Last night I “finished” Serving Sin, the third book in the Filthy Rich series. Finished gets quote marks because there are a couple of revisions with my editor and copyedits to look forward to. But I emailed it to my editor, Carina Press’s amazing Kerri Buckley.
And then I cried.
I cried because the conclusion of this series marks an amazing, awful, dream-fulfilling, endurance-test-running time in my life. I can’t believe what the last five years have involved.
Five years ago today, my father died in a truly awful highway accident. I put aside the book I’d been working on because of my father’s death and at Christmas of that year, came up with the idea for The Billionaire’s Prince, which later became Lush Money.
After twenty years of writing and a lifetime spent wanting to be a fiction writer, Lush Money became the book that got me my agent and my very first three-book publishing contract.
I can’t believe my dad has missed all of it. He would have gotten such a kick out of my publishing journey. Although I would have been very specific about what pages he needed to skip reading.
“I cried because the conclusion of this series marks an amazing, awful, dream-fulfilling, endurance-test-running time in my life. I can’t believe what the last five years have involved.”
Four years ago, The Billionaire’s Prince was humming along. But my husband’s job was sputtering. And we knew our oldest son, a just-graduated senior, was unhappy. But we didn’t have the experience or vocabulary to help him understand why.
Three years ago, my husband was unemployed for a year and our incredible awesome-sauce of a son came home from his freshman year in college, diagnosed with a life-stopping social anxiety disorder.
Over the last three years, our whole family has learned to be different. More understanding. Less judgmental. With a broader view of how people in the world work. My sadly narrow view of mental health has grown exponentially.
I wrote Lush Money and Hate Crush while we were learning to support our son and help him understand how his brain ticks. Lush Money debuted to the world during one of the most harrowing times of his mental health journey.
Two years ago, I signed with my incredible agent, Sara Megibow.
A year ago, I signed a three-book deal with Carina Press.
When the writing organization I’d relied on for 20 years, the Romance Writers of America, imploded right after my book debuted, I thought that was the worst thing that was going to happen in 2020.
Heh.
But while I wrote Serving Sin, the last book in the series, during a pandemic I:
Sold a house (during a pandemic)
Promoted the release of the second book in the series, Hate Crush, while defying the sophomore curse with good reviews (during a pandemic)
Kept my family balanced and emotionally healthy (during a pandemic)
Moved halfway across the country (during a pandemic)
Did I mention that all that happened during a pandemic?
So, yeah, yesterday as I sent Serving Sin off to my editor, there were a tears. A decent level of ugly crying. The book is going to be dedicated to my dad. And to my son. Next week, he returns to Rice University to continue pursuing his physics degree.
What an incredible five years it’s been.
