I'm always shaky and doing relaxation tricks for the first half hour and then I get into a rhythm and my brain says, "See? We're only talking to one or two people at a time. Everything's fiiiiine." And 99.9% of the time, it's more than fine. It's great. I LOVE meeting my readers. But that spotlight-induced nervousness is simmering the whole time, and occasionally it means I do something like, I dunno, sign someone else's name in your book instead of yours.

This has only happened three times in nearly two dozen signings, and luckily these books were all new and not someone's treasured, read-many-times copy. (I literally just crossed myself after writing that and I'm not even Catholic.) Each time, I emitted a gentle laugh (or okay, a honk of extreme embarrassment), apologized, tossed the ruined book under the table, grabbed another one off the table, and started over. Very carefully.

At some point, I had three books with random names inscribed in them. I hated to throw them away (I'd paid for them, after all). One book I gave to a Twitter follower (the first to reply, "ME!!!" when I asked, "I personalized this book with the wrong name - who wants it?") The second time, I doodled a tree to obliterate the misspelled name and gave it away on Instagram.

But I still have the first book I ever messed up during a book signing: an indie (self-published) edition of Easy. These books were POD (print on demand), which means they were created when a reader purchased them from a bookseller online or when the author ordered a box of them for her very first book signing. :)

My first signing was at a Barnes & Noble in downtown Fort Worth, Texas. During that signing, a reader said, "Stacy" and I heard, "Tracy." I took that misnomered book home that night hoping someone named Tracy would order a copy of Easy from my web shop, but alas, that didn't happen before Easy was acquired and republished by Penguin five months later, at which point I was contractually obligated to pull the indie edition off sale.

The Tracy-inscribed book has been on my bookshelf ever since. A few months ago, I decided to try doodling Francis over/around the inscription, and this was the result:

Today is the 5th anniversary of Easy. What better time to give this one-of-a-kind book to one of my readers? If you're signed up for my newsletter, you're already entered. If not, please go HERE to sign up! A drawing from my subscribers will be held on Monday, May 29th, and I will email the winner within 24 hours. I will also draw a dozen extra names for signed Easy bookplates. Good luck!

This quote is posted on the bulletin board above my desk, hand-written on an index card. It's been there for so many years that it's begun to fade. Perls' sentiment may sound a bit fatalistic, but it's true. Despite the fact that I preach love and redemption for a living, I will take what is true over what is futile any day. I knew this about myself, but I was unaware how deeply-held that position was until this week.

When I say in my website bio that there are enough sad endings in real life, I know what I'm talking about. I've lost loved ones and friends the way most of us have—through drifting apart, through misunderstandings, through betrayal, and through death. I lost my little brother, the first best friend of my heart, to AIDS nine years ago this Christmas. I dreamed of him in the early hours of Wednesday morning, and woke up sobbing, overwhelmed by a profound sense of grief similar to losing him all over again. I realized in that moment that I had not been true to myself or his memory by staying quiet.

I haven't been publicly vocal about my political affiliations (until recently), for several reasons. One, I kinda thought my bleeding liberal heart was pretty obvious. I've always thought it funny that people use that phrase as an insult, because I've never considered it one. It's quite apt, actually. I would not be able to to experience intense empathy for those whose life experiences are not my own without it. To feel the things my characters feel without it. To write without it. This is my personal way of relating to other people in the world, and I would not change it if I could.

Second, I sincerely did not want to alienate people who felt differently from me. I preferred to maintain the chance that I could be an influence, while also remaining open to the possibility that I could be influenced in return. I am not incapable of altering or tweaking my opinions. And even in the places where I am staunchly aligned or opposed, I want my mind and heart open to why others feel, think, and believe as they do. A difference in belief is often a difference in perception, leaving no one wholly right or wrong.

Third, I simply didn't want to get into political debates with people outside my personal realm. I have a Facebook profile. On it are 100 friends and family members. I'd say roughly half of them voted for someone I wouldn't have supported had someone put a gun to my head in the voting booth. But they are still my friends and my family, and we are all still attempting to understand each other, though in most cases we've never been so divided and in some cases very little to no discussion of the elephant—or the donkey—in the room is happening.

So, then—this Fritz Perls quote and how it relates. When he says, "if by chance we find each other," I don't interpret that as reaching an agreement about how the nation should proceed and more than it would include agreement about every tiny detail leading to that very personal opinion or whether anyone should have ever decided that kale was an acceptable ingredient for a smoothie. I think it can be as small as finding a sliver of common ground and maintaining mutual respect based on our previously founded relationship at best and our very humanity at the least. Otherwise, we stay walled off to any opinions, beliefs, hopes, and fears but our own, and growth seldom comes from that.

I live a life of privilege. Some of that is earned; most of it is not. The newly elected administration will, in all likelihood, benefit me financially. But as I asked one of my opposite-side-of-the-political-line friends yesterday—at whose cost? My husband and I support several charities, and we've added to those donations since Tuesday. I will not keep any windfall from the next four years. It will come in and go right back out. That doesn't make me any less privileged; it makes me more so. But I promise you this. If you are scared or personally hurting, I care, and I don't give a damn which "side" you're on or who you voted for. And if you buy my books, I want to know what social organizations you want supported. I will consider them.

Since Tuesday night, I've seen a lot of people calling liberal folks crybabies because we lost the election. I'm sure there's a lot of crying over losing out there; I won't deny it. It's human! We all like to win. But losing wasn't my reason for Wednesday morning's sobfest. I cried because I'm afraid for all the non-privileged people who could be denied fair treatment in the coming four years. I cried for the realization that my country is more divided than I've seen it in my 51 years on this earth. I cried because I have no idea how we will ever mend that divide or what will be lost in the fray. I'm devastated by it, and I won't be ashamed of my grief. Our forefathers named our country the United States. I think they would cry, too.

I signed out of social media accounts and turned off my computer. Left my phone on the nightstand and went for a walk. Showered, had a second round of coffee, and decided to do an errand I'd been putting off. We needed new sheets and a small table for the patio. So I threw on worn denim capris, frayed at the knee and rolled at the hem, a comfortable pair of flats, and a gray t-shirt inscribed with "Eat Local" and a drawing of a food truck. I dislike shopping, therefore being as comfortable as possible is a necessity.

I ended up at Pottery Barn, where for half an hour, salespeople checked in with every (better-dressed) person in the store but me. I was glanced at once or twice, but not asked if I needed assistance. I felt miffed, which is humorous because social anxiety makes exchanges with strangers uncomfortable for me. That said, waiting for someone to approach and say something is usually worse than the interaction itself. I'm hyper aware until it happens; once it's over I can mentally pick apart whether I smiled weirdly or said something stupid in peace.

Then I recalled a discussion from black authors in my Twitter feed about common shopping experiences. My being ignored was nothing compared to their being watched followed around the store as if they're about to steal something. This shabbily-dressed, middle-aged white woman was ignored, yes, but if I'd said, "I NEED HELP TOO," I'm pretty damned certain they'd have responded appropriately.

Eight years ago, I cast my vote and watched our country elect its first black president, and I thought, Finally. I watched as gay citizens in my country were given the right to marry, and I thought, Finally. I watched health care reform make our country's first actual attempt to cover every citizen in the US and I thought, Finally. I believed these events meant things were changing for the better. That even if there were people still filled with hate, there were more of us who wanted everyone to have a fair shot at a safe, contented life. I thought, I can see it from here. Finally. 

The prior week ground those beliefs into the dirt. This isn't a new feeling for me; it's just the deepest I've ever felt it. The lives of black citizens in my country, my state, and my town may be better than they were twenty, fifty, seventy years ago. Taken as a whole, circumstances may have improved. But we aren't there yet. Not nearly. Yet this is where many of my fellow citizens say, "Okay, that's good enough." How is that possible when we are still so far from basic equality?

I'll tell you how. Because we have a few racist elected officials, racist candidates running for office, and racist authority figures with societally-sanctioned badges and guns. All of these are bound by laws of fairness and basic decency to serve and protect  all of  us, but some are ignoring the tenets under which they were elected or nominated or hired, and a few are spitting in the face of them. WE are putting these people in power. WE are putting the guns in their hands. WE are putting our fellow citizens' lives in their hands.

Do we have fair-minded police officers and judges and city council members and Senators on both sides of the aisle? Sure, maybe. But anything less than all of them is too few. It doesn't matter what's gotten "better" when this much hatred, selfishness, and discrimination still exists. If you say you can't see it, I feel sorry for you. Now kindly get out of the goddamned way.

First up is the furthest from what I write - a Middle Grade novel. I'm an animal lover, and the cover of PAX by Sara Pennypacker (illustrated by Jon Klassen) was impossible to resist. I purchased the hardback edition. Its watercolor cover, deckled pages, and detailed illustrations are a reminder of why the best print books are an art form.

I tend to read reviews with one eye shut (I'm terrified of spoilers), so when I saw that someone likened PAX to Where the Red Fern Grows I was like, "NOooo," but thank goodness I read the Kindle sample in spite of that comment and had to read the rest. (Perhaps they meant to allude to the inevitable classic this book will become? I agree with that sentiment wholeheartedly; otherwise, not at all.)

I was profoundly moved by this beautiful story. I laughed and cried and thought. It is appropriate for readers of any age who desire to become immersed while reading, including younger readers who read up and older readers who aren't afraid to be astounded by a novel meant for 11-year-olds. You will not forget Pax once you've met him. He will steal a little slice of your heart and bring it back to lay at your feet. 

Next up - a lovely fantasy romance by Amy Harmon. This story weaves its way around the reader's heart like a fragile vine; you'll find yourself caught only because you want to be. The Bird and the Sword is unlike anything Ms. Harmon has written before; I should know because I've read most of her fabulous work. Still, this is my favorite of everything she's written, which is doubly astonishing considering I'm not much of a fantasy reader. Trust me, romance readers, you will not care. Ms. Harmon world-builds like a fantasy pro without ever getting so complicated that a map and character genealogy is needed. The tangled mystery set in motion in the opening paragraphs and exquisite, slow-building love story and will keep those pages turning hard and fast. Try the sample and be prepared to one-click.

This third recommendation is the first of a four-book Romantic Suspense series (Lost & Found, Inc.) - the fourth of which just released. Woot! Because if you're like me, you prefer to binge-read whole series rather than waiting for books to release one at a time. (Note: these are stand-alone stories, but they do build on each other, which is why I'm suggesting the first one.) This entire series is dark, gritty, and violent - Jerrie Alexander doesn't pull any punches. The heroines are full of sass and ready to take care of themselves, thank-you-very-much, something these alpha heroes have to learn to respect unless they want to be shown the door. Literally.

I've just finished reading this one and had to add it to the list. Nia Forrester has done something I've never seen before. She's used a New Adult heroine's mother—a secondary character in an earlier book—for a stand-alone spin-off. (I haven't yet read the daughter's book, Commitment, but I loaded it on my Kindle after reading The Fall.) For those of you who like a strong, complicated, intelligent (read: difficult) heroine, and a hero who is grounded enough to manage a relationship with her without trying to transform her into a less intense version of herself, this is your book. It's got equal elements of romance (lots of hot sexy-times) and women's fiction (focusing on the main character's thorny life issues apart from the relationship: professional life, parenting, repressed emotional wounds), which is tough to find in fiction and makes for an all-around satisfying read.

Happy reading!

Like the victim, I was 22. Like the perpetrator, he was 19 and an athlete (though not university-sponsored). There was no alcohol involved and no witnesses. None but me. And I failed myself.

I remember his first name; I don't remember his last. I remember where we were and the word stop from my mouth and the fact that he didn't and what he said after it was over. I remember feeling humiliated and so ashamed that I swallowed the blame whole and tried to forget it had happened at all. I didn't even know to call it rape until twelve years later when a friend gave me the courage to pull the buried memories out and look at them again and then it was so, so obvious.

I doubt he remembers at all. I worry that what he did to me was one time in a string of other assaults on other women who didn't tell or weren't believed if they did and who knows when it stopped or if it ever stopped and how at fault am I for that? If some of the readers of news reports and novels where someone is sexually assaulted but doesn't tell are to be believed, I am at fault for every possible rape he may have committed after mine. This was my realization at age 34, right after I faced what had happened to me.

Last night, I thought: He's 48 now. He probably has kids. Maybe a daughter. Maybe a son. I don't know what he does for a living or where he lives. I don't know what he looks like now; I barely recall what he looked like then. He could be anyone. He could even be an enabling, rape-sanctioning father of a 20-something rapist. Because of course he would view what he did to me the same way Dan A. Turner views what his son did: as "action."

While I'm furious at Brock Turner for apologizing for drinking but not for raping an unconscious woman and his father for blaming alcohol and promiscuity and for mostly feeling sad that his son can't enjoy eating dinner anymore and Judge Aaron Persky for Good Ol' Boys clubbing from a seat of judicial authority, I refuse to let that anger be my primary emotion. I choose to save room in my soul to feel proud of and grateful for the victim—the survivor—who after enduring a solid year of this boy's courtroom lies had this to say. To. His. Face. I wish I'd had such courage and strength at her age - or at any age. Please read it if you haven't. Please, please read it.

The same shift occurs when we stumble upon a checklist of characteristics—or symptoms—and are dumbfounded when we recognize ourselves.

My epiphany-inducing search began out of concern for a depressed loved one. When I googled depression, I quickly found the information I needed on the NIMH website. I saved the links, took some notes, and felt better able to provide guidance on what it was, what it wasn't, and how to help. At some point in the process, I clicked on Anxiety Disorders - just to cover all the bases. I read through the symptoms and could barely breathe, because I was looking at a snapshot of myself and I knew it. In that moment, I knew that "shy" and "introverted" were words I'd used to excuse reactions that were definitely connected with those attributes but went a lot deeper than a quirky personality.

Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD): A debilitating fear of being judged by others and of being embarrassed.

Social situations of any variety and even activities seldom considered "social" have always made me feel as if there was a brutal, unwelcome spotlight on me. Attending a party or a meeting, eating out, going grocery shopping or to the bank or a doctor's appointment, even taking a walk—all of these are at some level fear-inducing.  When I interact with groups of strangers or acquaintances or (God forbid) have to speak publicly, I'm frequently terrified from the moment I know it will happen to the moment it occurs. And then for days or weeks or in some cases even years, I agonize over what I said wrong or what I forgot to say. I berate myself with all the ways I could have spoken more clearly or intelligently. I recall the nauseating embarrassment of someone hollering, "Speak up!"—which has happened to me on multiple occasions, every one of them instantly devastating to my fragile composure.

As a result, I am a master of avoidance, bargaining with family, friends, instructors, coworkers, and myself. I try my best not to hurt anyone's feelings with my, "No thank you," but at times someone whose opinion I value seems determined to take a refusal personally. And while it hardly matters if I'm able to gear up emotionally to get my car detailed or pick up milk, I suffer implacable guilt when I know something should be done and I cannot find the courage to do it. So I've made myself do things I don't want to do, leaving me (still) panicked but also furious with myself—before, during and after—for failing to evade whatever it was.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD): persistent, excessive, and unrealistic worry about everyday things.

I've always known it wasn't "normal" to worry about everything, all the time. To worry in vivid, technicolor detail about events that might happen and crises that almost happened and incidents with a .01% chance of ever happening which would be devastating if they did. To believe that a well thought-out, perfectly-enacted plan of action could dispatch the problems and silence the perpetual uneasiness. But no such plan exists, and like a constant avalanche of justifiable and ridiculous fears—one often indistinguishable from the other—there were always new concerns to replace the ones I was blessedly able to dismiss.

Consequently, I am not only a master of avoidance, I have become a master of Perfectly Logical Reasons for Why I Can't Do The Thing.

At some point in 2013, I stopped driving. I didn't have an accident or get a ticket or wake up one day and say, "By God, I am never driving again!" It just happened, sort of, and I'm not even sure why. My youngest son needed a car, so I gave him mine. I work from home and my husband was teaching finance two evenings a week; sharing his car was totally doable and everyone I knew accepted it as such. Except that I never actually drove it anywhere. And then he went back to a full-time finance job and I didn't get a car because it had been two years and the thought of driving was utterly terrifying. I'd had a driver's license for over three decades and though I have certainly experienced fear while driving (or thinking about driving), it was nothing compared to this.

That's when I found the NIMH site and Reality said, "Hey guess what? You have Social Anxiety Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and you're heading pretty hardcore toward Panic Disorder, so… you might wanna do something about that."

So I bought a car. I drove it around in the parking lot for the first few days, and then I ventured out on nearby roads. Cautiously. No freeways. No byzantine intersections or traffic circles. Mapping anywhere I needed to go before leaving the house, no matter how close. And I spent almost every minute behind the wheel assuring myself: I'm fine I'm fine I'm seriously fine and if I have a wreck there are airbags and other safety shit and and I'll be okay. Probably.

Today, several months after the shock of finding myself in a list of symptoms—many of which I can trace back to childhood—I have an appointment with a therapist for an anxiety assessment. *deep breaths* I have to drive there, of course, which I'm viewing as pre-therapy. Or meta-therapy. A small but relevant validation to me that I can survive the shadowy, life-pilfering monsters in my world. That I can overcome them.

For the moment, however, everything has taken a backseat to my family's needs. 

What I'm experiencing is not uncommon to those in my age group. We're not quite done caregiving our children when we're required to pick up caregiving our parents. This is the point where I'd quit a job if I could, but like most of my working peers, I can't afford to do that. I need my writing income as much as I need the emotional release of writing. I must fit my job around personal responsibilities that no one can do in my place.

My parents are gradually losing control of their independence, despite all three of us trying our best not to face it. Because it's hard. Because the role-reversal lands squarely between uncomfortable and this-feels-dead-wrong. Because there are no simple solutions to anything. Because there's no escaping the fact that this will someday be me, needing assistance.

Good thing about that last one, though - Golden Rule, anyone? If I found myself at the mercy of fears that seemed imaginary to everyone around me but were utterly real to me, would I want to be left in the care of strangers? Would I strive to make myself understood and feel the terrifying weight of frustration when I couldn't? Would I still need to be touched and loved? Would I want my daughter to give up because she was afraid she might fail?

My mother contracted C Diff approximately three months ago, but was misdiagnosed for weeks, during which time it ravaged her intestines, her heart, and finally her mental status. After diagnosis, everyone entering her ICU room had to suit up, and though I understood the need to stop the spread of the damned infection, I worried that being granted not one moment of skin-to-skin contact with anyone would make her feel untouchable and perhaps even unloved.

She's healing physically, we hope, but she isn't herself, and frankly, we don't know if she'll come back to us. We only know that right now, she's scared and ashamed and angry and humiliated by the procedures she's enduring and her inability to understand it all or have any power over it. Right now, she needs the support and reassurance of those who love her, even if she isn't fully aware of it.

Three years ago, my father began losing his sight. After nearly 80 years of enviable vision, he rapidly lost the ability to drive, watch television, or sit and read a book. His Parkinson's made anything requiring finger-driven motor skills nigh-impossible, so many otherwise accessible things were still inaccessible to him. Because blindness developed at an age when learning new things would be challenging at best, he acclimated by leaning on my mother to be his eyes.

What she sees or doesn't is no longer credible, at least for the time being. His mental competence fully intact, he is effectively more blinded by her illness. In her current state, she lashes out, and he frequently gets the brunt of it. Yet there is no bitterness in his heart.

I was raised to believe that love never fails, and as I sat watching my parents yesterday, my belief in the truth of that was fortified.

Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is my mother saying, "Don't leave me," and my father replying, "I won't, sweetheart," before I have no choice but to take him home to sleep so he can come back the next day and hold her hand.

Here is my secret. It is very simple:

one sees well only with the heart.

The essential is invisible to the eyes.

Refugee: a person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster.

Upon further investigation, I found that over half of the 4 million plus (registered) Syrian refugees are children. Unsurprisingly, this is true of refugees everywhere, and the worldwide figures are staggering. I considered what it would take to tear my family from our home, to leave belongings that couldn't be carried, along with family and friends who would not or could not go, and to risk the loss of everything—up to and including life itself—all in search of a safer existence. As unimaginable as that seems to someone like me, I know one thing. This is not a decision people make on a whim.

This is the crucial point—when the face is the mirror is disillusioned and frustrated. The temptation to harden your heart in light of the seeming impossibility to make any kind of difference is strong. The excuses flood in: Leave the volunteering to people who don't have careers just taking off or families to support. Leave the donations to the wealthy and the government and all those tax dollars your hard work already provides. You can't help everyone, and besides, you aren't really sure what's going on and who's really on the receiving end of all those aid efforts anyway.

On the receiving end are people in need of the most basic necessities. Food. Shelter. Clothing. Jobs. Medical care. Homes. Yes, it's a good idea to educate yourself as much as possible, and you may feel more comfortable donating closer to home. But we don't have to understand every aspect of a fellow human being's plight to know they need help and to offer whatever assistance we can.

What could you give up over the course of one month? Could you ditch a bad habit (like smoking) and give part of what you save on cigarettes to improve someone else's life? What if one day every week you pack a lunch instead of heading for the drive-thru, or skip one trip to Starbucks? "That's only like ten or twenty bucks per month," you say. "How the hell is that going to actually help anyone?"

I understand—but stick with me.

What if twenty percent of your Instagram followers did the same thing? What if twenty percent of my Twitter followers did? Or twenty percent of the 72,845,934 people who follow Justin Bieber on Facebook? The latter would add up to over $1.7 billion in one year at $10/month each. No joke.

This is how we help, then. We bind together. Please check out the organization links below, and think about that ten bucks per month. Don't be afraid to check the "other" box and fill it in. That $10 is important, not only to the recipients, but to challenge your own fear about being a drop in the bucket. Be a drop. There are millions more where that came from, and together, we can do something good.

United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees

Médecins Sans Frontières International (Doctors Without Borders)

International Rescue Community

Save the Children

International Organization for Migration

Easy has made bestseller lists and favorite book lists and book boyfriend lists, and the thrill of those achievements has been gratifying and incredible. But seeing it on this list, among these outstanding, influential books, was the most satisfying moment I've had as an author. Recognition of this sort was everything I wanted for Easy when I wrote it, and everything I feared it would never achieve - because I'm a fallible human artist trying to translate emotions into words, and I relate to and interpret others more from observation than interaction, and most of my communication with the world is done through fiction. Romantic fiction.

I believe a reader takes what she needs to take from a book, an exchange as dependent on what she brings to the experience of reading as what I've attempted to disclose inside those pages. I can't suggest my book to some readers while telling others it might not work for them, and that's a good thing because I would probably be wrong as often as I'd be right. Still. I wrote a coming-of-age romance with the issue of sexual assault at its heart. For some, that was an unorthodox choice, but I couldn't have written it any other way.

In Spring 2005, I took a Young Adult Literature course as part of my English degree requirements. That semester, we read and analyzed thirteen books, one of which was Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. Six years old, it was already a celebrated classic for its heartbreaking portrayal of acquaintance rape and the arduous recovery process a survivor endures when she is not believed.

As a rape survivor, I was not thrilled with its inclusion on that syllabus. Appreciative of its existence? Yes, absolutely. But my feelings about reading it were a solid nope.

Years before, I'd sat in a theater, so nauseated I couldn't move, watching The Accused  (1988). That film introduced the argument—through the venue of a major motion picture—that there was no such thing as "asking for it." Serious discourse on the issue of what constitutes sexual assault arose and deep-seated presumptions in the minds of many were forever altered because of that film… but it traumatized me.

Having dodged rape-focused books and films ever since, I'd grown so skillful at that avoidance that I was barely aware of doing it. But here was this assignment, and as a conscientious student, there was no option to skip over it. So I gritted my teeth and I read Speak… and it moved me and helped me at a level I never expected.

Still, I was left with this question: How many other survivors steer clear of books and movies having to do with rape?  Because even though I felt validated and voiced through Anderson's book, I hadn't come to it willingly, and I never would have.

As a reader, I often venture outside the romance genre, but a good story with strong romantic elements and an ending that leaves me smiling tearfully has always been my favorite. When Jacqueline brought me her story, it was all shame and not telling and untrue rumors and a breakup and behavior changes that no one understood. Lucas was a shadowy savior in a parking lot. I did not want to write it. I could not in good conscience write a book that I would never willingly read.

Then Jacqueline returned with a more developed Lucas—someone with buried pain of his own—and I saw my opportunity to write a love story with the romance-essential happy ending. I had one central message to impart: It wasn't your fault. Between bouts of typical writer insecurity I felt sure that Easy could convey that message to survivors through a story that readers like me would read, and I wanted them to have it.

Thank you to BookRiot.com and journalist Nicole Froio for including Easy on this amazing list.

Short answer: I wrote it.

Longer answer: I wrote it months before I had any conception of Jacqueline or Lucas—or Easy. I woke up with the lines in my head, but I was still half-asleep when I snatched my glasses off my night table, yanked the drawer open, grabbed a pencil and scratch paper, and jotted it down. (I'm convinced our brains are in full swing while we sleep, working through pressing problems and tackling all sorts of creative tasks like the Shoemaker's Elves. Whatever I'd been pondering when I nodded off must have been quite the romantic puzzle!)

I didn't recognize what I'd written as a poem, which was funny because I'd been composing poetry since age thirteen and you'd think the five binders I'd compiled over thirty some-odd years would have made it obvious, but nope. I did recognize it as, "Whoa. I should probably keep this," however, hence the drowsy scribbling. After coffee, I used the whatever-it-was as my daily blog post, because lazy. (Thank you for that, inherent inertia.)

Fast-forward a year and a half. I was writing Easy. I'd created a hero with a good heart, a tortured soul, and no desire whatsoever to tell my heroine (or ME) anything about his past. Lucas was the opposite of communicative. I had come at his story through Jacqueline, and I felt every ounce of her frustration at what she wasn't being told. She feared a likely heartbreak in his past, something that shattered him, something his feelings for her could never touch.

Four lines were inscribed on his ribcage—a tattooed poem. I was ahead of Jacqueline, finally, in that I knew what she would find when she went digging. I knew how those words connected Lucas to his painful past. Having examined the poetry collections on my shelves and online, looking for the perfect verse, I was losing hope of finding anything acceptable when it hit me that Lucas's connection to Jacqueline was all too similar to his father's connection to his mother: a brooding, logical man in love with an sensitive, artistic woman.

That realization was triggered by a song from my playlist: Hardliners by Holcombe Waller. (Proof that art inspires art, and the reason I create a playlist for each novel which I often listen to on replay while writing.) I pulled up my blog, entered logic into the search box, and found the short post I'd written more than a year before, titled Absence. Rearranged, those words became Lucas's tattoo:

The final four words also became the series title for Easy, Breakable, and Sweet.

My career road was more winding. We started a family and I spent my time raising children, reading, and writing. I'd always wanted to be a novelist, but it seemed a near-unattainable goal. There was no such thing as indie publishing. Back then, it was called vanity publishing, and it was accomplished by paying thousands of dollars to have books printed so a few could be sold to family or friends and the rest could molder in a garage or basement or coat closet. This was not something a writer did if he or she ever desired be taken seriously in the literary world.

When digital publishing took off a few years ago, it was viewed the same way… Until gatekeepers were swept aside and authors found readers and began to make a living writing novels New York didn't want.

My novel-writing aspirations weren't dreams of fame and fortune - my dream was to tell the stories in my head. My hope was to write something that would be meaningful to faceless future readers. But when I checked back flaps of novels in the bookstore, novelists seemed to belong to an elite club to which I would never gain entrance. I thought I would need an MFA in creative writing and contacts in publishing and a NYC address to even have a shot.

Eventually, I decided to push those fears to the side because even if obstacles seem insurmountable, striving toward a goal is better than doing nothing and making that impossibility absolute. So I returned to school to complete my BA in English literature. I raised my family. I worked at jobs that helped fill the coffers but didn't fill my soul. My soul was fed when I sat in front of my computer for hours during evenings and weekends to write. My hopes were reignited when I attended conferences to master my craft at a deeper level and meet likeminded people and literary agents.

My efforts to become a "real" writer were never merely tolerated or treated as a frivolous hobby by my significant other. At every point along the way, he was encouraging and emotionally supportive. And when Between the Lines began to amass rejections from agents as had previous manuscript attempts (shelved on my hard drive), and my belief in doing the one and only thing I'd ever really wanted to do waned, he empowered me with the words You can do this.

And then he backed up those words by spending his weekends formatting manuscripts into digital books.

Tomorrow is the fourth anniversary of my journey as an author—four years since Between the Lines went out into the world. My intention was to get it out the door so I could focus on writing the next book. My quiet hope was that I would sell fifty copies. To date, that book has sold 100,000 copies, has been translated into Hungarian, and will be published in Portuguese and German within the next year. It turned into a four-book series that helped me grow as a writer. Without it, Easy would not exist. Without Paul's love and support, none of the books I've written would exist, because I'd have given up a long time ago.

I love reading and writing romance, but I don't need a hero. I've got one.

The birth of a book is a formidable event for most authors, no matter how excited we are. Like giving birth in a physical sense, there is an unavoidable loss of control while a million emotions battle for first place, from tenacious optimism to sheer terror.

Recently, someone asked me if the process gets easier with each subsequent book, and I couldn't help but laugh. In some ways, yes, experience pays. That's true of anything we human beings do (hopefully); the more we do a thing, the more skilled and seasoned we become. At the same time, expectations increase from one book to the next—those of the author, the publisher, the critics and the readers. This is especially true if we're ever wildly successful with one particular project.

Sweet is a slow-burn, character-driven romance about a love founded in friendship—my favorite to read and my favorite to write. Why? Because I believe the concept of friends-to-lovers is not merely a romantic trope. Because my heart knows this type of narrative inside and out, but never grows tired of it. Because friends who fall for each other is the best of real-life-love possibilities.

Happy book birthday, Sweet.

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Description

The titles of Easy and Breakable were paradoxical in nature, and I meant them to be. Jacqueline confronts rumors (spread by her attacker to cover his tracks and intimidate her) that she's easy. Lucas comes to terms with a past horror that could and possibly should have broken him, but didn't. With the friendship and love of others and through their own efforts, these victims become survivors. I set out to designate a meaning other than the usual associations we make with those words by the end of each book.

So how did I choose this title for Boyce and Pearl's story? Unlike the initial connotations of easy and breakable, sweet is such a nice word. But consider how often sweet seems to mean weak.

While quiet boys are labeled brooding, quiet girls find themselves labeled demure or modest or sweet. Pearl Torres Frank never had to challenge the status quo because what she wanted for herself was always supported and encouraged by parents, teachers, and mentors. Now, she's about to shake things up. Even disheartened by those who express disappointment over her altered course, she doesn't back down from her decisions.

When a quiet, unassuming girl has a backbone, that fact surprises everyone except the person who knows her best.

Boyce Wynn has never been quiet. He's anything but brooding. Growing up in his small town, he was bigger and louder than life. He alarmed and disconcerted peers and authority figures alike, and he meant to do so. But from the first moment he knew her, Pearl was something apart from everyone else, and nothing that applied to the rest of the world or the people in it applied to her.

When a loud, rough boy has a gentle side, that fact surprises everyone—except the person who knows him best.

Watch these two prove to each other and everyone they know that there is nothing stronger or sweeter than lifelong friends who fall in love.

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RULES: You must be a member of Goodreads to enter and you must add the book to your bookshelf. That's it! Easy peasy, yeah?

Go HERE to enter.

(Giveaway ends on April 26, 2015. Winners will be chosen by Goodreads.)

You may notice that one particular band dominates the list: Green River Ordinance. The primary reason is that their songs are perfect illustrations of Boyce and Pearl's relationship. The secondary reason is this band is from my hometown, which makes their awesomeness even more awesome to me! Their sound is alternative and folksy with a little country edge thrown in for good measure.

Find the whole playlist under the book description.

I've written once before about sexual assault. What I wrote then was tempered by the fact that the article had been requested by a magazine with a target audience of girls ages 13-17. I focused on a thirteen-year-old reader for the purpose of that article, which wasn't hard to do. I had a twenty-two year old daughter, and I remembered what I'd told her when she was thirteen. The emphasis was on safety, just as it had been all her life. Don't touch the hot stovetop. Don't stick things in outlets. Look both ways before crossing. Don't trust a boy just because he seems nice.

The first time I had sex, it hurt so badly I made him stop. He wasn't nice, that guy. He was kind of a dick, in fact. The type who occasionally said things that were targeted to make me feel stupid. But you know what? When I said stop, he stopped. Right there in the middle of it, he stopped. At the time, I hadn't known to be grateful to him for that. When it came to boys and sex, the warnings from my mother were all about not giving them what they wanted. Nothing about them taking it from me. That was reserved for warnings about strangers and dark parking lots. She hadn't warned me about friends.

I didn't want to scare my daughter but I needed to, because I didn't want her to ever suffer what happened to me if there was a chance in hell that she could prevent it. So I put her in taekwondo. I told her, point blank, what had happened to me. I taught her to be an unapologetic bitch if she needed to. And I told her what I wanted the readers of that magazine to know: the most likely person to rape you will be someone you know.

When I left high school, I hadn't wanted to go to college. But after working in various clerical positions on campus to put my husband through college, I changed my mind. I did some research and found out that if I quit my full-time job, financial aid (grants, loans, work-study job) would cover the cost of tuition for me, and his financial aid would increase too. He was in his senior year when I began.

I'd been lifting weights for about a year and paying attention to what I ate as part of that, so as an easy-A elective, I took a nutrition class. I sat on the front row along with a couple of guys who also lifted. They, in fact, were amateur bodybuilding competitors, three years younger than me. One was single, and the other had a girlfriend who was still in high school. We passed Muscle and Fitness magazines between us before class, and chatted about the stuff like-minded people chat about.

Three months passed. The guy with a girlfriend was having relationship trouble and thought they might break up, and because I was older and wiser and married, he wanted advice. I gave him my phone number. I told him I was working that afternoon and going out that night, but free the next day. My husband was going to a friend's place to play Dungeons & Dragons. No such thing as "online" back then, and D&D was an all-day affair.

My classmate called around noon and we discussed his girlfriend issue. In the background, I could hear lots of small-children noise. He still lived at home with parents, and his younger siblings were running around the house enjoying their day off school. "It sounds really quiet at your place," he said. "I can barely hear you over them!" I told him that yeah, with my husband out for the day, I was just enjoying the morning, doing laundry and reading. We talked a little more, but the noise on his end didn't abate. "You give such good advice and I want to hear it. Would you mind if I came over there?" he asked.

I have to be honest, for a split second, I balked. But my hesitation wasn't some sort of intuition. It was a twinge of worry about how it might look for me to have a guy over while my husband was out. I dismissed it almost immediately. I knew this guy. My husband didn't know him but he knew about him. We were friends, and he needed me. "Sure," I said, and gave him directions to my apartment.

He came over and we sat on the sofa and talked some more. And then he leaned over and kissed me, one hand behind my head and one on my leg. I pulled back. My worry during those few seconds? That I'd given him the wrong signals. That I was going to hurt his feelings. That our friendship had just taken a serious turn toward awkward. "Oh, hey, I'm not really—" I started. I didn't get any further. I was on the floor, jeans pushed to my knees in seconds. I said No. I said Don't. I struggled but he outweighed me by a hundred pounds. I know it must have been painful but all I remember feeling was humiliation.

In the article for Justine, I included what he said before he went out the door, but I edited for the audience. The first thing he actually said was, "You're a great lay." I was pulling up my jeans, numb with shock, trying to wrap my head around what had just happened while he was smiling and telling me what had just happened: he'd gotten laid; I'd gotten laid. "I gotta go, see you in class Monday," he said then, and left.

I allowed his words to define what happened that day, and I didn't challenge it—in my own head—for twelve years. I knew what happened wasn't something I wanted. I knew I felt humiliated and ashamed. But I called it bad judgment on my part because I had trusted someone untrustworthy. I didn't call it rape. I skipped a few classes but eventually went back. It was a large auditorium classroom and I sat elsewhere. I'd been acing the class but ended the semester with a C. (I made only one other C my entire college career, a self-paced pre-cal class that English majors should never, ever take.)

I've said that this event does not define me, and it doesn't. But it also never goes away. Lately, I've found that I still have triggers, and I'm never sure when they're going to pull.

My husband and I have been binge-watching a show on Netflix. In the second season, there's a rape. It caught me by surprise. It wasn't terribly graphic, though honestly, it doesn't ever have to be. My mind fills in the blanks. The victim kept it a secret, and that produced more triggers for me, but as I watched her inability to connect sexually with her husband and how that drove further wedges between them and caused her more anguish I thought, Yes. Yes. That's how it feels. In the episode we watched last night, she finally told him, and for some reason that was the scene that pushed me over the edge. The episode ended with his hands on her face, tears in his eyes, as she leaned her forehead against his.

I got up, went into the bathroom and sat down on the bathmat in the dark. Without making a sound, I put my face against my knees and just cried. I could have turned into my husband's arms, but for some reason I felt the need to escape and be alone, as though I still have something to feel ashamed of. I know better. I do. I know it wasn't my fault. But it happened anyway, didn't it? And ever since that day, that moment, that coarse sentence from my rapist's mouth, I know inside the hollow of my bones exactly how vulnerable I am. I can never unknow it. And that's the thing about rape.