Mary Jean Adams's Blog

Title: Love Unexpected

Author: Jenny Proctor

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Subgenre: New Adult, Young Adult (twenty-something)

Heat Level: Sweet (with a touch of salt)

Links: Amazon, BookBub

This story is perfect for the crazy times we live in. Isaac is a social media personality famous enough to have his own merch and provide careers for several of his friends and family. Rosie is an introverted web designer with barely controlled anxiety issues and a monster crush on Isaac since high school. She moves...

Title: I Hated You First

Author: Rachel John

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Sub-genre: New Adult; Young Adult (twenty-something)

Heat level: Sweet

Links: Amazon, BookBub

This is the first book I’ve read by Rachel John, but I will be reading more of her work. If you like the enemies to lovers trope, but in a sweet romance, then I suspect you will like I Hated You First. 

I thought Lauren and Clay were both charming characters and not the usual stereotypes. Lauren’s definitely not the girlie-girl you find a...

With a new release on the market, I'm trying to decide which project to tackle next. I have three options calling to me:

Option A: Finish a new contemporary romance I started drafting while I waited for edit rounds on Smitten . It's going well, but I'm only about a quarter of the way through the first draft, so it's not like it just needs a bit of polishing.

Option B: Revisit Rebel's Kiss, a historical romance I was querying when I got bitten by the contemporary bug. 

I really like this story, but I...

Ack! It's been so long since I've posted anything, I completely forgot how to log in to my blog. In my defense, I've been in heavy-edit mode for the last six months. 

But, at long last, Smitten is finally here! 

Special shout out to @PatriciaSCook, my fabulous editor at Champagne Book Group. She put oodles of hours, working with me on developmental edits and helping me hit that sweet spot of sexy, but still sweet.

New city. New job. New life. No jerks allowed.

After thirteen years, Liv Sanders can n...

Amazon Link

4 Stars
Genre: Contemporary
Subgenre: Christian
Heat Level: Clean

I received a pre-release review copy of this novel through NetGalley. This review is a slightly longer version of the one I posted on NetGalley and on Amazon.

I'd not read anything by Tammy Gray before, but I requested this one because the story sounded reminiscent of Faking Grace, one of my favorite contemporary Christian romances. Both are the story of the conversion of a non-believer into a believer. Sort of...

Before I di...

And so it begins...
After writing four novels and publishing them through a fairly well-known, but boutique press, I decided I wanted to work with an agent. It���s only been seven days since I signed the contract, so I thought I���d share a bit about my journey while it���s still fresh. Maybe I can help others who are deciding whether to go straight to the publisher, to self-publish, or to seek out an agent.

Today, I just want to share a bit of the background to my journey. My current manuscript i...

And so it begins...
After writing four novels and publishing them through a fairly well-known, but boutique press, I decided I wanted to work with an agent. Its only been seven days since I signed the contract, so I thought Id share a bit about my journey while its still fresh. Maybe I can help others who are deciding whether to go straight to the publisher, to self-publish, or to seek out an agent.
Today, I just want to share a bit of the background to my journey. My current manuscript is a...

Just One of the Guys
by Kristan Higgins

4 Stars
Genre: Contemporary
Subgenre: Chick lit (IMO)
Heat level: Sort of steamy
Amazon Link

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It all started with a tweet...

A couple of weeks ago, someone posted an incident on Twitter about a sweet encounter between her plumber and her cat. I replied that it sounded like a great plot device for a romance. It was an off-hand comment and certainly not the first time I've made such a comment. It drew well over a hundred likes.

In the thread, we chatted back and forth about what they'd like to see in the romance... if I were to write it. I'd been considering writing a YA or NA, but most c...

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