by Mlissa | Aug 6, 2025 | New Releases
I really do love this book. It’s been a labor of both love and hate, of so much fear and procrastination. And it turns out the fears have been well founded. But…It’s okay. I’m okay. I think… I’m not too sure.
This book, this series has been a few years in the making, from concept, to the first words written, to the multiple re-writes and revisions and editing passes, to the final product.
It’s my longest book at just over 65,000 words.
It’s the first in a series.
It ends on a cliffhanger.
And it’s my worst selling book for a new release in all the years I’ve been publishing. Not even my very first story back in 2008 sold this poorly. 2 books in a week. That’s all. I’ve started on Book 2, All That Burns, and I’ll finish it, but I have to be honest, there’s a lot of fear surrounding that one, too. And the next, and the next after that. I can chalk it up to any number of factors… Nothing new in 7 months. The current state of the world and the US. The end of July/beginning of August and all the back to school preparations going on. The book doesn’t sound appealing or interesting to anyone because most would rather F1 than Endurance. I haven’t been very public facing this year, no ads, no marketing, no talking the book up, and I didn’t even announce I had a new book on Instagram/Facebook/Threads. I did send out a newsletter and had a really good open rate, but a terrible click rate. No unsubscribes, though, and that’s a positive.
So, there’s a lot of reasons only 2 copies have sold and it might pick up, or it might not. It could be that there’s going to be an uptick when other books come out. It could also be that this series will be the one that flops. I’ve had a feeling that this series would be ‘the one’ , but maybe ‘the one’ meant the opposite of good. I don’t know yet. What I do know is that I love this story and I’m proud of it. I love these characters. Ashton. Helen. Brax. Book 2 centers around Hale and I’m still getting to know him and how he wants his story told, but I love him, too.
Maybe people will give this book and this series a try. Maybe they won’t. I’ve learned a lot and I plan to just keep on keepin’ on.
All Ashton Glitterati has ever known is racing, winning, and the unwavering friendships of twins Hale and Helen Troye, and his cousin Braxton.
Inseparable from the word Go! nothing had ever shaken them. Nothing until that one split second on the track. Nothing until two cars were vying for the same groove. Nothing until Ashton’s car spun into a wall leaving him bruised and broken.
Now, months later, all Ashton knows is fear, anxiety, and so much anger that no amount of pills, talking, or physical exertion helps clear the red haze of rage that threatens to consume him.
The only calm in his inescapable storm is Helen. She eases the monsters inside him. She soothes the sharp edges that seek to destroy what’s left of him.
And with the new racing season set to start, Ashton is no closer to being able to drive, and his seat is on the brink of being given away.
There’s always been a Glitterati in the cars owned by his family… But if Ashton isn’t ready to race, what happens to the Glitterati legacy? What happens to his career and what he was beginning to build for himself?
In a moment of desperation, Ashton crosses a line with Helen, devising a far-fetched plan to not only get back in a race car, but to inflict some measure of pain onto her brother, the man who took everything that made Ashton great.
Time moves fast for a race car driver staring into the unknown, for the bonds of lifelong friendships that have begun to fray, and for a man and woman who understand that every dream can be snatched away in an instant, no matter how hard you hold on.
ALL THAT GLITTERS
by Mlissa | Jan 16, 2025 | Coming Soon, Racing
I have been working on and thinking about this series for the last few years. I have written and re-written the first book. I have started and re-started the second book. I also realized there will be a fourth book (which I need to contact Bookin’ It Designs for that cover). I have second, third, and fourth guessed the books and the whole series. I have spent countless hours and sleepless nights watching races and researching. I wanted to get it right. As right as I possible could.
One of the things that has plagued me about the series is how much racing do I add because understanding endurance racing is not as easy as understanding other types of racing. How much information about the type of cars and the type of racing and the rules do I include?
I saw an author say that she planned to write an F1 romance even though she’d never seen a race or knew anything about it.
I saw another author say that her hockey romance simply had the mention of the hero being a hockey player once upon a time and that there’s no actual hockey in the book.
I’ve read books with the sports being very well detailed, on the ice or the field, with research, and others with the sports being fluffed off and secondary or even deeper in the background.
So, how much do readers want? I think it varies, honestly.
It’s a fine line to walk for me. I don’t want the racing to be in the background, but I also don’t want to bore readers with it. I want the characters affected by it. It’s a risky profession and I want that noted in this series and in all racing series I write. Part of the overarching theme is the aftermath and fallout from a terrible wreck involving best friends and how it touches everyone and everything around them.
One of the best reviews I got for the first book in the Stick Shift Motorsports (when the first book was titled Stick Shift), was when someone said ‘The author seems to know what she’s talking about. I think she’s actually been to a race‘. I had been to many races by that point. It’s been important to me from the start to make sure I’m as authentic as possible while also taking a few liberties because after all, I do write romantic fiction. There’s always going to be exaggeration in how characters act or interact, but I try not to downplay what happens on a track. The locations of race shops will also be at liberty, too, but they had to be to fit the stories and how the characters interact.
Now… This series is going to be handled a little differently than others. Endurance racing doesn’t happen every single week the way Nascar does. The tracks and race dates are still all over. There are different endurance racing series (IMSA (International Motor Sports Association), FIA WEC (Federation Internationale de l’Automobile World Endurance Championship), European Le Mans series, Asian Le Mans series, and others…)
I’m basing my Endurance series on IMSA… The season starts in January at Daytona with the first race being the Rolex 24 at Daytona and then travels through the year to 11 tracks across the country. Unlike Nascar, endurance cars are broken into classes and there will be a winning team in each class. There’s also driver categorization and this covers all drivers in all racing series… Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum. Moving from one to the other is based on race results, series participation, career progression, experience, and consistency. They are then reviewed by the governing body, generally the FIA, and upgraded. Making a move, say from Bronze to Gold would mean the driver is transitioning from amateur to professional with podium finishes.
Teams have multiple drivers for one car, as well. Per the IMSA website “A minimum of two drivers are required for every race – with up to three to five drivers used’ in the…longer endurance races at Daytona, Sebring, Watkins Glen, and Road Atlanta. Those races are respectively 24 hours at Daytona, 12 hours of Sebring, 6 hours at Watkins Glen, and 10 hours at Road Atlanta.
So, these are the things that I try to understand and keep in mind. How much do I include? How much is relevant to the story I am trying to tell?
All That Glitters happens at the start of the season, before Daytona. I don’t actually show any racing in this book, but there’s plenty of drama and angst about racing fueling it. It also ends on a cliffhanger and it won’t be resolved until book four. There will also be snippets of internal monologue from the MMC in book one peppered here and there in book 2, All That Burns and in book 3, All That Echoes. It’ll be important but how I’m going to do it, I don’t know.
All the books will be released on race weekends and I’m still working out the finer details. All That Burns will likely be the 12 Hours of Sebring which is in mid-March, but All That Echoes will likely be in mid-June, with All That Endures in mid-October.
I really want to put these books in print and create a bundle when they’re all finished. They will be a wide release because KU doesn’t do well for me.
All That Glitters ties in Checkered Curves, Stick Shift Motorsports book 3, which still needs some serious help, but I’m determined to work out all those kinks. I don’t have a release date for it, yet, but it’ll be soon because yeah…
I didn’t answer all the questions. I didn’t give as many details here as I could have, maybe should have. But I gave what I felt needed to be given…
Releases throughout the year.
Cliffhanger at the end of All That Glitters because it had to be done…
Four books.
Angst on and off the track.
All That Glitters connection to Stick Shift Motorsports series.
Work on this series has been so different. It’s been a labor of love as well as just a labor of craft. I have questioned myself, up one side and down the other, about whether I have the skills to make it work. This is truly something I’ve been so excited and terrified to write and give to you.
I hope I do it justice.
Lissa
by Mlissa | Mar 10, 2015 | Temptation Tuesday
This one isn’t an old book, but it’s one of my favorite stories. I was reading through some passages the other night and was reminded of how much I loved it. It’s not your typical friends to lovers romance, but then, I’m not always one for typical, either… (more…)
by Mlissa | Aug 10, 2013 | Uncategorized
Friends to lovers.
This is one of those snippets that won’t be too difficult to come up with. I have a few books with the friends to lovers theme.
Different types of friends create different types of lovers. Sometimes it’s easy and just falls right into place. Sometimes it takes a little more work to make the transition.
Thoughts of Johnny, the sole reason for her being in a swanky hotel, kept creeping in. Why had she thought this was a good idea again? Why had she felt so compelled to ask him, of all men, to fulfill her fantasies? You know why. Liz sighed. The secret naughty girl voice inside her head shouldn’t be allowed to talk until coffee was flowing through her veins. Her angelic good girl voice had no energy to mount a defense yet.
When the doors to the elevator opened, the aroma of freshly brewed heaven hit her before she crossed the threshold and she inhaled deeply. A sign outside the elevator pointed her in the direction of Bar Espresso and she made a beeline for it.
The first thing she noticed as she crossed the threshold was the menu. It stretched four panels long. One for coffees and teas, one for hot espresso drinks, one for cold and one for pastries. She scanned the espresso drinks. What would they think if she ordered one of each?
‘Hello, Liz.”
“Oh dear God,” she whispered under her breath as the voice rippled over her. He was early. He wasn’t supposed to arrive until late tonight or maybe even tomorrow. It was meant to be a Friday to Monday weekend. What was he already doing here?
The deep chuckle from behind told her she hadn’t spoken quietly enough. “No, and I didn’t expect you to refer to me as God quite yet.”
Johnny Trouble. She knew that voice almost as well as she knew her own. His nearness, his gravelly rumble, was nearly as potent for her as the coffee she couldn’t live without.
Everything in her line of sight faded and centered on this one location. It was only the two of them in the universe as far as her mind and body were concerned. They’d spoken just last night right before she’d drifted off to sleep. She’d told him she wanted to back out, that it was a bad idea. He’d told her she was lying, and while she hated to admit it, he’d been right. She’d initiated this, she’d arranged this and no matter how scared she was, she intended to go through with it.
What he hadn’t told her was that he was arriving early.
But he was here in the hotel now, standing behind her with one specific purpose in mind and she was quaking in her flip-flops.
She’d lost her ever lovin’ mind.
“Liz.” The tone of voice was impatient. “Turn around and look at me.”
She shook her head, mute. She couldn’t look at him, couldn’t talk to him. This was crazy. She needed to get her coffee and get the hell out until she was more fortified to handle him.
The air around her shifted and crackled. He was closer, within inches of being pressed to her back. His breath fanned her ear and breezed through the loose strands of hair at her nape. Heat rolled off him and seeped through her thin, worn shirt.
“Turn around, Liz.” He spoke softer, and directly against her skin now.
He was teasing her, taunting her, and it was exactly what she needed, wanted. Only, she wanted so much more too. She just had to get her mind to communicate with the rest of her.
“Really? You’re not going to turn around and look at me?”
What was she afraid of? She’d done the hard part. Well, not the hard hard part, but she’d asked him to give her a long, fantasy weekend and he’d said yes. He wasn’t nervous, or at least he didn’t appear to be, so what was her issue? It was an easy answer. She was the wallflower. It had been her Achilles’ heel all her life. In the safe haven of her home, of her little neighborhood, she was open and comfortable with her life. He represented the opposite of all that, and though it scared her, when she was with him, she couldn’t help but be drawn to it.
“I get it,” he said, coming to stand beside her now. “You’re taken aback by my celebrity, aren’t you? It’s finally hit you just how famous I am.” Johnny sighed dramatically and Liz couldn’t stop herself from looking at him. He didn’t turn his head to meet her gaze, but there was a little smirk on his lips that, as she stared at it, started to ease the nervousness coursing through her. “I knew it would catch up to you sooner or later. I know I’m quite the catch for women. I mean, look at me? I’m the quintessential over-the-hill rock star who still wears leather, has long hair and thinks he’s smokin’ hot. Chicks still dig me, baby.”
Liz laughed and nudged him with her shoulder. The familiarity of their long-standing friendship settled in the small space between them. He was as much a smartass now as he’d ever been. He knew his celebrity didn’t matter to her. She was proud of him, proud to know him as a person, as an imperfect, but gorgeous man. She was proud to have known him before he’d ever struck it rich with a hit song, and he knew how hard something like this weekend was for someone so quiet, how out of character it was for her to make the first move. Her inability to turn around and face him was not for any reason other than fear, a little anxiety and a whole lot of discomfort with the immediate situation. She didn’t like being this way sometimes, but more often than not, the homebody in her kicked in and she stayed rooted to what she knew. “Thank you,” she said softly.
“There’s nothing to thank me for.”
“There is. You’re helping an old friend step outside herself for a while.” She’d spent a great deal of time living her personal life vicariously through other people, the characters from her books and, Johnny. He was well traveled and he never failed to entertain and amuse her with some of his stories, the antics of his band, the daring things their fans would do just to be able to touch their coattails.
It was high time she did some real life living of her own.
“True… In a way,” he added softly.
“What do you mean, in a way?”
So, now it’s time for you to visit the following blogs for more friends to lovers snippets…
Lauren Dane
Caris Roane
Eliza Gayle
McKenna Jeffries
Shiloh Walker
Taige Crenshaw
Delilah Devlin
HelenKay Dimon
Myla Jackson
Shelli Stevens
Jody Wallace
~lissa
