5 Cocktails to Toast the Impending Apocalypse

So…2020.

Amiright?

One of the things that have helped me get through it is live video happy hours. Moseying up to my favorite bar (Dogwood, I’m looking at you) has now been replaced with launching Zoom or FaceTime to share a drink with friends and family. Just because I’m in yoga pants does not mean I skimp on the cocktails.

Below are five drinks you can enjoy as we watch the ship go down.

The Maple Manhattan

This Friday (10/16), I’ll get to enjoy cocktails with my Boozy Book Broads mates Melonie Johnson and Danielle Dresser as we chat with Diana Biller, author of the PHE-NO-MEN-OL The Widow of Rose House (a perfect Halloween read). We’ll be enjoying a Maple Manhattan during the chat, which is very much like the original Manhattan (which my Instagram friends can attest I’m a huge fan of) with one fall-friendly addition: maple.

I got this recipe from SidewalkShoes.com. Shake it up and join us Friday!

2 oz bourbon
¼ oz sweet vermouth
1 tbls maply syrup
2 dashes bitters
1 cherry for garnish

Add bourbon, vermouth, maple syrup, and bitters to a cocktail shaker. Add ice. Shake for 15 seconds and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with cherry.

Recipe courtesy of SidewalkShoes.com.

Texas Martini

In honor of my recent move to Texas, I wanted to re-create this drink I heard everybody ordering at a Tex-Mex restaurant in Austin. The Texas Martini, according to the bartender, is just a margarita -- up or frozen -- in a martini glass with olives. They are DELICIOUS!! Briney olives act like the salt on the rim!⠀

The Texas Martini by Angelina M. Lopez

2 oz tequila
1/2 oz triple sec
1/2 oz simple syrup
1/2 lime, squeezed
3 olives on a pick⠀

Chill martini glass. Shake first four ingredients over ice. Empty into chilled glass. Garnish with olives.⠀

Instant Sangria

I love red wine. It’s a family requirement. It also might be an authorial requirement, since I based the Filthy Rich series on the production of delicious red wine. But I also love cocktails. So in honor of my many alcoholic loves and my pretend Spanish kingdom, the Monte del Vino Real, I came up with this cocktail that tastes like Sangria without all the soaking and waiting.

Instant Sangria by Angelina M. Lopez

1 oz whiskey, bourbon, or vodka (pick your poison)
1/2 oz triple sec
1/4 oz simple syrup
Chunk of orange (no peel)
Chunk of apple (no peel)
Cheap red wine
Apple slice, halved
Orange slice, halved
Club soda (optional)

Put first five ingredients (down through apple chunk) into stemless wine glass. Mash fruit and blend with muddler or back of spoon. Fill 2/3 of glass with red wine. Add ice or large ice cube. Add orange and apple slices. Stir to combine. If it’s too sweet or thick for your preference, you can top it with club soda or sparkling water. Enjoy! 🍷🍹

(Note: I like brown liquors in this because it gives it a fuller, richer flavor, like sangria that’s been soaking for awhile. But vodka is a cleaner taste. Pick whichever you prefer.)

The Angelina

While I was slaving away this spring on Serving Sin, my third book in the Filthy Rich series, I invented this Mexico-inspired drink. Since Serving Sin spends half its time in the incredible city of Guanajuato, Mexico, it makes sense. I named it the Angelina because it is: 1) sweet, salty, spicy and tart, and because 2) I invented it. So there.

The Angelina by Angelina M. Lopez

1 oz of mezcal⠀
3/4 oz ancho chili liqueur⠀
1/4 oz simple syrup⠀
1/2 lime, squeezed⠀
3 drops chocolate or mole bitters⠀

Rim glass with seasoned salt. Fill glass with ice. Put all ingredients in cocktail shaker. Shake with ice. Strain shaker into glass. ¡Salud!⠀

The Ol’ Monte

We fell in love with this drink at one of our favorite bars in D.C., Densons. But when they took it off the menu, my hubby figured it out how to make it at home. THAT was a fun (and blurry) evening of taste testing.

The Ol’ Monte by Peter Lundquist

1 oz Rittenhouse Rye
1 oz Amaro Montenegro
3/4 oz Dolin Blanc ("Blanc" NOT "Dry")⠀

Stir with ice. Serve up in a coupe glass with a lemon swath⠀

You're welcome. We love you.

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Keep up with all my drinking adventures by following me on Instagram!

Old-school romance recommendations

Recently, I made an ass of myself – in the most consensual, I-was-totally-on-board way – by being romance author Andie J. Christopher’s inaugural guest for her new Instagram Live program Drunk (Romance) History. Essentially, I drank sangria and got increasingly goofier and foul-mouthed as I told her about one of my favorite old-school romance books, Teresa Medeiros’ Fairest of Them All.

It was awesome. Not just because of the mid-Saturday drinking and being able to hang out virtually with Andie. But because it also allowed me to wax rhapsodic about my babies: My two-layer deep keeper shelf of old-school romance novels.

I’ve been reading romance since I was 12-ish. I’ve been buying it and relying it as a form of self-caring escapism since I was 14. Once e-books became a thing, I switched much of my purchasing to that platform. But my old-school keeper shelf is evidence of my early dedication to this incredible, female-centric art form.

In her podcast Fated Mates, historical romance author Sarah MacLean said: “I think romance does so much important work in the world…. Romance taught me that women had agency, that heroines were proactive, that you can expect parity in a relationship, that you could expect love and devotion and intellectual stimulation from a partner, that you could expect sexual agency and sexual pleasure from a partner and that kind of lesson is so important.”

That quote was so meaningful to me, that I cried. 😅

This stack of books, read at a crucial period of growth as a maturing girl then young woman, taught me so much about what to expect as a woman, what to expect from the men I was with. I also read fantasy and horror and mystery and scif-fi and literature. Just as I was able to close those books and walk away with important lessons without thinking I needed to fly to the moon or turn into a giant bug to put those lessons to work, I was able to differentiate in a romance novel what was heart-poundingly entertaining and what was valuable insight into the human condition.

“ Just as I was able to close those books and walk away with important lessons without thinking I needed to fly to the moon or turn into a giant bug to put those lessons to work, I was able to differentiate in a romance novel what was heart-poundingly entertaining and what was valuable insight into the human condition.”

These old school books lack diversity. You’ll notice I have few books by authors of color. Sherry Thomas’ “My Beautiful Enemy” was published in 2014 and Beverly Jenkins’ “Forbidden” was published in 2016 – by then I was purchasing most of my books on my e-device. I was so accustomed to seeing myself absent from all the media that I consumed that I never even recognized that I and women with dark skin were missing from the books I read.

Issues of consent are real, too. I began to re-read the first book I ever bought for myself, a much-loved book in which I know whole passages by heart, but I had to put it aside. It was just too much for now. But I can appreciate what that author did for me then, writing with our “then” understanding, trying to appease a middle-American audience who fervently believed good girls said “no” but wanted heroines to be getting it, yes. I appreciate that the author, ultimately, showed me a journey where a heroine determined her course and a hero valued her pleasure.

These are some of my most-read favorites:

Teresa Medeiros, Fairest of Them All

I sold Andie on it by telling her, “This has butt stuff.” It was shocking at the time because NO books had butt stuff back then. It’s the gentlest, sweetest, most illusionary butt stuff you can imagine. But it’s HAWT!!!! Medeiros had this fantastic knack of writing intensely emotive books – truly funny, truly weepy – that were just so damn fun. And hot!!!! This book is about a beauty who shields her beauty to avoid an unwanted marriage, and then falls in love with the man who believes he’s married an ugly duckling who will break his family’s curse. You can get the drunken Cliff Notes here.

Nora Roberts, Tears of the Moon

Nora’s so good at writing big, sweeping books, but this is a little, tiny, hugely heartwarming tale of two people who’ve grown up together in a picturesque Irish village. She’s a handywoman and he’s the cook at his brother’s pub and they discover, out of the blue, that they have the burning-hots for each other. The sex of convenience becomes SO MUCH MORE. I want to bone the hero of this book, a dreamy Irish wanna-be musician, so hard. Apropos of nothing, Nora signed this book in 2005.

Bettina Krahn, The Husband Test

Bettina, like Teresa, could write in any genre and make it awesome. She wrote pirates like nobody’s business. This one’s set in medieval times and it’s a little Sound of Music-esque: The heroine loves being a nun, even though she’s bad at it, and hopes to prove herself by being the best husband judge the convent’s ever seen. When she’s sent to the hero’s broken-down estate to judge him, they both are drawn to each other, even though they both intensely resist it. Because of course. This is one of those books where the heroine pitches in to the community and ultimately makes the world a better place – I love those books.

Julia Quinn, When He Was Wicked

This book was part of the Washington Romance Writer’s retreat swag bag when Julia Quinn and Eloisa James came to our retreat – when I tell that story, I feel like I’m talking about the time I saw Mumford and Sons in a little club with 15 other people. Anyway, this best-friend’s-widow book grabbed me and wouldn’t let go – I stayed in my room to read it and missed the first half of the retreat! Bad boy Michael (gloriously hot Michael) is the new earl after his best friend and cousin died prematurely, leaving behind a widow that Michael has loved since he met her on her wedding day. He can’t have her – and she’s shocked when she discovers he wants her – and sometimes-prim Julia, who isn’t always my cup of tea, writes yearning SOOOOOOO GOOOOOOD in this book.

Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Dream A Little Dream

I’ve met SEP five times and I’ve cried every single time. Her writing… If the job of a horror writer is to make you scream and the job of a mystery writer is to make you puzzle, then a job of a romance writer is to make you feel. Viscerally feel the sensation of falling in love. No one does that better then SEP. She creates complicated characters and gives them joy and anguish and humor and irritating habits and makes them fully fleshed creatures we can deeply empathize with. In Dream A Little Dream, the heroine and her young son are as destitute as they can be – her scraping the thinnest layer of peanut butter out of a jar is a detail I can never forget – when their car breaks down in front of what looks like an abandoned drive in. The drive-in’s surly, damaged and HOT owner, whose half-heartedly trying to fix the drive-in up, wants nothing to do with them. Of course. This is a fantastic gut-wrenching book of two broken people finding peace together.

Laura Kinsale, The Shadow and the Star

I’m pretty sure I picked this book up for its Fabio cover. But the incredible insides…Kinsale was a literary romance writer, always pushing herself and the genre to its limits. One of her books was written in Middle English. Another was about a man’s debilitating brain hemorrhage – he loses his speech, ability to reason, control of his movements — and the woman who nurses him back. The Shadow and the Star is about a man who was sexually violated as a child before he was rescued by an aristocratic family. Now, he seeks peace and knows how to commit stealthy violence. He meets a Jane-Eyre-type woman – although she’s beautiful – who finds her strength and peace in propriety. It’s an incredible and unlikely pairing and a beautifully written book. Kinsale writes sentence that you want to lick.

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I’m taking a social media break for the month of October, but I’ll still be blogging.

Supernatural and self-care: The value of escapism

(Author’s note: Join me Saturday, June 12 at 5 pm CT/6 pm ET when I celebrate the release of Serving Sin with Clif Kosterman, the bodyguard for Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki for the last thirteen years.)

Every time there’s a crisis in my life, I escape into pop culture. After 9/11, I read all three books of The Lord of the Rings and spent hours watching Star Trek: Next Gen. When my dad died, I got addicted to Bones (yeah, I know it’s weird).

And when a social anxiety disorder brought my fantastic son home during his freshman year in college, forced him to put on hold his dream to be a physicist and made me learn new skills to be parent and person, I turned to a little, weird show that my romance author friends had been talking about for years: Supernatural.

Sam and Dean Winchester. The boys. Baby. Chuck be with you. Or not.

“This bonkers, escapist show is my self care.”

This November, this little cult-ish show will air its final episode after 15 seasons. I was a late adopter and didn’t start watching until 2017. But when it bit – phew – it bit hard. I went to my first Supernatural convention in the fall of 2017. I went to my second in 2019, where I asked co-star Jensen Ackles to pose my book cover with me. The smoldering look he gave me has become famous in some circles (called my friends) and is the basis of my next book in The Filthy Rich series, Serving Sin. I am currently in the middle of my THIRD Supernatural re-watch. THIRD. And the show has more than 300+ episodes!

You can click the link here to view the Twitter thread about this ridiculous image.

I don’t know what the special sauce is that has made Supernatural such a phenomenon for myself and so many others (yes I do, it’s two hot good ol’ boys totally devoted to each other without love interests so there’s no chance of jumping the shark). But what I do know is that the show got me through a particularly hard and sometimes scary three years of my life. It didn’t “solve” anything. It didn’t teach me anything. It didn’t improve me.

What it did was allow my brain to rest and relax when I was overwhelmed and scared, when there was so much I couldn’t fix or control. Watching an episode – apocalypses and all -- before bed relaxed me enough to sleep. Reading the fanfiction kept me from fixating in the middle of the night. Adding the stars’ gorgeous images to my ridiculous Pinterest page “Supernatural is Lady Porn” gave me an endorphin shot and made me smile.

This bonkers, escapist show is my self care.

I learned the value of self-care in escapist form in the eighth grade. I’d just moved to San Francisco and it was my first experience with mean girls. I didn’t understand them. I couldn’t reason with them. I wouldn’t change for them. And I knew, for the course of that year at least, I couldn’t escape them. So I had to withstand them.

The way I did that was by going to B. Dalton after particularly rough days, buying a romance novel and a bag of Ruffles potato chips, and camping out on my bed for the next seven hours. My mom let me skip coming down for dinner. But those classic romance novels were the one thing that allowed my brain to relax and freed me mentally from a situation I couldn’t change and had to withstand.

To this day, I believe those books helped me to learn an important skill at an invaluable time.

Part of the reason I’m a romance writer is because I believed in escapist self care, of getting lost in fantasies that allow your problem-solving brain to relax. And, oh baby, there is no better fantasy than that of the handsome Jensen Ackles smoldering at you. I want to give adults escapist fairy tales because I believe they have value.

“The show got me through a particularly hard and sometimes scary three years of my life. It didn’t “solve” anything. It didn’t teach me anything. It didn’t improve me. What it did was allow my brain to rest and relax when I was overwhelmed and scared, when there was so much I couldn’t fix or control.”

Now, as an adult with two adult-aged kids, I feel like there’s even less under my control. Many of us Americans are feeling this way as we stare in shock and awe at the way our federal leadership continues to ignore this pandemic. I’m not advocating we be like them (him) – I’m not saying we throw up our hands and stick our heads in the sand.

I’m saying that after you’ve worn your mask and washed your hands and helped your kids and finished that Zoom call and registered to vote, you allow yourself to sit down with a good romance book and embrace it as one of the things that allows you to take care of you.

Or turn on the tube and start watching a weird little horror sci-fi show. With 300+ episodes, it’s that escapist fantasy that you won’t get tired of anytime soon.

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Join me Saturday, June 12 at 5 pm CT/6 pm ET when I celebrate the release of Serving Sin with Clif Kosterman, the bodyguard for Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki for the last thirteen years. Click here to learn more and register.

How to avoid the sophomore slump

Ah, the journey of the sophomore book. The road to that second-book-for-publication can vary widely. Maybe the first book published was your first book written. Or maybe it’s the 100th. Perhaps you published traditionally. Or published indie. But in the trenches of the sophomore book, many things are similar for writers. And yet we think we’re the only ones who’ve battled there.

“As authors enter into deadline pressure, the most common struggle is learning how to juggle everything else,” said editor extraordinaire Angela James. “The second is learning how to just deal with the deadline pressure and realizing that you’re not writing just for ‘fun’ any more, but writing under an obligation to someone else. That can sometimes paralyze authors!”

And I can tell you from personal experience, that paralysis is not fun!

My latest released book, Hate Crush, was my sophomore effort. The curse and blessing of the first book, Lush Money, was that when I delivered it, my editor complimented it for its clean copy and said it needed few edits.

The perfectionist, Virgo, ex-journalist in me preened. There is NOTHING I like better than giving clean copy. So I thought I could write Hate Crush just like I wrote Lush Money: pantsing it, amping up the bonkers, and writing with the same bravery and exhilaration that I wrote when I didn't have a contract or a deadline.

Yeah… No.

During the months of writing, the words HOT MESS began to scroll across my brain like a Times Square ticker. I tried to rein the book in. I suggested to my agent and editor that I felt the book was “experimental” and “taking a new direction.” They were gently and kindly silent. They both knew that this is just what happened with sophomore books.

Ask multi-published romantic suspense author Adriana Anders: “I wrote Book Two before Book One was published, so I actually felt pretty good about it, overall... until Book One came out. My first release had some good responses from the trade mags, which was great. It also made me miserable, convinced that I was a one-hit wonder. Writing after that first release was very, very difficult.”

When my editor got back to me with revision notes for Hate Crush, she never said the words, “Hot mess.” But what she did say was, “Fix it. I believe in you.”

For thirty days leading up to Christmas of 2019, I re-wrote Hate Crush with 50,000 new words. I dropped plot lines and characters. I made my protagonists softer. I clarified my villains.

I saved the damn book. I hoped.

And although the first review for the book was a scathing 1-star that the reviewer made sure to post EVERYWHERE, the other reviews let me know that my career wasn’t over: Readers said they might love Hate Crush even more than Lush Money. Author friends said it didn’t read like a sophomore effort. And then came these reviews from Booklist, Entertainment Weekly, and NPR.

I’d done it. I’d pulled that book back from the brink.

My hope is that these encouraging how-tos from me and other romance folks help you avoid the sophomore slump before a 30-day re-write and help you embrace the fact that, if you’re having a tough time, it’s part of the process and you’re not alone.

1. Take your time (and try to make the time)

“One of the things I used to counsel authors on when we were doing their first contract was to think about how they were setting new manuscript delivery dates,” Angela James said. “Most new authors don’t have any experience with what it’s like to write a book while also editing, marketing, promoting, reviewing cover copy, chiming in on cover art and doing everything else that comes along with publishing the first book. So I would always tell authors to take a step back before they confirmed manuscript delivery dates and to think about how much extra time they’ll need to write a new book, now that they’ll have the distractions of everything else publishing added in while writing.”

Many romance authors wish they could deliver books like a Pez dispenser. But we need time to write books that readers will fall in love with and that will help build our brand. So try to be realistic about the amount of time you’ll need to write the sophomore book so that it’s a reflection of the quality that readers fell in love with in your first book.

One way to manage your time wisely: Time blocking. Block out the time each day you will devote to your book, and deny the distractions (social media, the news, the dog) that will corrupt that time. Just devoting one hour is still one hour closer to being done!

2. Allow your process to change

I entirely pantsed my first book, Lush Money, and figured I would write Hate Crush the exact same way. But as I tried to stick to the freedom and exhilaration of pantsing, I knew I was getting lost in the weeds. Hate Crush was a different kind of book, a second-chance romance with a bit of a whodunit element, and it needed a plan.

Unfortunately for my editor, I didn’t figure that out until after I’d gotten the book back from revisions. When I broke down the plot threads, streamlined and clarified them, the book was so much stronger. I wished I’d embraced the fact that my process could change earlier in the writing. But as internationally bestselling historical romance author Diana Cosby said, “Ignore your doubts and keep writing, get the story out. You can edit later.”

Thank God for the opportunity to edit!

“You can’t get to a place of confidence by thinking about it or planning it. You gain the most confidence by doing it. Action helps stop fear and doubt.”

— Editor Angela James

3. Believe in yourself

Imposter syndrome and the fear that we’re a one-hit wonder plagues many writers. That fear intensifies as more people – readers, agents, editors, book bloggers – look over our shoulders.

“You have to do a series of ignoring them for a time and purging negativity. Take what they say, use if it you agree but let go of the rest,” said best-selling romantic suspense author Tracee Lydia Garner. “We allow things into our psyche like residue and think about them at length. Residue is something that is often stubborn and needs scrubbing. Folks, impressions, thoughts, really do take up too much residence and yet we let them drive the moving truck to our brain… We don't often take the time to evict, we just let folks hang out eating our popcorn, wine and cheese.”

When I got my revisions back from my editor and knew I had to re-invent that book in 30 days, the one thing I wouldn’t allow myself to do was cry. If I started, I was afraid I wouldn’t stop. What I did was tell myself over and over again: You’re a professional. You can do this.

You’re a professional. You can do this.

Whether the first book you published was the first one you’d ever written or whether you had eight books (cough, cough) under your bed, you did something the majority of people don’t: You finished a book. You figured out plot, characters, love scenes, a dramatic high, the black moment low, and the HEA. You sat your ass in the chair and did the hard work.

I promise, you can do it again.

4. Rely on your resources

When a book starts going off the rails, the last thing you want to do is show it to other people. But those other people – beta readers, your agent, and most importantly, your editor – are exactly who you need to lean on for help.

Award-winning romance author Alexis Daria said: “I wish I’d asked for more support from my editor when I was stuck or didn’t know something.”

My editor told me repeatedly that sophomore books were tough, and although I was too much of a chicken to show her the tough stuff, knowing that I wasn’t the first author in her talented cadre that experienced difficulty was helpful.

I did show the book to beta readers. Romance author Cate Tayler and romance lover and life coach Wendy Reed were instrumental in helping me figure out what wasn’t working. When working with beta readers, be very clear about what you want their insight on. I asked specific questions about areas that I felt were weak, and they gave focused answers. If you’re already feeling shaky about a book, getting advice you don’t need can push you further from clarity.

5. Know you’re not alone

“I think many authors hit a moment when they start to believe they only had one story in them, that they can’t possibly write a second book, and that the second book is going to be awful when they do finish it,” said Angela James. “That’s just not true, it’s just a function of nerves, imposter syndrome, putting too much weight on reviews, comparing yourself to your fellow authors, and basically forgetting to focus on all the great things about you-as-a-writer instead of focusing on fears, expectations and doubts.”

I’ve always felt like a distinctive person, a unique individual. I’m sure you do, too. But I’ve been ASTONISHED during this journey how often my writer insecurities are echoed by other authors. Multi-published authors. New York Times bestselling authors. BIG authors. I was once at an event when Eloisa James talked about feeling imposter syndrome.

So this feeling that your first book was a fluke – it’s not just you. It’s part of the process. But how do you get past it?

“Keep writing. Keep writing. Keep writing,” said Angela James. “You can’t get to a place of confidence by thinking about it or planning it. You gain the most confidence by doing it. Action helps stop fear and doubt. And even when the fear and doubt are still there, if you keep writing, at least you’re moving forward and not staying stuck!”

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Introducing the Boozy Book Broads for once-a-month author chats and drinks

In August, I planned a Booze + Books Chat with the amazing romance author Melonie Johnson and Fresh Fiction’s Danielle Dresser. Hosted by Love’s Sweet Arrow, the awesome Chicago-based and romance-focused bookstore, we drank to the joy of romance books and talked about how what we write celebrates an adult’s right to have a good time.

We personally had such a good time that we’ve decided to do it once a month! Join me, Melonie, and Danielle — the Boozy Book Broads — and Love’s Sweet Arrow online every third Friday of the month at 7 p.m. CT as we toast the joy of romance books and romance writing with our author and industry friends. With a drink-of-the-month in hand!!

Our first guest was Rosie Danan, whose debut book, The Roommate, won the 2019 Romance Writers of America® Golden Heart® for Best Contemporary Romance and has already been optioned for a movie. We discussed roomie horror stories and feminine pleasure — and toasted with a Rosh Hashanah sangria!

On Oct. 16, we’ll be hosting Diana Biller, author of The Widow of Rose House, and on Nov. 20, we’ll be chatting with multi-published author Jackie Lau about her Thanksgiving book, A Match Made for Thanksgiving.

Click here to learn more!

The last five years and the conclusion of the Filthy Rich series

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.

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Serving Sin is now available for preorder!

A RELUCTANT WARRIOR PRINCE MUST AGAIN PROTECT THE MEXICAN-HEIRESS-TURNED-CEO HE RESCUED WHEN SHE WAS A TEEN.

HATE CRUSH Gets Amazing Review in Entertainment Weekly

So I was pretty knocked out when my little debut novel, Lush Money, got an incredible review in Entertainment Weekly.

But this morning, when I discovered Hate Crush also got a stellar review, I sobbed.

It’s common knowledge in the industry that sophomore efforts are hard and first books written under contract feel like they will break you. I felt like a fraud through much of the writing of Hate Crush, my second book, and when I got it back from my editor for revisions, I re-wrote 50,000 words in 30 days.

Yep.

The only value was — during those 30 days — I felt like I finally knew Sofia and Aish. I finally understood their motivations, innately understood how they would react and behave. By the end of that 30 days, just before Christmas of 2019, I felt like I’d saved Hate Crush. I loved Sofia and Aish and I believed that I’d done them justice. I just wasn’t sure if readers would feel the same.

In a note from my editor after she read those revisions, she said, “This is a beautiful, breathless read.” I believed her. But when my first review for Hate Crush was a mean, 1-star review (a review that the reviewer made sure to post everywhere), I was sure my career was over.

I was sure I’d been right earlier: I was a fraud. The fact that this happened right in the beginning of the pandemic, right when I was in the thick of writing Serving Sin, and planning a stressful move halfway across the country didn’t help my mental state!

So when I say this review means a lot, this review means A LOT!!!

Read an excerpt below and click to read full review…

Hot Stuff: June romances embrace the inherent sexiness of faking it

by Maureen Lee Lenker

Angelina M. Lopez continues her sinfully delicious Filthy Rich series with a second novel that elevates her ability to blend soapy drama with steamy bedroom scenes and gut-wrenching emotion….The two are exquisite character studies: Sofia, a fierce leader of her people, driven by her yearning to feel needed, and Aish, a cocky, dissolute rock star who has to learn to respect the boundaries of the woman he loves. Lopez soaks readers in the heat of their attraction, the palpable tension of the sweep of Sofia’s chic haircut and the inexorable pull of Aish’s lean, tattooed body and cut-glass cheekbones. Her writing thrums with desire, while still delivering knockout twists and turns. Lopez keeps readers gasping with shock and pleasure in equal measure. If her debut Lush Money was exhilarating and heartfelt, Hate Crush is even more engrossing... (Click to keep reading.)

HATE CRUSH available now!

Ebook available today! Paperback and audiobook available 6/30.

I’m so thrilled —at long last — to announce the release of Hate Crush, my second book in the Filthy Rich series, and a continuation of the story of the royal siblings of the Monte del Vino Real.

Hate Crush is Sofia’s story, our proud winemaking princesa from Lush Money. Five years later, Princesa Sofia is now a millionaire hoping to launch a winery that will improve the future of our still-struggling kingdom in the mountains of Northern Spain.

Sofia’s former reputation as the party-girl princesa is affecting her ability to be taken seriously. Making matters worse is a drunken video from scandal-ridden rockstar Aish Salinger declaring that his sexy breakout hit is about her.

Ten years ago, the two fell desperately in love during a California harvest season. Now, a fake relationship between the two of them could draw desperately needed attention to Sofia’s winery and could salvage Aish’s career.

Only problem: Sofia hates him more than any other person on the planet.

You can purchase Hate Crush right now in ebook. And you can purchase it in paperback and audiobook tomorrow, June 30.

Some super fun news: Hate Crush audiobook hit the #5 spot in “Royalty Romance” on Audible. I totally credit the brilliant, emotive, and HAWT!! narration from Scarletter Hayes, who also narrated Lush Money (which occupies the #11 spot!).

I’ll be celebrating the release of Hate Crush this week and all summer. Come join me!!

Announcing next book in Filthy Rich series...

In Lush Money, book 1 of my Filthy Rich series — about powerful, wealthy women who get what they want because they’ve earned it — we met self-made Mexican-American billionaire, Roxanne Medina.

In book 2, Hate Crush, coming June 29, you’ll get to read about millionaire winemaking princesa, Sofia de Esperanza y Santos.

Now, I’m thrilled to introduce you to Mexican heiress-turned-CEO, Cenobia “Cen” Trujillo, in book 3, Serving Sin. Serving Sin will be available early 2021.

Serving Sin is about Roman Sheppard, the half-brother of the royal family of the Monte del Vino Real, who we met in Lush Money and Hate Crush. He’s a decorated ex-Army Ranger raised in a Texas trailer park. Thirteen years ago, he became internationally famous for rescuing a kidnapped Mexican teenage heiress. Now, he's the head of a successful security firm and, although he's been named advisor to his kingly brother, he's known in the media as the "reluctant prince," unwilling to fully accept his place in his family and the small wine-growing kingdom in Northern Spain.

The teen heiress, Cenobia Trujillo, is now a 30-year-old CEO of the largest automobile manufacturer in Mexico who needs Roman's help again. There have been serious threats against her, and with a month until the launch of her car that will change the Mexican auto industry for the better, she doesn’t have the time to be distracted. She asks him to come to Mexico to protect her.

Protection isn’t the only reason Cenobia – who asks people to call her “Cen” – wants Roman around. She’s ready to dispel the teenage fantasy notion that he’s her “one” with some womanly real-life pleasure. And there’s a reason Roman has stayed a continent away. He’d been a 26-year-old soldier who knew better than to be fascinated by the girl on the cusp of 18. He’ll go and protect her. But the last thing he’s ever going to call her is “Cen.”

Serving Sin will be available from Carina Press early 2021.

Inspiration for Roman Sheppard and Cenobia Trujillo. To see more inspiration, check out my Pinterest board

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One Month Until Release of Hate Crush

With only one month until Hate Crush is released, I am thrilled to share with you the following review from the American Library Association's Booklist, which I received like a Christmas Eve present last week:

“Lopez once again delivers an addictively readable mix of red-hot romance, captivating characters, and a fascinatingly exotic European setting.”

Hate Crush was the first book I wrote under contract, the first book I wrote on deadline, the first book I wrote with the official title of "published author" after waiting my whole life to have that title!

Hate Crush is the second child that you never imagined could be as gorgeous as the first. And then she/he is!!!!!

Hate Crush was born from the idea that our beautiful young princess in Lush Money, Princesa Sofia, was bitter about love. Why, I asked myself? Because she's already had her heart stomped on. Hate Crush is about the hard work of falling back in love when you've sworn you'll never fall in love again.

It's also about the hard work the heart-stomper must do to make amends. Down-on-his-luck rock star Aish Salinger (it's pronounced Āsh) regrets breaking her heart when they were 19 and 21, and always hoped to get her back. But when he comes to the Monte del Vino Real ten years later to help Sofia launch her new winery and secure the future of the kingdom, he realizes making amends is going to be much harder than he imagined.

I'm providing an exclusive excerpt of Hate Crush for newsletter subscribers only. Sign up for my newsletter and you can read about the fateful day Sofia and Aish met and fell into insta-lust. In a wine tank.

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