit heroine to go toe-to-toe with him.

[image error]Never Judge a Lady by Her Cover, by Sarah MacLean (Historical Romance)

I’ve really enjoyed MacLean’s Rule of Scoundrels series—so much so that I was really hesitant to pick up this last book and close out the series. I needn’t have worried. I don’t want to summarize what happens in this book for fear that I’ll give away some major series secrets, but I will say that this book has the only indoor swimming pool I’ve ever read about in a London-set historical romance and it’s put to good use.

[image error]Right Wrong Guy, by Lia Riley (Contemporary Romance)

Full disclosure, Lia Riley is a friend and represented by my agent.

You always want your friends books to be excellent, and it’s so satisfying when that’s exactly what you get. I love a reforming hero book, and this book opens with Archer waking up after a threesome he can’t remember in a Vegas hotel room. That was my first clue that this was going to heat up the small town contemporary romances that I’ve come to expect. Sure enough, the sex scenes sizzle and the characters pop off the page. I can’t wait to read the rest of the series.

[image error]Perv, by Dakota Gray (Erotic Romance)

In case the cover and title weren’t big enough hints, this book is very, very hot. But while sex drives the plot, it’s the relationship between the characters and the ways they encourage/force each other to grow that drives its emotional center. Yet another book where the heroine stood out for me.

[image error]Uprooted, by Naomi Novak (Fantasy)

So let’s talk about covers for a moment. I hate the American one and love the British one (which is the version that my sister sent me from the UK). Now that’s admittedly petty criticism of the marketing choice is out of the way, I talked a lot about this book in this month’s First Draught episode so all I’ll say is this is a briskly paced adult fairytale filled with action. It was another book I couldn’t put down.

[image error]The Blackhouse, by Peter May (Mystery)

I like my mysteries bloody, depraved, and emotionally scarring. The first book in Peter May’s Lewis series is all of those things. It follows an Edinburgh detective facing his own personal tragedy who gets recalled to his native Lewis to solve a brutal murder on the island. While the mystery serves at the backdrop for the book, it really focuses on the people who live on island—a world that is strangely and wonderfully rendered so that it feels almost like its own character.

[image error]His Bloody Project, by Graem Macrae Burnet (Historical Fiction)

Centered around another brutal murder in Scotland (apparently this was a reading theme for me this year), you already know who did it when you begin reading this book. Instead the mystery lies in the why. His Bloody Project is told as though it’s a collection of medical documents, court room testimony, and the murderer’s confession, and it makes for a riveting read.

[image error]The Mistresses of Cliveden, by Natalie Livingstone (British History)

The best nonfiction I read this year, The Mistresses of Cliveden tells the story of a historic house through the women who lived there and/or owned it. It’s a collection of fascinating biographies that highlights women who were significant to British history as politicians, de facto royal advisors, and trendsetters.

Writing to Music

A version of this post previously appeared on Tina Klinesmith’s website when she graciously hosted me for the release of The Governess Was Wicked. 

Music is a big part of my writing process, but ironically it doesn’t come into play until I’m editing a book. For some reason I can’t write to music, but I love listening when I’m working through revisions. The music helps evoke a mood. It keeps me on track with the emotional direction of a book and makes it easier for me to jump back in after a long day of work and real life.

I wrote my Governess series at what felt like a breakneck pace. I would be writing one book in about three weeks, taking a week to edit it, and then using the remaining week to do a polish pass before sending it off to my editor. All the while, I was usually also tackling developmental edits for the previous book. Because all the books were going at once, I ended up lumping all of the playlists I’d started for each book together and created this one big list.

Here’s the playlist I listened to to hundreds of times while working on The Governess Was Wicked, The Governess Was Wanton, and The Governess Was Wild along with a short description of my top five favorites under the embed:

“Superpower” — Beyonce

Hands down, this was my go to song, especially when I decided to completely rewrite the last half of The Governess Was Wanton. “Superpower” is slow, dreamy, and sexy. It never quite crescendos, and it’s perfect to put on loop while wearing noise cancelling headphones (not that I would know). Every time I hear it now I’m immediately transported back to the world of the Governess series.

“Work Song” — Hozier

Here’s another moody, sexy song. It’s a quiet, reverential love letter and felt absolutely perfect for my story about a slow burn, years-long love in The Governess Was Wicked. Even more of a bonus, it’s by Hozier. I fell in love with his album back in 2014 and think he makes some pretty perfect writing music.

“Hello” — Adele

Every book needs a dark moment, and this felt like a great accompaniment part of all three of my books. Adele manages to pull out such deep, fraught emotion in her songs that it’s hard not to get wrapped up them. I put this one in particular on my playlist because it’s about grieving the death of a relationship. While some of her other songs are also powerful — especially “Someone Like You” — this one fit the books better.

“Love Me Like You Do” — Ellie Goulding

If I had to make a list of rules for romance novel playlists it would probably read something like this: every playlist must have a sexy song for the very sexy times, an angsty song for the dark moment, and a joyful song for the “realization of love and reconciliation” moment. This is my joyful song. There’s something about the buildup throughout the first verses that just sends it soaring about halfway through. It’s perfect for that big “he loves me” moment.

“XO” — Beyonce

Another Beyonce song (one of three but who’s counting). This also falls solidly into the joyful zone. Like, “sing at the top of your lungs because this is your anthem of love” joyful. It also has a big, swooping crescendo, and the lyrics talk about her lover being as “bright as ever” and finding him “in the darkest night.” It’s the perfect way to end a book about love and romance.