Instead of first line Friday today, I want to do something a little different.
My newest book, INFLUENCE ( A NEW YORK SOCIALITES ROMANCE) is releasing on August 14th and I’d like to tell you the story behind the story. Or in other words, what made me write Mackenzie’s tale.
Back in 2019 when Limitless Publishing released my book DIRTY DAMSELS I had, in my mind, four books for the DotComgirls series. Once Limitless decided they didn’t want any more of the books in the series I was – heartbroken for sure – but I still wanted to publish the remaining books. So that’s when I decided to go independent. IT’S A TRUST THING was the first book to release. I had to change the series name from dotcomgirls to something else and THE NEW YORK SOCIALITES seemed right. The tagline Riches to rags and back again, finding love along the way, came to me in the car one day, and I was set.
WOKE, then BALANCE were published in subsequent years and I thought I was done.
Then the pandemic hit and I noticed something I never had before – the absolute power of Social Media. A new term, Influencer, popped up one day in a news report on Good Morning America, and I got an idea for a character who has burst onto the scene as one of these influencers.
Who was she? What was her story? Why does she crave the attention of likes and follows from strangers? The notion to make her a former socialite jibed with an idea I’d been kicking around for another book in the series. Mackenzie Cray had to have something, something BIG motivate her to put herself in the public eye as an Influencer. Her tragic love story with Lucky Blumenthal was born. While we never meet Lucky in person, on the page he is a powerful force behind everything Mac does.
Now I needed a hero.
One of my favorite secondary characters in my books has always been Dominick Templeton from IT’S A TRUST THING. When we meet him we think he’s sleazy tabloid journalist, but once the story unfolds, we find out just how wonderful he is – especially to his brother. I’ve wanted to give Nick a love story since then, and decided he would make the perfect foil for Mackenzie.
So I did.
In INFLUENCE, Nick has been assigned a series of articles by the magazine he writes for, detailing the past and present lives of former debutants. Mackenzie Craymore is on his list, but she’s stonewalled every call he’s made and refuses to be interviewed. Nick wonders why this former wild child trust fund baby has done a 180 in her life and is now a serious businesswoman and influencer who goes by the name Lizzy Cray. And he’s determined to find out her motivation – even though she’s not revealing it.
So, I guess you can blame the idea for INFLUENCE on the power of social media and the pandemic, LOL!
The book releases on 8.14.2023 and will be available in KU for the first few months. You can preorder your copy here: INFLUENCE.
And if you want to get reacquainted ( or meet them for the very first time!) here’s where you can find the other NYC Socialites and the book that started it all, DIRTY DAMSELS. And P.S. – Dirty Damsels is my most reviewed book on Amazon!!!