Throw Back Thursday Kind of Isn’t: Sex, Lies & Wedding Bells #mmromance

USA Today Love and Lust Recommendation

“read this highly recommended re-issue of a tale with classic elements that turn a predictable story on its head.” – Becky Condit/USA Today

The year is 2009…

Sex, Lies & Wedding Bells was my first published novel. It came out in February of that year. I had just gotten laid off from my job as a wine buyer for a large retail chain, and having this book start selling was really important validation for me.

If you’ve ever been part of a big layoff (1/3 of our company) you know how demoralizing that can be. They say “it’s not you…” but it is, or they would have kept you. About half of my department got laid off, the rest had been there over 10 years, but it still felt really personal.

Honestly, if it wasn’t for writing and the wonderful response I got to Sex, Lies & Wedding Bells, I would have been even more depressed.

It’s the great readers and other wonderful authors who helped me through a really tough time and helped me realize I had a way to make a living (thanks to some severance and unemployment). It was pretty meager, but it was something.

First novels are usually imperfect. Often there’s a good story, but the author isn’t skilled at the mechanics of writing. Other writers are excellent with words, but their story isn’t great. It’s probably a right-brain/left-brain thing. I was probably somewhere in the middle.

So, Sex, Lies & Wedding Bells wasn’t all it could have been, or all it should be.

Fast-forward to 2014. I asked Elizabeth North of Dreamspinner if she was interested in taking a rewritten second edition of this book, and thankfully she did!

It was such a pleasure to revisit the characters in this book—Kieran and Jaxon, the town of Buckwheat Springs and its colorful inhabitants and build on the chemistry the characters (and the book) had.

If you’ve already read the first edition, please give the new version a try. There’s a lot of new scenes, more backstory and Jaxon POV scenes, and even more chemistry and banter between Jaxon and Kieran.

And you could have knocked me other with a feather boa when I found it was a USA Today recommendation, this time around.

If you’ve read both versions, please leave a comment and let me know what you think of the new one.

Pick up your own copy of the new and very  much improved edition:

Dreamspinner Press | Amazon | B&N | All Romance