HOW I CAME TO WRITE A NEW ADULT ROMANCE

Come As You Are 

This book was an accident. Kind of.  Because it's also one of those accidents that makes perfect sense in retrospect. Back in the late spring I started a Facebook writers' group with the idea that members would post their goals for the month and we'd see if we could meet those goals. But it wasn't just a place for goals, it became a place to discuss trends and writing in general.

One of the members, friend and fellow writer L.K. Rigel, was talking about the New Adult book she was working on.  I asked her a lot of questions, and I read some samples of NA. What struck me is that these books were kind of similar to what I was doing when I wrote romance. And the good news for me? Back then one of the complaints I got was that my books were too dark and too full of angst.  Wounded characters. That kind of thing, so in some ways NA seemed right in my wheelhouse. The other thing is that about seven or eight years ago I asked my then editor what she thought about my writing a book, not about high school kids (she'd mentioned a YA to me), but about COLLEGE KIDS. Because I could definitely see myself doing that.  She said there was no market for books featuring people in their twenties, and those people didn't have time to read anyway.

I never went to college and I have a particular fascination with that period of a person's life. I suppose a romanticized fascination.  And I love that age.  Plus, I'd tested the romance waters with The Girl with the Cat Tattoo. And in thinking about that book… It almost felt a bit NA even though it didn't really contain all the elements and the main characters were a little bit too old. But Melody could have easily been an NA character. And the followup book, The Geek with the Cat Tattoo, features people in their twenties. So I was kind of dancing on the fringes of NA but just didn't know it.

So… back to the writing camp. I decided to see what I could get written on an NA in our July writing camp. Thought I'd maybe just work on it for a few days. That turned into a week. Then another week. Then the whole month because I found I loved writing the story. By the end of July I had the first draft finished.  By the middle of August I had the edit complete. Crazy.

Come As You Are release date: October 1

Come As You Are will be available as an ebook through Amazon, iTunes, B&N, and Kobo. Print will be available through Amazon.  I think with expanded distribution the print edition will be available elsewhere after a few weeks.

If you're curious about the book, check out this review on Goodreads, complete with GIFs and images.  And maybe add the book to your library while you're there. :)