I’ve Misplaced December
The past few weeks have been more crashing out than resting, between A Courtship in Quarantine coming out, the book signing, the holidays, getting sick for a week, working on Paper Roads, and coordinating cat treatment (one cat in chemotherapy, another about to get radiation treatment on her thyroid, and hosting a family member’s sick cat for three weeks because I’m the only one with the house set-up to do it). I had pushed my next Draft Block into January, but I had to push it a few more weeks into the future. There are 20 romance novels I want to read before I jump into drafting my book, and this is the only way.
Everybody’s making year-end lists and that seems like a lot of work, so I’ll just mention that my usual favorite authors did not disappoint. Chuck Tingle, KJ Charles, Alexis Hall, Lee Welch, and Jordan L. Hawk released some bangers in 2025. I just read Assistant to the Villain, and I’m already tearing through the next book in the series, so that’s also a good one.
The only movies I remember seeing are Sinners, KPop Demon Hunters, and Wake Up Dead Man, which is fine because they were all fantastic. I don’t listen to a lot of new music but the KPop Demon Hunters songs were in my head for months. I started playing Assassin’s Creed Shadows, but that’s not even the most memorable video game of the year because my spouse found his old PS4 with P.T. on it, and those images are burned in my head forever.
Most of the series I watched this year were romance, too. Shocking, I know. You’ve probably already heard people singing its praises but Heated Rivalry really is that good. Episode 5 is rated 9.9 on IMDB, with over 50,000 ratings. That’s…unheard of. Besides the occasional gay hockey player show, I almost exclusively watched K-dramas this year. Korea is doing romance series better than anyone else on the planet, IMO.
And as for me personally? Well, I got 3 novels ready for publication and published two of them, both of which got great reviews from well-known sources. I revamped my old website and created a new one for my pen name. I had a bunch of author events, including book launches and signings. I finished getting all the tattoos and piercings I wanted. And I figured out a thousand things that were necessary to getting my books published, from formatting (seriously the worst, always) to cover design to marketing.
And for next year? Well, I have a lot of author events scheduled. I have a lot of writing scheduled. And of course, Paper Roads comes out March 11. As a little year-end treat, I have the cover for you HERE. Beyond that, who can say? I hope this year gave you something pleasant to carry into the future, and I hope next year treats all of us tenderly.