Revealing my secrets to you 🤫

You've heard how authors get told, "Write what you know"?

Well, I had a cunning plan to do just that.

Unfortunately, the corollary to "write what you know" is "make sure you actually remember whatever it is you think you still know."

Let me back up.

A bunch of fantasy romance authors helped raise money for the freedom to read (aka fighting book bans) in February. My auction item: a custom fantasy romance story.

The person who won was very flexible about the setting and type of story, just preferred certain tropes—like childhood friends to lovers and eleventh-hour confessions. So I thought, what the heck, I'll write about two ice dancers. I skated for years. Fun! Write what you know!

Hahaha, turns out that I'd forgotten about sixty-seven percent of it.

Also, the competition rules have changed since the distant past that was my childhood.

(Picture me waving my fist at the rules and shouting "get off my lawn.")

So yeah, it wasn't quite as easy as I'd been anticipating, but it did turn out to be a ton of fun getting to dip my still-slightly-callused-from-skates toes back into that world.

Also, Nik and JJ, who've been friends forever and had the crazy idea to make a run at the national ice-dancing championships twenty years after their last appearance, were an absolute joy to write.

Best yet: Lexie, the auction winner, kindly said I can share the story with you all, too.

So! Next time, it's coming your way.

In the meantime, did you read All the Many Ways? Grab it free here for some high-grade childhood rivals to lovers:

Grab the book

📚🌟📚🌟📚

More cool & bookish things

April's bookish gift for you from my cool group of gaslamp fantasy authors: C.L. Carhart's Gift of Light.

One honest mistake cost Konstantin his name, his family, his very life. Now an undead slave to a ruthless demon, the priest dreads his inevitable descent into evil. Especially when a radiant witch of light captures his attention—and his heart.

Helena longs for adventure beyond her dreary Alpine village. When her father and brother vanish in the forest, Helena sets out to find them, discovering a hidden fortress brimming with a deathly aura. Can she save her family from a horrific fate without losing her soul in the process?

Grab your free book

You made it to the end! You're awesome. (Of course.) And oh hey, here are my latest books and here are all my book gifts to you.

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