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!

Where to find me on social media

There are exciting things happening on the writing front for me and some very unexciting things happening in the world of social media. I will be making announcements soon on the exciting stuff, and I always strive to share it with my newsletter subscribers first. But in the mean time, here are the best places to find me on social media!

Patreon: https://patreon.com/angelinamlopez
BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/angelina-m-lopez
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/angelinamlo/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@authorangelinamlopez
Newsletter: http://www.angelinamlopez.com/email-sign-up

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!

Entertainment Weekly gives AFTER HOURS ON MILAGRO STREET A+ review

Through the majority of my life, I didn’t seek to see myself — a brown-skinned Mexican-American female — represented in the media I consumed. Not seeing me was such a norm that I accepted it as a norm.

The same was true for the romance novels I devoured. I never questioned why there were no Latina heroines or books set in Latinx communities and cultures from Latina authors. It was just media as I expected it. I long held the dream to be a romance writer, but I expected to write white heroines under a pen name.

(There were a few Latinx romance books by Latina authors, usually shoved aside, separate from the other romance novels, as if readers who understood the stories of 14th-century Scottish highlanders and 18th-century pirates couldn’t possibly understand the love stories of modern-day Latinos.)

It took other people, younger people, to make me realize how horrifying and absurd all this was.

So, when I was first tapping out the details of what would become my debut novel, Lush Money, about a self-made billionaire businesswoman, back in 2015, I immediately backed up and defined her as a self-made Mexican-American billionaire businesswoman. Because, although I was new to the awareness, I was already tired of not seeing me and women like me represented.

Which makes the A+ review from Entertainment Weekly for After Hours on Milagro Street that much more glorious:

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.

This phenomenal review from Maureen Lee Lenker, senior editor at Entertainment Weekly, underlines how the lived perspective I was able to share as a Latina author enhanced this high-heat, bonkers, steamy, escapist love story.

After Hours on Milagro Street is about not only uncovering forgotten (or deliberately obscured) histories, it's about restoring the narrative of our collective past and the contributions of a rich tapestry of peoples whose story is often reduced or erased altogether.

That bit — whose story is often reduced or erased altogether — really got me. In recent weeks, a light has been shined on popular white authors who write Latinx characters in derogatory ways. The argument has always been, “Shouldn’t writers be able to write whatever they want?”

Yes. Shouldn’t writers of color have been able to write whatever they want and get the same placement, support, and publishing dollars as white authors? Yes. But we all know that that is not how the world has worked. What we’re asking for now — since equality does not exist — is equity. We’re asking for white authors to allow us to tell our stories, and for publishing to support us in that endeavor.

As Maureen Lee Lenker states in her review: Romance is almost always an inherently political genre in the ways it asserts its messages about sexuality, pleasure, power dynamics, and more.

But Lopez raises that to the next level, making 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.

Put this on my tombstone. Ink it on my skin.

Playlist to enjoy while reading AFTER HOURS ON MILAGRO STREET

Listen to on Apple Music and Spotify

My husband of twenty-four years put together a playlist for After Hours on Milagro Street. I am blessed to be married to a man who’s my biggest cheerleader.

Playlists are his specialty. When we were just “friends,” he gave me a mixtape for my Christmas drive home. (Yes, I said mixtape. We’re old). My brother took one listen and said, “You know that guy’s really into you.” My husband also makes playlists of his favorite songs from every year. I'm honored to get his expertise.

Angelina: Why did you make a playlist for this book release?

Peter: I don’t remember what inspired me particularly but I wanted to do something to help promote the book. I also think the title of the book evokes music.

A: Why did you want to help promote the book?

P: So I can retire early. I showed a great deal of restraint in what I didn’t include. Songs that I enjoy that you would not and do not.

After Hours on Milagro Street Playlist

Tell Mama - Etta James
A: My bad-ass bartender heroine, Alex Torres, might be punk-rock cool but she loves old school R&B. I’m a huge fan of Etta James and I loved the idea of her listening to this bad-ass song!
Can I Get It - Adele
P: You write sex in the first chapter. The chorus is can “I get it, can I get it right now.”
You’ll Go Crazy (featuring King Princess) - Mark Ronson
A: I love this song sooooo much. It’s so sexual. And it’s the woman who is sexually powerful. “When I go down for you, you’ll go crazy.” It’s exactly something Alex would say.
Yo Perreo Sola - Bad Bunny
A: This awesome Bad Bunny song is about women who dance alone at the clubs and do not need or want you to bother them. Alex Torres is definitely a woman who’s never needed a man to get her dance on.
Alien Superstar - Beyoncé
P: It’s about a bad bitch who sees herself as unique and inimitable.
NFWMB - Hozier
P: This was the first song that I thought of from the hero’s point of view. And it’s about a guy who understand that his baby is strong and no one fucks with her.
A: I squealed when I heard this on the playlist
Rancho Azul, Calexico
A: Love this spooky western song and the heroine who “wears a dress of milagros.”
Garden of the Dead, The Pine Hill Haints
P: It’s got a gothic sensibility. It’s also our son Gabriel’s pick.
A: My husband asked friends and family if they wanted to contribute. Which kinda kills me.
Weighty Ghost, Wintersleep
A: This is an 00s song about feeling so lonely and alone that you feel like a ghost. My poor heroine feels a little like this when the books begins. “A ghost just needs a home.”
Faithless Ghost, Andrew Bird
P: It’s a new song about ghosts by an artist I like. So I paired it with the song about ghosts that you like that’s a little older.
American Girl, Rhett Miller
P: I picked that after your book event and you were talking a lot about where you were from, about how your family being American and from America is important. To take a song that was probably written about a white American girl was subversive. It’s Rhett, who we both have an affinity for. And we like how he shakes his hair.
Sour Candy, Lady Gaga and BLACKPINK
P: This song is about someone who is hard on the outside but, if you give them a chance and get to know them, they’re compelling like sour candy. They’re surprising and sweet underneath the hard exterior.
Fire, Parov Stelas
P: That song is a sex scene. There’s a sex scene in the middle of the playlist.
Slow Down, Skip Marley and H.E.R.
A: “Girl, slow down. Girl, let me love you. Darling, slow down. Let me get to know you.” This is my hero’s plea.
At Last, Etta James
A: This is the song that’s playing when Alex makes her final bid for the heart of our hero.
About Down Time, Lizzo
P: Also a song about a bad bitch. At this point in the playlist, the song titles start having meaning. At Last then About Damn Time, then (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher.
(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher
P: When I think of Independence and Cherryvale, I think of your cousin, Casey, who sent us a picture of him with a shaving cream beard singing along to Michael McDonald. It’s an inside joke. No one else will get it. But there are a lot of inside jokes with your family.
Closing Time, Semisonic
P: It’s the last song. Last call. And the end of the playlist.

AFTER HOURS ON MILAGRO STREET available now!

Today is a big deal.

Today is my first big bookstore release, the first book in a new series of books, and the release of a book that I put my heart, soul, and background in. If you're a new reader, and don't know about the background to After Hours on Milagro Street, I'll link to it here.

Thank you, readers. All of the above -- the bookstore release, getting a new contract for a new series, feeling the freedom to write the story that was important to me -- wouldn't have happened without you.

You bought my debut book, Lush Money, and said, "Yes! We want more 'unlikeable' heroines like her." You supported the entire Filthy Rich series, and cheered on the release of all three books. You are the reason my publisher decided to sign me to another three-book contract and put more resources to a bigger release.

You read my book early, wrote reviews on Goodreads and Netgalley, and shared it with your friends. You made TikTok videos or beautiful images hyping it on Instagram. You did the work to verify that, YES, readers were excited for my bad-ass, bad-attitude heroine!

You repeatedly said how excited you were to get the book in your hands or ears, and you responded every time I asked for a favor.

So thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I couldn't have done any of it without you, and I hope you enjoy this book of my heart.

Thank you.

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:

Mexican-American history you didn't learn in school in upcoming book

In my great-great tío Julian Leon's obituary, it says:

He came to Kansas with his family during the revolution. All of the men, including 12-year-old Julian, worked the railroad.

This little known but seismic fact in my own life -- the entire reason I was born into a large community of Mexican-Americans in southeast Kansas -- wasn't known by me until I was in my mid-twenties. My family didn't sit around talking about why we were brown with Mexican food, heritage, and culture woven into our lives in small-town middle America. We didn't see ourselves as "other."

But when I moved to Des Moines, Iowa after college to work for the newspaper, it was the first time I saw another long-standing Mexican-American community in an area where people didn't expect it. That well-established, multi-generational Mexican-American community in the suburb of West Des Moines was in a neighborhood called Valley Junction. The railroad was the reason their grandparents had settled there. The railroad, I came to discover, was why my family had settled in Kansas.

I tell this little-known piece of history about the Mexican traqueros who helped build the railroad through the central states in After Hours on Milagro Street.

Traqueros

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, railroads needed a new source for labor. The wildly racist Chinese Exclusion Act prevented the Chinese, who'd made up 90 percent of the labor force that built the transcontinental railroad even though they got paid 30-50 percent less than their white counterparts, from immigrating to the U.S. or becoming citizens. Railroad companies began recruiting Mexicans from Mexico, who were dealing with the chaos of the Mexican Revolution as well as circumstances that kept them in poverty. Men were offered the backbreaking seasonal work of coming to the United States to lay track for ten-cents-an-hour.

Thus, the traqueros were born.

Railroad companies realized they could retain their workers, getting more skilled and dependable labor, if they recruited families. They offered box-car housing as an incentive, turning a box car into a two-family housing unit. This encouraged families to come, stay, and commit to the community. It also encouraged chain migration: One family told their compadres in a village, and soon, large populations from small villages in Mexico relocated to towns throughout the central states. Much of my community in Kansas can trace their roots back to Abasolo, Guanajuato.

Why should readers care?

The fact that Mexicans were integral to building such an important and romanticized part of the American infrastructure is a little-known piece of history. Reading After Hours on Milagro Street, you'll learn what a lot of people don't know.

Additionally, we're suffering from an alarming amount of xenophobia in our country. Latinx people aren't "others." The traquero story is one example of how the United States has always relied on Latinx people to do the difficult, essential labor in the farmfields, meatpacking plants, construction sites, and rail yards. Those of Latinx descent have been essential to building, maintaining, and improving this country.

I hate that there's a need to remind people of that.

But what better way to remind them than in a escapist, sexy romance novel that sweeps you away while giving you a peek into a fascinating piece of hidden history.

Second starred review for AFTER HOURS

My previous blog was about my discontent with people calling my heroines “unlikeable” when I find them admirable. My latest heroine, the bad ass bartender Alejandra “Alex” Torres in After Hours on Milagro Street, has gotten that accusation as much as any of them.

So I was absolutely thrilled by this review from Library Journal, which is my second starred review for the book. After Hours on Milagro Street is about Alex, who comes back to her small Kansas hometown to claim the family bar and finds a professor who mistrusts her intentions standing in her way.

“Likeable protagonists.” It’s absolute magic to my ears!

Booklist review

The Library Journal review wasn’t the only good news I got recently. Booklist also is a fan of After Hours on Milagro Street.

“Not since Barbara Stanwyck and Gary Cooper mixed it up personally and professionally in Ball of Fire has there been such a marvelously mismatched yet inevitably perfect-for-each-other pair of protagonists as Lopez’s sexy mixologist and sweet professor.”

I’ve never seen Ball of Fire, but I can’t imagine Barbara Stanwyck doing to Gary Cooper what Alex does to Jeremiah in the first chapter! Still, I loved this comparison to an out-of-step couple that learns to walk hand in hand!

The full Booklist review won’t be available until June 8. After Hours on Milagro Street will be available in trade paperback, ebook, and audiobook July 26, and you can preorder it at your favorite bookstore or online retail outlet now!

Why I write "unlikeable" heroines

(Author’s note: I wrote this in 2022, before Roe v. Wade was overturned but it is still applicable to my books and, unfortunately, to the perception of women today.)

Why do I write “unlikeable” heroines?

When women are still denied autonomy and equality in 2022, the last thing I want to do is write women who prioritize being liked.

Thank you for coming to my TedTalk.

*

It seems like such an easy explanation, doesn't it?

The real world America we're currently living in elected a president who said he grabbed women “by the pussy” and it was excused as locker-room talk. Our right to determine whether we grow a person in our bodies is about to be taken away. And there continues to be a massive pay gap between women and men.

So we all agree, with the continued uphill struggle for women, that likeability is really low on the priority list, don’t we?

No.

The romance genre is stretching beyond the binary, with all genders of people writing and reading romance about all genders of people. But our heroines are still trapped in "likeable" vs. "unlikeable."

Early reviews are already coming in for After Hours in Milagro Street, my high heat, Latinx, small-town romance about a bad ass Latina bartender who comes home to claim the family bar and finds a head-in-the-clouds-but-hot East Coast professor standing in her way. It’s not uncommon for me to get a review like this:

It took me a while to like Alex, she was just so abrasive.

And this was a review that ended with: I love it when I think a book is just a simple romance and it turns out to be more! ... It was a good read!

They liked the book. They didn't like Alex.

Understanding the cold hard facts of the world we face doesn't free real-world women, or their romance counterparts, of the straightjacket of likability and the limited possibilities that straightjacket brings.

*

“Straightjacket” seems a little harsh, you might say.

Let me give you an example of how this emphasis on women being likeable plays out in the real world: There was a fascinating Twitter thread awhile ago about a woman who got a job offer, tried to negotiate compensation, and had the offer rescinded. Many women on the thread complained about having job offers evaporate if they tried to ask for more money; men on the thread said they'd never heard of that happening to men.

Data backs up this concern that women can appear "less likable" if they're assertive this way -- a Harvard Business School survey found that "women who felt empowered at the negotiation table were more likely to reach worse deals or no deal at all."

There are real world consequences for society’s preference that a woman prioritize being liked over looking out for her own best interests.

When I wrote my first “unlikeable” heroine, self-made Mexican-American billionaire Roxanne Medina from Lush Money, I didn’t set out to make her hard to like. I – like Roxanne – didn’t think about her likeability at all. Instead, I focused on how a woman who had the brains, will, and resources to build a successful company that supported 40,000 people would move in the world.

She went for what she wanted and didn’t apologize for it.

I was shocked how many reviewers said this made her unlikeable. I thought it made her admirable.

My heroines have been called:

ice-cold queen
heartless female
nasty bulldog
emotionally stunted
high-handed

And my particular favorite: “What type of mother is she going to be?”

Do you think this question has once ever been asked about a powerful male hero?

 
 

I’ve come to understand that the double standard that exists in the real world also exists in the books we write. Men are bestowed with the right to demand and take and have. Women are not. The myth of the ideal woman is that she's accommodating. She constantly considers others and makes way for them. We've all absorbed this myth, it's been the rhythm and beat of almost every story we've heard. If we see a different step, hear a new note, it feels jarring.

*

Alex “Alejandra” Torres, my bad ass bartender in After Hours on Milagro Street, comes home angry.

She’s had a quit-or-be-fired moment at a Chicago speakeasy that she helped put on the map, and now the only way she can salvage her reputation is to claim and restore the family bar, even if coming back to her hometown of Freedom, Kansas is something she never wanted to do. When she discovers that an East Coast professor also has plans for her grandmother's bar, she's immediately suspicious of his intentions and protective of the family she loves, even if her loves comes off a bit...prickly. The instant physical attraction she has with the professor just makes a hard situation harder.

Heh.

I digress.

If you read through the reviews, no one says they don't understand why Alex is angry and single-minded. They never say it doesn’t make sense.

They just say they don’t like it.

 
 

This blog is not to decry my negative reviews. I am grateful, whether I agree with them or not, for each and every person who’s taken the time to write a review of one of my books.

What I want to underline is that I've never set out to write an "unlikeable" heroine. What I've focused on is writing heroines that are ambitious, powerful, proud of their minds and bodies, self assured, confident in their abilities, single-minded, and goal focused.

We've been drinking the tea that those attributes, in a woman, are unlikeable.

Don't believe me?

Read this sentence: I write heroes that are ambitious, powerful, proud of their minds and bodies, self assured, confident in their abilities, single-minded, and goal focused.

Does your spine itch then? Does that make him unlikeable?

In romance, we are writing fantasies.

But we're also showing a way that women can carry themselves in the real world. Our heroines can portray how a woman can center her own needs, preferences, and desires; fearlessly behave as her true self (even if she's a little grumpy), and go after what she wants. Our heroine's love interests can admire and desire her ferocity, pride, and drive. And the world we create can respect her, can be a better place than one that seeks to grab her and control her.

The simple answer to why I write "unlikeable" heroines?

I don't.

Read about more “unlikeable heroines” getting the good loving they deserve in my steamy short story collection, Give In to Me.

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