What's Coming in 2025

My new logo

Welp. It’s 2025.

I’ve been absent on social media since the election. I’m finding it impossible to write stories about strong women and worthy men when the majority of white men voted to oppress and white women and Latino men voted for their oppressors. 

It’s hard to believe in HEA’s right now. 

So what’s next? I’m still writing. I’m working on book about a Chicana teen in the late 90s seeking vengeance. Working on this book has been intensely fulfilling during these dark days. Obviously, this is a new direction for me, but one that I hope will provide the notice and income that romance publishing didn’t provide. 

In 2023, I fired my agent and walked away from a really lousy contract. I hope the third book in the Milagro Street series sees the light of day one day. But I couldn’t keep working as hard as I was with so little support, recognition, or effort to sell my work from my publisher and agent. I was also demoralized by romance readers’ continued resistance to reading stories by authors of color. 

I hold deep gratitude to everyone who loved my books, shared them, and reviewed them. Without you, the last five years would’ve felt like a failure.

I don’t know when romance and I will see eye to eye again. Anything can happen and I’m holding space for anything to happen while updating those of you loyal enough to subscribe to my blog or check out my website. I hope some of you will come with me as my writing career expands to encompass other genres. 

In the meantime, I still have books you can buy. I still have events happening. As you can see below, I still have many ideas percolating. For the romance writers out there, aspiring or otherwise, I’d love to get your thoughts, if you’d participate in a short survey. I’m doing what I can to fill the uncertain future with new opportunities. 

 As always, thank you for your support,

---

Would you be interested in taking a sex scene writing course from me?

I’ve been slowly putting together a workshop titled:

How to write sex scenes readers (and your book) can’t live without

Readers have always seemed to find my love scenes effective (heh), and in this era of censorship and purity culture, it feels like an act of resistance to teach people how to write pulse-pounding sex scenes that are as important to the plot as the climax (heh!). 

I’m sorry. I’m 12. 

If you’d be interested in taking such a course from me, please fill out the short survey in the link below…

13 romance authors making space in the genre from Kirkus Reviews

I was deeply honored to be included in this Kirkus Reviews article "13 Romance Authors Making Space in the Genre” from Jennifer Prokop with powerhouse authors I respect deeply. Romance can reach wide and far to tell so many varieties of stories and provide so many examples of love under the ultimately comforting umbrella of a happily-ever-after.

Angelina M. Lopez has written an entire pantheon of women who refuse to be pigeonholed by society’s expectations—the type of character who challenges romance readers’ patriarchal notions of worth and likability. Like society itself, romance readers can be remarkably forgiving of the flaws in male characters while criticizing the smallest imperfections in female characters: On the “there be” scale, it’s unlikable heroines right after dragons. Lopez’s debut, Lush Money, presents a thorny, difficult heroine who is firmly in the power position of the relationship, a billionaire who hires a prince to father her child.  In her latest series, Lopez levels up once again. She writes deep, complex women who have been pulled back home, but with interesting dilemmas and nuanced conflicts rather than the commonplace and cliched Hallmark movie–style homecoming. In Full Moon Over Freedom, Gillian Armstead-Bancroft chooses assimilation and social mobility over Freedom, Kansas. Everything seems perfect, she’s the “pride of the East side,” but it’s all a lie. Gillian is a bruja, desperately trying to fix the curse that’s ruined her life. Lopez effortlessly tackles the realities of life in a small town while unpacking Latine stereotypes and exploring the failures and triumphs of the misunderstood heroine.

Click here to read the full article.

Read a new short story from me and support those in Maui!

For my story in Aloha: An Anthology for Maui, I Googled "Can you do it on a paddle board?"

Yes. You can.

If the opportunity to read a rare paddle board sex scene in my story, A Mermaid and A Star (see excerpt below), isn't enough reason to order this beautiful anthology, then hopefully the fact that it includes works from more than fifty of your favorite authors all coming together to raise money for Maui will be!

All royalties from the collection will be donated to Maui Food Banks and the Maui Fire Relief Fund to help support the victims of the devastating fires. ALOHA will only be available for a limited time, so one-click your copy before it's gone.

AUTHORS INCLUDE: K.A. Linde, Adriana Locke, Alessandra Torre, Penny Reid, Rachel Van Dyken, Willow Winters, Brittainy Cherry, Aleatha Romig, Heidi McLaughlin, Crystal Perkins, Helena Hunting, Jessica Ashley, LB Dunbar, Ren Alexander, Skye Warren, Tara Brown, Tia Louise, Diana Peterfreund, Jamie K. Schmidt, Alexandria Bishop, Maria Luis, Kasey Metzger, Julia Kent, Karina Halle, Trilina Pucci, Carly Phillips, Aarti V. Raman, Jill Ramsower, Amber Kelly, Eric Asher, Julie Leto, Kimberly Reese, Kayti McGee, Lauren Rowe, Pepper Winters, M. Robinson, J.L. Baldwin, Brittany Holland, Angelina M. Lopez, Jiffy Kate, Lex Martin, MJ Fields, Emma Louise, Catalina Snow, Dee Lagasse, Cary Hart, Aly Martinez, Fiona Cole, Jay McLean, Jana Aston

Order Links:

✦ Amazon → https://geni.us/AmazonAloha
✦ Paperback → https://geni.us/PbkAloha
✦ B&N → https://geni.us/NookAloha
✦ Apple → https://geni.us/AppleAloha
✦ Kobo → https://geni.us/KoboAloha
✦ Google Play → https://geni.us/GoogleAloha

---

Exclusive Excerpt of A Mermaid and Her Star
By Angelina M. Lopez

…Today was her first day off after three days chronicling Aish in the studio and while she wanted to explore Oahu, she figured she would spend the day drowsing on the paddle board that she’d gotten pretty good at as a first-timer and adjusting to the fact that she was hanging out with a rock star and a princess. When was someone going to pinch her and wake her up?

Her board bumped into the black, jagged lava rocks that made up the jetty between the beach houses that were in sight of each other but far enough away to provide space and privacy. A shadow fell over her.

“You’re trespassing on my beach,” a gruff voice said.

She yelped with surprise, dropped the paddle she’d been hanging on to, and scrambled up on her hands. Above her, a man stood on the levee outlined by the sun like Poseidon risen up from the water. He was a solid shadow, but the perimeter of him showed turquoise board shorts, well-defined biceps, broad brown shoulders, a trim black scruff over a square jaw, and a thick swoop of black hair as he looked down at her.

She should be inoculated to shocks by now, but she still felt little spots around the edge of her vision. There was no way it was him. But it was him. She knew that outline like the back of her hand.

To read all of Mermaid and Her Star, order Aloha: An Anthology for Maui now!

5 Tips to Writing An Effective Sex Scene

(Author’s note: Once a month, I offer writing tips to my Hyperromantic Authors on Patreon. I wanted to share a smidge of this month’s offering on a topic near-and-dear to my heart with all of you. For $5/month, you can sign up to read the entire article AND receive writing articles and sexy short stories from me every month!)

“Lopez …makes a profound statement about being an American amid absolutely mind-blowing sex scenes. It’s her ability to balance these lascivious passages with pointed, meaningful storytelling that sets her work apart and makes her a writer worth returning to again and again.”
--Maureen Lee Lenker, Entertainment Weekly

I like sex scenes. Before I began writing, sex scenes were my favorite part of the book. They were what I would read over and over again, as you can tell by the bends in my paperbacks. It’s easy to dismiss this as horny inclinations, but that would too easily dismiss the value and distinctiveness of the romance novel genre.

In mysteries, we love the unwinding of the whodunnit. In horror novels, we love the slow creep down the hall to the terrifying reveal. These books create a feeling that readers sign up for when they buy them.

A great romance novel captures the visceral sensation of falling in love. It is a sensation that has launched a thousand ships and sent people into murder and madness. It is not to be trivialized. Many authors, myself included, consider physical chemistry and lust part and parcel to falling in love. Great sex scenes aren’t just about inserting tab A into slot B. Great sex scenes capture all the mystery and majesty of touching the person you will spend the rest of your life with for the very first time. Done well, all the high emotion and relinquishing of self and terror and hope and stumbling and flying of falling in love can happen in a sex scene.

No pressure, right?

Because I value and respect sex scenes, I’ve worked hard to make them powerful, compelling, and emotionally resonating in my books. Although I do not write erotica, you can’t skip a sex scene of mine without missing something integral to the plot, characters, and novel. Here are some tips to how I go about writing effective sex scenes.

Make characters’ sexual selves as distinctive as the rest of them.

You know your characters’ eye colors, jobs, thoughts about themselves, thoughts about their world, religion, favorite foods, etc. Their thoughts about sex, about themselves as sexual creatures, and how they approach the act is as distinctive as the rest of them. We do such a disservice to our characters and to our readers when we make every hero a growly alpha and every heroine an inexperienced virgin who effortlessly orgasms. Think through how their lives and upbringings inform their sexual selves, and how it repels and compliments the partner you’ve created for them.

In my debut book Lush Money, my billionaire businesswoman and the prince she tries to buy are powerful, epically attractive, sexually experienced, and overwhelmingly confident. When they first have sex, it’s like a clash of the titans, with both of them warring for the upper hand. However, they’re both good people with deep wounds who crave to be loved, and this vulnerability and tenderness toward each other comes into play in the bedroom way before they’re willing to let it show in real life.

Get four more tips on writing effective sex scenes by signing up on Patreon…

Advice I would give to baby author me

In 2011, I finished my first book. It was a stormy Saturday when I typed THE END, and I turned to my husband, who was sleeping on the couch, and whispered, “I’m done.” It felt like there should have been a parade marching through our study and fireworks exploding. 
 
That book was called Don’t Want Your Freedom, and it was about a divorced mom of two, Gillian Armstrong-Bancroft, who returns to her hometown of Freedom, Kansas hoping to be able to leave by the end of the summer. There, on the side of a country road, she runs into childhood friend, Nicky Phillips. After some misunderstandings, the two begin a summer fling they both swear will be “just for the summer.”
 
Sound familiar? 
 
On September 5, Full Moon Over Freedom, my book about divorced mom of two Gillian Armstead-Bancroft and her pining childhood friend, Nicky Mendoza, will be released. This second book in the Milagro Street series is a wildly reinvented version of that original first book. That first book won an unpublished author contest but, rightfully, was rejected by the agents I sent it to. It went under the bed and a lot happened between then and now.
 
As I look at this completing full circle, with twelve years, a metamorphosized romance industry, and five traditionally published books under my belt, it makes me think about what I would say to that young, hopeful writer on that stormy day.

Here’s the advice I would give to my younger self about:

The Biz

1. You’re not going to be special. I know this seems harsh. But while we all hear about the hardships in publishing, we all assume those hardships won’t happen to us. We all believe we’re going to be the one break-out author of the season. How many people have said something about you being, “The next Stephen King…J.K Rowling…Colleen Hoover…” Trust me, you’re not. The sooner you can embrace the climb of being an author, the happier you’ll be.

2. You’re not going to make as much money as you think. Your numbers and expectations are SOOOOOOO WRONG. Call an author with your publisher and asked hard truths about income. Talk to the million of authors you know and ask about the financial side. Most of us are not making what even amounts to a part-time job and never will. That’s the cold hard truth. 

3. Listen to your gut. Always. Go with it. Every time you do, even when others disagree with your decision, the end result is what you want. Every time you don’t, you regret it.

4. Be kind, but straightforward. Be polite, but advocate for your best interest. 

My Fellow Folks in the Publishing Biz

5. Share everything you learn. Share what you know. Mentor less-experienced authors. Give what you learn away (in informal conversations; if somebody wants you to speak or lead a workshop, GET THAT CASH!). Always do it in good faith and with a good heart. Helping others will help you pull your head out of your butt during your worst moments.

6. Be careful who you listen to. You’re going to meet so many incredible people in publishing and get so much amazing advice. But as you learn more and get further along in the business, it will be important to avoid taking everything you hear as fact. Bad info on a bad day can send you spiraling.

7. Ask a million questions. You’re going to be told a lot, “That’s just the way things are.” Ask why, even when you’re made to feel like you’re not supposed to ask questions. This business is opaque and there are a million “that’s just the way things are” that make no sense. Push back. Be a pain. Ask questions.

8. Don’t actively make enemies. The publishing world is tiny and every person you run into, you will see again. If you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all. Take a lesson from the writer we know who goes around giving other writers low-starred reviews. You will need to hold the hands of others to survive and rise, so don’t slap those hands away.

Promotion

9. Set hard limits around social media. Set a schedule for when you will post and check social media. Stick to it. Social media will be the number one sapper of your joy. You will see friends, wonderful, talented friends, lay down their pens because of the toxicity of social media. Set hard limits early and stick to them. Once you figure this out, you will be so much happier as a writer and person.

10. Hype your book and your writer self. No one else will. No one will love your book, your characters, your writing, as much as you. You’re an introvert writer who isn’t built to self promote. Self promotion is THE LAST thing you want to do. But no one will love your book as deeply as you do, so promote the crap out of yourself and that book to make sure those characters get to sing in as many readers’ heads as humanly possible.

11. Be willing to do the small stuff. As a traditionally published author, it’s going to be pretty opaque about what you do versus what your publisher does. Be willing to do it all. Set up your book launch events. Contact podcasts. Offers ARCs (POLITELY) to influencers (this one is soooooooooo hard!). Promote your book. Contact organizations and offer yourself as a speaker. Don't be too proud (see Rule No. 1).

Being A Writer

13. Do the unglamorous job of setting routines. Writing romance is not a sexy job. But it makes you happy. Set a schedule for your writing and marketing and stick to it. You'll discover that the muse does come when she knows what time to show up.

14. Believe in the process of drafting, revising and editing. You’ve heard about a certain famous romantic suspense author’s ability to write a perfect first draft from her outline and it will screw you up for a few years. It will take you an entire week to write 250 words. Every word will be a pound heavy and land on the page like permanent ink. Don’t do that to yourself. You will never be happier than when you learn how delete-able those words are. Once you lean into the process of messy first drafts, revising, and editing to get to a book you love, you, your characters, plots, scenarios, and books benefit from it. You’re going to write a book with a ghost in it!

15. Meet your deadlines. Communicate early and often when you can’t. When you meet your deadlines, you build goodwill for the times when you need some leeway.

16. There is no such thing as perfect. You will never reach the top of the mountain, not in your writing or career, because there is no such thing. Once you reach the mountain top, the clouds clear and there is just another peak or valley. Or a new mountain. So don’t strive for perfection. Strive for a good writing day. Try something new. Learn more. Share something with someone who needs to hear it. That’s far more satisfying than the mirage of perfection. 

17. Celebrate the wins. There are so many unwashed-and-in-yoga-pants days. There are a lot of frustrating days when this road seems to be going in the wrong direction. So when you get a win, no matter how small, celebrate it. Share the wins with the loved ones in your life so that, if you forget to celebrate it, they’ll remind you. (Thank you, Peter!)

18. Love the process. Love your characters. Love your words on the page. There are going to be cold, grey days in February when all you’ve done for a month is sit at your computer. And that’s okay. Because, weirdly, you’re happiest at that computer, making up people doing made up things. If that’s where you’re going to be most of the time, you might as well love it. It’s okay to love it.
 
19. Remember: The books you write are your legacy. What do you want your legacy to be? Is it that the books you've written spread a message you value to the world? Is that they provided some financial support to you and your family? Is it that they were the soft landing after a reader's hard day? We don’t talk enough in romance about the importance and value and permanence of our books, but they are our legacy. Be proud of what that legacy is as you develop your career. Be proud of what you leave behind.

---

Preorder Full Moon Over Freedom from Blue Willow Bookshop by 8/30 and get a signed, personalized book as well as a coaster from Loretta’s!

Paying attention to inspiration

(Author’s note: I originally provided this article to my Hyperromantic Patreon subscribers at the $5/month tier. To read the full article, subscribe to my Hyperromantic Writers.)

The most common question I get as a multi-published romance author is “Where do you get your ideas from?”

It can seem so mystifying how a writer pulls thoughts and words from the air and turns them into a 100,000-word book, a book that can feel so real in reader’s minds. An author thought up REDRUM. An author thought up Hobbits. An author thought up a priest during truly filthy things with sacramental oil (and you know who you are, you naughty woman!). Every thought and every word and every book sprouts from a single moment of inspiration.

During a four-hour drive to Dallas last weekend, I listened to the phenomenal book The Villa by Rachel Hawkins. It’s not a spoiler to mention an early moment of inspiration for an author in the book. Houses remember, she writes in her journal. She instantly recognizes, as do we all, that it’s a fabulous line. Houses remember. It feels good on the tongue. The writer in the book isn’t sure how she’s going to use the line, isn’t even entirely sure what it’s referring to. She just knows it’s fabulous.

Listen to the hindbrain, not the muse

As an author who’s enjoyed my own moments of inspiration, I love this description of the hindbrain at work. Muses are flighty, too personified as something that can come and go, that can escape from you or that you must appease. The hindbrain is always there. In reality, the hindbrain regulates our automatic functions, like breathing and sleeping. The creative hindbrain works the same way, always back there, churning, working, processing your day through the lens of the stories you have to tell, sending up inspiration and character development and dialogue and, when the flow is right, whole pages of words.

You’re not shackled to the hindbrain. Your goal is to give it space to think it thoughts; the built skill is recognizing when it sends up creative gold.

Inspiration that launched my career

A gift from my hindbrain helped launched my publishing career. At the end of 2015, I’d been a longtime freelance writer, digital content consultant, and aspiring romance author. I was looking through books on my phone and thought I saw one titled “The Billionaire’s Prince.” (I tell this story a lot, so feel free to skip this part if you’ve already heard it.) I assumed this title was for a male/male book. In an instant, I realized that I assumed the billionaire in the title was a man. Deeply ashamed of myself for assuming a woman couldn’t be the billionaire, I realized just as quickly that that was the story I had to write: a story of a bad-ass billionaire businesswoman who had all the smarts, power, and resources to possess a prince.

From that hindbrain lightning strike, my debut book Lush Money was born.

Dialogue before characters

In my most recent release, After Hours on Milagro Street, my hindbrain delivered twice.

Before I even started the book, I wrote this down in my writing journal:

“I want you to understand something. My pussy...she’s not very discriminating. She’s attracted to most men. If we do anything, it’ll be hot. And memorable and interesting. But it won’t be special. It won’t be about you.”

Those who’ve read the book already know it’s what my heroine Alex tells our hero Jeremiah in a dark hallway before an angry reunion. The inspiration for this book sprang from multiple sources, but my concept for my furious heroine, the best bitch in bartending, sprang from this quote that came to me out of nowhere while I was sitting at my computer. I craved to write a heroine as self-possessed, as proud, as feral, and as giving as little fucks as the heroine in this quote.

My hindbrain gave me Alex and I thank it immensely.

Inspiration for the next book

In September, the second book in the Milagro Street series, Full Moon Over Freedom, will be released. It’s a second-chance romance book about a Gillian Armstead-Bancroft, a once-perfect wife and mom who’s lost her perfection, and Nicky Mendoza, the former bad-boy-turned-successful-artist who she hopes can help her get her groove back. She thinks of him as a very sexy long-lost friend and he, unfortunately, thinks of her as the girl he’s loved almost his whole life. The pining in this books is heart pumping!

Full Moon is an iteration of the first book I ever finished, in 2009. That first iteration wasn’t published for a reason (it was awful) but, while re-reading it in preparation for this book, I wrote down a passage from that original book:

"Why didn’t you ever ask me out?"

"You would have said ‘no.’ You were walking out of Freedom when we were in grade school. You had no time to waste on a boy who’d probably end up working at the plant….

Also, I was afraid you would just use me for sex."

In the 2009 installment, they’d never had sex and it’s now all they can think about. But in the current iteration, he’d been her “sex teacher” the summer after her freshman year in college. Unaware of his feelings, my very practical heroine viewed him as a practical solution to the problem of her virginity.

That line-- I was afraid you would just use me for sex—was the crux of the modern iteration, I realized. The original Nicky had better self-preservation instincts than the new Nicky, and that desire to protect himself now is one of the wedges keeping these two apart, although he can barely keep his hands off of her.

You never know when inspiration may strike. Listen to that hindbrain. Cultivate trusting it. And write down the treasures it sends you.

Preorder Full Moon Over Freedom now

Inspired by her own upbringing as a Mexican American in Kansas, Lopez offers a steamy love story that is also a repudiation of whitewashing history for the sake of upholding narrow definitions of what it is to be American…. It’s her ability to balance these lascivious passages with pointed, meaningful storytelling that sets her work apart and makes her a writer worth returning to again and again.

— Maureen Lee Lenker on After Hours on Milagro Street, Entertainment Weekly

5 Simple Writing Resolutions for 2023

(Author’s note: Below is an excerpt of the blog I provided to my $5/month Patreon subscribers. Each month, I provide a column or video on writing and a steamy short story to those who subscribe at the five-dollar level. Those who subscribe at the $3/month level get access to a new steamy short story every month, as well as all the stories I’ve provided in previous months.)

Turning over a new leaf for me has rarely happened on January 1.

My birthday coincides with the beginning of the school year, so for the first couple of decades of my life, the “new me” happened in September. Then, as a published author, the start of the 100,000-word odyssey of a new book was when I literally and figuratively began with a clean page.

This year, it just so happens that the beginning of the new year is paired with the beginning of a new book, the third book in the Milagro Street series. Since this is my sixth published book, I would love to tell you that I’ve perfected my system for book creation. I haven’t. You, dear hyperromantic author, can take both comfort and horror from that. Comfort because I’ve come to understand that my process is constantly changing and there is no one “right” way. Horror because the shifting sands beneath my feet – and yours -- may end up feeling like they’re always shifting.

That’s okay. We’ll breathe through it.

For 2023, I’m making five simple writing resolutions that might also help you daily get the words on the page.

#1 -  I resolve to tell the truth

I’m stealing this one from the amazing Grant Faulkner, the head of the organization that runs NaNoWriMo and an astonishing writer in his own right. In his January 1 newsletter on Substack, he talks about how much bravery it takes to write your “truth.” He quotes Anne Lamont: “Good writing is about telling the truth. We are a species that wants and needs to know who we are.”

My “truth” is that I believe women are fiercely powerful. Because we live in a society where women’s power has been historically undermined, I want to write heroines who are fierce the instant they show up on the page. I want to write women who make mistakes. I want to show women making their heroine’s journey to a place of integrity, peace, and joy. But many modern-day romance readers don’t want to see that journey – they want a woman to show up on the page in a way that they’re used, a way that makes them comfortable in its familiarity. They want to “like” her from go, without analyzing the unintentional bias they’ve absorbed to prevent them from liking her. But fierce female heroines are my truth, and I will continue to write them, even if that means taking some knocks from readers and reviewers.

What is your truth? What is the perhaps uncomfortable thing you want to say about women, men, people, relationships, loves, life, the world? I encourage you to say it. Your truth is unique, made of every day you’ve lived and every thought you’ve had, and will help lift your authorial voice above the din.

#2 - I resolve to reserve my most creative time for writing

I’ve talked about this one before. I will talk about it again. Mostly because, while it is the easiest and best tool for me to get to the end of a 100,000-word book, I still can ignore this tenet: I will guard my most creative time and do nothing but write during it.

My most creative time is from the instant I wake up until about 1 p.m. If I sit down to write as soon as I’ve exercised and washed my face, then the words are relatively easy to find, the big ideas of a book come to me, dialogue flows, and the puzzle pieces of a book fit together. At about 1 p.m., those connections start becoming fuzzy. My brain just doesn’t work as well. I can get a second writing wind at about 4 p.m., but at that point, afternoon meetings and family life begin to intrude.

For years now, I’ve known that morning writing works best for me, and yet I’m still so often tempted to work on social media in the morning. To schedule meetings during that time. To write a little article for Patreon. Even with proven success, I still screw with this.

Discover your most creative writing time – it could be first thing in the morning or in the middle of the night – and as often as you can, keep this time sacrosanct for your writing. Getting successful words on the page will plant the seeds for more successful words on the page.

To keep reading and discover my other three resolutions to help you get words on the page, subscribe to my Patreon at the hyperromantic Author level.

Read a steamy short story from me every month

You might have read The Phone Call, the free sexy short story about a young widow and her husband’s best friend that I offer to all my newsletter subscribers. If not, you can read it here. You might have been one of the readers who emailed me and said, “I loved this story…but what happens after they hang up?

Where’s the sexy scene?????”

I’m happy to announce that that sexy scene is now available in Star *69, my first steamy short story that I am offering on Patreon. For $3 a month, you can read a steamy short story from me every month!

What’s Patreon?

Patreon is a subscription service that gives you an opportunity to support the creators you really love, and it allows creators like me to deliver bonus content to you.

Why Patreon?

Early in my publishing days, I remember discussions about private jets and pool boys. But alas, the reality of being a published author is that it’s difficult to make a part-time living doing it, even though it's full-time work. Patreon is a way for me to keep doing this job I fundamentally believe I was put on the planet to do.

Weaving together all the stuff I put in my books takes time. Patreon will allow me to deliver quicker short bites of the escapist, sexy, over-the-top love stories that you’ve told me you love.

How does it work?

When you subscribe, you can choose three different tiers.

1. For $1 a month, you can show me your love and get occasional exclusive content.

2. For $3 a month, you get access to a steamy short story written by me every month. Love my love scenes? Subscribe and you’ll get a lot of them!

3. For $5 a month, you’ll get the short story and a blog or video about writing and my writing process. It’s a chance to see behind the scenes of being a working writer.

Here's a preview of my first short story offering, Star *69:

Three years after one of them (Sam) called the other one (Rosemarie) and began their at-least once-a-day phone calls and six weeks after their first astonishing kiss on Valentine’s Day and two weeks after Sam moved into his new (and hopefully temporary) apartment in Boston and four hours after dropping off the girls at her girlfriend’s house for the weekend, Rosemarie fidgeted in silence across from her best friend and new love on their first date.

Not even the low candlelight and heavy rain hitting the windows of this high-end restaurant on the harbor could hide the nerves in Sam’s eyes as he poked at the ice in his Old Fashioned.

If she wasn’t so nervous herself, she could tease this confident, worldly man focused on his cocktail like it was a specimen in a lab. But in a new flowy sapphire silk dress with her hair blown-out and her makeup professionally applied, she felt like a sugar skull that would crumble apart if she behaved like she usually did. He was so gorgeous in the candlelight, a charcoal suit over his fit body, his thick dark-blond hair brushed back when she’d only seen it flicky and wavy, perfectly shaved when she liked his scruff. Rosemarie had watched the cute coat check girl eye him up and down as he’d removed his trench coat and she knew (thanks to her curiosity-killed-the-cat questions about his love life) that it’d taken less provocation for him to approach and take home a woman.

As she carefully pushed a highly sprayed curl behind her shoulder, the reminder that she was finally going to make love to this man who’d experienced the act with so many didn’t ease her nerves.

The movement caught his eye. He flashed a grin that didn’t relax either of them... (Click to keep reading.)

I can’t thank you enough as I take this next step!

6 tips for writing your first draft

There is nothing more daunting than a blank page.

Although the book I’ve just turned in to my editor — Full Moon Over Freedom, Book 2 in the Milagro Street series — is the fifth book I’ve written for publication, the blank page I’m staring at as I begin to cogitate Book 3 is no less daunting.

Maybe, on November 1, you’ll also be staring at a blank page as you embark on NaNoWriMo? For the uninitiated, National Novel Writing Month is when writers strive to write 50,000 words in November. It’s an ode to the fast draft. I was honored to be invited this summer to be a counselor at Camp NaNoWriMo, which is a calmer effort in April and July to meet a word-count goal that you set.

Here are six tips that I provided my campers about writing that intimidating first draft.

Keep your most creative time sacrosanct for writing

When do your words flow best? First thing in the morning, middle of the night, after a nap? Discover your most creatively productive time then — as much as real life allows — protect that time for your writing. Lock your office door, disconnect your computer from the internet, and ignore your emails. The success you gain from writing during your most productive time will help you maintain momentum. This was an “of course, duh” piece of writing advice I got from the phenomenal writing coach, Dan Blank.

Say “yes, and…” not “no” while writing your first draft

You have plenty of time to edit, revise, and align something for the market. You first draft is your opportunity to let your voice and creativity flourish. Say “yes, and…” to your wild ideas and bonkers inclinations. Follow where they lead; don’t shut them down. The uniqueness of your voice is what will lead to your publishing success, and you unlock that voice by letting it sing.

Write your first draft like a horse wearing blinders

Whether you plot or write by the seat of your pants, write your first draft looking forward not back. Gnarly things happen to a writer — like never finishing a book — when they’re constantly trying to tinker. Trust that will get to know your characters, theme, and plot by writing it, and that you can sharpen and alter in the subsequent drafts. Embrace the fact that your first draft will be meandering, but you will learn so much by taking the journey.

Stuck? Step away from your computer

Taking a walk is writing. Heading down to the coffee pot is writing. Showering is writing. Emptying the dishwasher is writing. Your brain will continue to work on your story even when you’re not at the keyboard. So if you’ve been working on the same sentence and it’s not going anywhere, step away for five-ten-fifteen minutes (set a timer so the break doesn’t become the end of your writing time), let your brain relax, then go back to the writing. You’ll be surprised how quickly you’ll solve what was ailing you.

Trust your process

I just finished my fifth book for publication and I still had to tell myself this. I know what works for me — a couple of weeks research before I start, a bare outline, pantsing a book, knowing the book will strengthen in tone, theme, and character development in revisions. But I still have moments when I’m certain my career is over. Figure out the writing process that works for you, don’t worry about what others tell you is the “right” way to do it, and trust that your process will deliver you a book that you’re in love with.

Lean into your word-count goals and deadlines

What’s nice about NaNoWriMo and Camp NaNoWriMo is that they are goal-oriented months that end. So for those month — November, April, or July — let your goal dictate how you spend your free time. Let it be the excuse you use for your RSVPs. Let it be a word count you put in your daily calendar. Instead of being the inspiration killers so many people think they are, goals and deadlines can actually be helpful guardrails that aim you where you want to go. In his book, Pep Talks for Writers, Grant Faulkner calls them “the most important concepts in living the artistic life.”

Limit your time on social media.

As a professional author, I have found nothing more motivation-stealing than social media. If you are a developing writer, I urge you to limit the amount of time you spend in the social media book world. Like literally, set a 15-minute timer. Find out what’s happening in your genre and market, then get out. Listen to your gut about what you’re going to believe in terms of advice and trends. And don’t let it sap your writing joy.

---

Want to get a sneak peek at
Full Moon Over Freedom?

*Cover placeholder. Cover reveal coming soon!

When the newly divorced Juliana “Gillian” Armstead-Bancroft has to return to her small Kansas hometown for the summer, she runs into the childhood friend and bad boy she hoped to never see again. Discover what happens when the once-perfect East Coast wife and mom gets her groove back with the small-town-boy-turned-artist who taught her how!

Get a taste of Full Moon Over Freedom, follow-up to the critically acclaimed After Hours on Milagro Street, in the September newsletter. Sign up now!

New sexy short audio story available on Read Me Romance podcast

Just two weeks before After Hours on Milagro Street, my first book in my new small-town, high-heat, Latinx series comes out, I’m thrilled to announce that I have a short and sexy audio-story called Touch Me available on the podcast Read Me Romance (check out listening links below). Read Me Romance is a free weekly podcast hosted by New York Times bestselling authors Alexa Riley and Tessa Bailey that features a free romance audiobook.

Even more exciting is that audiobook queen Stacy Gonzalez is the narrator!!! Stacy has narrated the audiobook for After Hours on Milagro Street, so you can get a free awesome preview of her work by listening to Touch Me. If you go to the Read Me Romance website, you can also enter a giveaway for a signed copy of After Hours of Milagro Street and Lush Money.

Narrated by Stacy Gonzalez. See below for listening links.

Marisol Gutierrez had it all – an amazing husband, great kids, and a successful investment firm. But when you’ve got it all, you’ve got it all to lose, and the stress she’s trying to manage all on her own is why she cries in her corner office for an exact half hour every Thursday before her one-hour massage with the best hands in San Francisco.

When the hands touch her body this Thursday, however, they’re not the hands of her masseuse. Instead, it’s the huge superhero hands of movie star Ray Morgan, her newest client and a man whose desire to take care of her has made him harder and harder to resist.

This fantasy massage story was so fun to write! Here’s a little excerpt:

Marisol Gutierrez had it all.

That’s what everyone told her.

Head of her own wildly successful investment fund, a husband who loved her to his mild-mannered Midwestern bones, two talented and thriving children, and a cadre of employees, friends, family, and organizations who valued her and needed her.

Even her dog, her little brother teased her, was perfect. A perfectly behaved and adorable junkyard mutt.

But what she never told anyone – no journalist or entertainment news reporter or business associate or friend or, even, her staunchly supportive husband – was that having it all meant bearing it all. It all was in your possession. Your safekeeping. It meant you were a possessor of all of these loving, beautiful, smart, talented, valuable entities full of potential and if you dropped one of them – if you got frigging exhausted and it went tumbling out of your over-burdened arms – then…well….

Marisol didn’t like to think about the “then well.”

Instead, Marisol Gutierrez allowed herself a good, hard, half-hour cry every Thursday evening in her corner office’s private bathroom, then she washed her face, took off her clothes, and emerged promptly at 6 p.m. for her one-hour massage with Rhondel. Marisol paid handsomely for the best hands in San Francisco. While Marisol cried, Rhondel set up his massage table, pulled the shades on her floor-to-ceiling windows, and lit aromatherapy candles, all in blessed, undemanding silence. In fact, Rhonda never uttered a word except the rare times that they would grab a drink after the massage, when her husband was at his class and the kids were busy with their own plans.

So when Marisol stepped out into her elegant office, she was fine that she was still hiccupping a little, her face blotchy and her eyes red. She knew Rhondel, tinkering behind the screen he set up, would say nothing. Marisol breathed in the light scent of sandalwood (her favorite) and crossed to the massage table.

She took off her robe, slid between the warmed heavy flannel sheets, and laid her face into the doughnut at the end of the table that allowed her to keep her spine straight. She inhaled deep, then let it all out. For one hour, she’d put her worries and anxieties and terrors into Rhondel’s capable hands.

“I’m ready,” she called, closing her eyes.

She heard him come around the screen and stop at the head of the table. Big male hands pressed against her flannel-covered back. A greeting. She smiled, eyes still closed, breathing deeply. His hands rose up and down with her breaths. That was different, but she liked it.

He circled to her side and folded the sheet down to expose her naked back, picked up her arm, and placed it back down to trap the sheet just above her ass. His touch felt more tentative than normal. Rhondel had worked on her glutes when she’d been deluded enough to train for a marathon; they weren’t shy with each other.

She heard the snick of a bottle, the rub of palms warming up the massage oil. He stood at the head of the table again.

The instant the man put his hands on her shoulder blades and slid them down the planes of her back, Marisol knew this wasn’t Rhondel.

Her head shot up, out of the doughnut.

She was looking directly into the world-famous bedroom eyes of Hollywood superstar Ray Morgan.

Click the buttons below to listen to Touch Me on: