Someone to Build Me Up is now available on all platforms!
Reeling from a breakup, English professor Zack Carter is trying to pull himself together for his sister's wedding. His recovery includes hir
Someone to Build Me Up is a lighthearted fake-dating MLM romance (and it's also pretty sexy, if my betas and my instincts are to be believed 😉). Here's the summary...
When heartbreak leaves you crushed, love can make you strong again.
Reeling from a breakup, English professor Zack Carter is trying to pull himself together for his sister's wedding. His recovery includes hiring sexy, snarky, and multi-talented Marcus Berens as his personal trainer. When Zack finds out his ex has chosen his former bully as her wedding date, Marcus agrees to play the role of Zack's boyfriend. But despite a shared love of theater, neither of them are good at pretending their feelings are just an act.
Just finished reading Love, Lies, and Cryptids by @ml-nolan on a flight and it was delightful! All the characters had such fun, little quirks, and I was rooting for Nico and Jasper. It's been a while since I read a romance outside fanfiction, and I really enjoyed it, which is not a surprise as I adore their writing in Sandman fics. There were a few spicy scenes and every time I came across one while furtively reading the scenes on the plane, I thought someone was going to go Aha! A Degenerate! 😂😂 (It's a reference from the book lol). It was also funny because I am kinda closer to the Pacific Northwest region today, where the story is set. Well at least really far from home, both geographically and culturally, and spent the day exploring a cute town with cute bookshops.
Now off to the Dreaming because tomorrow onwards I have a conference... starting at 8 am... with breakfast networking... I'm not a morning person... hallp...🫠
Reeling from a breakup, English professor Zack Carter is trying to pull himself together for his sister's wedding. His recovery includes hir
We made it, everybody! My new book Someone to Build Me Up is now available at all your favorite online bookstores. I cannot wait for you to meet Zack, Marcus, and their friends (and, honestly, a couple enemies too 👀)!
Hey all! Someone to Build Me Up now has a cover and a pub date (June 17)! I'll post the link as soon as it's up for pre-order. 😊
And yeah yeah yeah I know exactly who they look like, and yes it is chock-full of easter eggs for those who know what to look for. Am I pandering? No. I just love you (and I did warn you).
(ALSO -- Plz DM me if you want to be on the ARC team.)
Summary:
Reeling from a breakup, English professor Zack Carter is trying to pull himself together for his sister's wedding. His recovery includes hiring sexy, snarky, and multi-talented Marcus Berens as his personal trainer. When Zack finds out his ex has chosen his former bully as her wedding date, Marcus agrees to play the role of Zack's boyfriend. But despite a shared love of theater, neither of them are good at pretending their feelings are just an act.
Heeeeeyyyyyy I wrote a little story about the characters from my next book.
It's an F/NB romance about Jessie and Mads, two minor characters from Someone to Build Me Up. You may recall that Mads was one of Zack Carter's besties in high school.
The prologue is a throwback to 2007—their first meet cute at their senior prom, when Mads still identifies as a girl. You can download it here, and I'm including an excerpt below.
(Also, go ahead and read me to filth for naming my character Mads—I wasn't super into Hannibal yet, but now there's no going back).
The sound of tearing fabric echoes against the tile walls.
My Aunt Debbie’s vintage prom dress rips on the bathroom door as I hurl myself inside the stall. Before surveying the damage, I lock the door, flop down onto the toilet lid, and bury my face in my hands.
It really feels like the way they show it in the movies—that horrible moment where everything goes from mildly crappy to absolutely unbearable. The music fades until the beat gets so faint all you can hear is your ears ringing, and you don’t even notice yourself move until you’re already running away.
One second I was drowning in bass and strobing lights at my senior prom, the next I was speed-walking through the Malibu Bentmore Hotel, further and further away from the ballroom, trying to find a bathroom that didn’t have a line down the hall. And the thing that set it all in motion was stupid Craig Cline finally saying what everyone had been thinking about me for the past few months.
“Dude, can’t you take a hint?”
I should have seen this coming when I found out the rest of the AV Club was going out for burritos every Wednesday without me. I definitely should have put it together when I wasn’t invited to pre-prom dinner. But no. I couldn’t get it through my thick head until someone spelled it out for me.
“The only reason we picked you up at all is because your mom and Jeremy’s mom are friends. Go be a pain in the ass somewhere else, Jessie.”
A blog I read said that, in a high school romcom, prom is like the the high school equivalent of a wedding. Everything that's been building to this moment is out on the dance floor. The heroes get their happily ever after; the losers get their comeuppance, and the rest of and the rest of the people just blend into the background. Throughout high school, I figured I was a background character, but I've never felt more like a loser than right now.
With a hiccup, I tear off a few squares of toilet paper and dab under my eyes. They’re soaked immediately, gummy with Great Lash mascara. Now if I leave this bathroom, everyone will see that I’ve been crying. Of course, that thought makes me cry harder.
As I’m taking a big gulp of air between sobs, the door opens and chunky heels clonk on the bathroom tile. I slap both hands over my mouth and go totally still, breath stacked up in my chest like a traffic jam.
I'm going to keep this live for a while friendos—it'll send you to an email signup page and then you'll get sent a download link.
Get a Someone to Build Me Up Digital ARC
When heartbreak leaves you crushed, love can make you strong again.
Reeling from a breakup, English professor Zack Carter is trying to pull himself together for his sister's wedding. His recovery includes hiring sexy, snarky, and multi-talented Marcus Berens as his personal trainer. When Zack finds out his ex has chosen his former bully as her wedding date, Marcus agrees to play the role of Zack's boyfriend. But despite a shared love of theater, neither of them are good at pretending their feelings are just an act.
Hey friendos! Someone to Build Me Up has been out for a week, and I'm so grateful to everyone who picked up a copy and left a review! I thought it would be nice to introduce you to our main character (or at least point at him while he ogles the guy sitting in the corner of the coffee shop).
Enjoy the first page ->
There's a very handsome man in a high-backed chair in the corner with a sketchbook in his lap. And he keeps sneaking looks at me.
I can't tell if he knows I see him. Usually, I can tell when someone's eyes are on me, and usually, I try not to encourage it. This is a cafe where students hang out, and anyone in here could be in my freshman Shakespeare class or in one of my upper division courses.
I've been coming to Silverskins, a coffee shop two blocks away from campus, ever since I was a student here. It's where I meet friends, where I prepare for classes when I don't need the books in my office.
At a gorgeous campus where half the offices face the mountains and the other half face the ocean, my office is buried in the center of the English building. I'm almost sure it had been a janitor’s closet up until recently. There is literally a spigot on the wall.
The man who is looking at me doesn't look like a freshman, though, other than the way he dresses. But even then, he'd look like a freshman from the year 2010. He's got tight black jeans with ripped knees and is wearing a Nine Inch Nails shirt that looks like he bought it back when The Downward Spiral first came out. His shoulder bag, also black, is covered in pins—safety pins included. A brain-bucket style helmet sits next to him, although he doesn't look like the type who would have a motorcycle.
And now I'm the one staring. Which, again, I shouldn't be doing. Sure, I've been told I'm a gigantic flirt, but I don't sh*t where I eat. Looking at this guy, though, is scratching at the door of this old, unfortunate thing I have for emo boys. The kind who would hex my name when I was a high-school water polo player but did very much the opposite when I was a student with them in university lit and philosophy classes. Behind that door, something starving is biding its time.
Not that any of it matters. I'm thirty-five years old and have finally learned a little bit of self-control. Plus, I'm not ready to be in a relationship again anyway.
We make brief eye contact when he gathers his things to leave, which I hope isn't my fault. His eyes are steel-gray, a knife's edge that I know could pare me down to a pile of bones and marrow like a quartered chicken.
I watch him leave, as my best friend, Ellie Berglund, brushes by him. She casts a quick glance over her shoulder as he disappears, then catches the level of my gaze, which was absolutely, 100 percent focused on the gentle curve of his ass. It’s much shapelier than a guy with his narrow build should have. Her smart-ass grin tells me she's definitely going to comment.
To be fair, I would too.
Reeling from a breakup, English professor Zack Carter is trying to pull himself together for his sister's wedding. His recovery includes hir
