Interests 23 through 25
Hi, welcome back to These Are My Interests with Hanna. I’m Hanna. This week we’re going to deep dive into three of my interests:
23. ALL THE BEST NIGHTS (2021)
24. END OF THE DAY (2022)
25. QUEEN OF DUST (2023)
My books with Carina Press!
All the Best Nights is a rockstar-squared romance that pits two singer/songwriters against the media (and the patriarchy). Bran Kelly and Nelle both want to have something private, something they can keep to themselves—I bet you can guess: that something turns out to be each other. Publishing a debut is always A Big Moment, and I had another when AtBN was named a Best Romance Novel of 2021 by the Fated Mates podcast. Are the youth still saying “dead” because they can’t even? That applies.
The sequel, End of the Day—featuring actor Milo Fox and make-up artist Benjamina Wasik’s second chance at making it work—came out a year later and. . . didn’t make much of a splash. That’s show business. (This is a pun because EotD is a Hollywood romance.) It has a loud trope (“twin impersonating his brother in fake-dating scheme”) but I think of it as a quieter story about disappointment and forgiveness. I’m still hoping it finds its audience and I think it will—here’s why:
Related to Interest #7, Self-development books, I’ve been reading Art & Fear, a book about “the perils and rewards of artmaking.” I’m finding it mostly okay with a few great lines (“Style is the natural consequence of habit.” !!!). Another line I like comes way at the end, in a section about voice and the stories we tell. The way the authors see it (and please take my repetition as endorsement), artists tell the same story again and again:
“Stories of the things that draw us in—and why should any of us have more than a handful of those?”
They say convincing work “focuses on the things you care about.” These are my interests!
I’ve called End of the Day a word search of my favorite things. The plot was conceived as the opposite of All the Best Nights (Milo and Benj want people to think they are together, while Bran and Nelle do not), but it’s my same story: a woman with high expectations, a man with a lot of feelings, angst in a sexy way.
Queen of Dust is that story in space. That’s right: come January, I’m genre-hopping with a new penname! My next book is sci-fi EROTIC romance, which means if you take out the sex, the plot falls apart (sorry/not sorry, Mom). You can pre-order it now if you want to start 2023 with a bang. . .and a few more bangs after that. More bangs than plot—and there’s a significant amount of plot! When seductress Mara Leanor returns to her home planet and gets swept up in a plot to dislodge an unwanted army presence, it’s Calvy D’Aldiern, the enemy soldier committed to her safety, she has to guard against invading her heart. . .
I have taken to calling this book “my masterpiece.”
This has been fun! As always, please feel free to email me back some of your interests. I would like that. And, if I may, a Whitman:
“All truths wait in all things, They neither hasten their own delivery nor resist it.”
Hanna
