A summer of romance writing detours (and a little longer, winding post)
It’s been a summer! For you too?
Photo by Maksym Mazur on Unsplash
This post is part explanation and part promise.
First a quick 2025, recap. The explanation part.
I began the year publishing two regency romance novels. Dear Lord Wycliffe, Book 2 of my Rebel Hearts Series.
A month later, I released Under a Honeyed Moon, a stand alone novel, only slightly related to my first series, Illusions.
Such a good beginning to the year, right?
I immediately went back to work on Brothers’ Tangle, Book 3 of the Rebel Hearts series. I planned a May release.
DETOUR #1. I accepted an invitation to submit a novella to an anthology. So I paused Brothers’ Tangle and began a fantasy pirate story. (Let’s call it Captivated. It became part of my secret historical fantasy romance series).
I fell in love with these characters, but soon realized that story wanted to be more than a novella. So I paused Captivated and started a whole new historical fantasy romance novella for the anthology.
And The Lily and the Hawk came into being. (Part of Treasures Untold Anthology, releasing December 2. Available for Preorder on Amazon).
Whew! Back to Brothers’ Tangle, which I finished the beginning of May and released the first part of July!
I was on a roll, so I began Book 4 of the Rebel Hearts Series, let’s call it Delia’s Story for now.
I planned to swing back and finish Captivated right after.
DETOUR # 2. An idea came out of the blue. What if I wrote a new, stand alone regency romance to pitch to an editor at the writers’ conference in August? I only had 2 1/2 months. It would be difficult, but I wanted to try. I wrote 1/3 of what we’ll call Angel. I was giddy.
Imagine an embarrassed emoji here. I love Angel. It’s so fun. But as I wrote, it became book 1 of a very tightly interwoven trilogy. I couldn’t use that for my first pitch. So I paused. That makes 3 paused books.
- Captivated (fantasy romance)
- Delia’s Story (regency–final Rebel Hearts book)
- Angel (Book 1 of a brand new regency series)
Instead, I began an entirely new novel (Let’s call this one, Huntley Hall, for now). I wrote frantically through June and July. I had only a few chapters left to finish.
And DETOUR #3 happened. My brother-in-law passed away after a long battle with cancer. I put all writing aside for funeral and family time. I also missed the conference, but the most important things must come first.
DETOUR #4. With the time away from writing, I had to leave Huntley Hall unfinished. I had to move on to a multi-author project I had been invited to write in. It’s just a small novel. And something a little different and special.
The challenge? It must be submitted by October 2. (I can’t say much about this project–Sorry. I’m under contract). For now, we’ll call it Medieval Tale. And it will be released at the end of 2026.
What this means, as of today, my list of partially finished books now number 5–
- Medieval Tale (part of multi author project)
- Captivated (historical fantasy romance with pirates),
- Delia’s book (final regency in the Rebel Heart’s Series),
- Angel (new regency romance series, book 1), and
- Huntley Hall (my nearly completed regency to be pitched, likely in the spring at another writer’s conference).
Now the Promise part of the post:
Because of detours, the summer of 2025 looks like a writing fail. Do not be deceived. I am primed for a fabulous end to 2025 and an exciting beginning of 2026. I promise these 5 novels will be worth the wait.