Robert and Maria are both classicists. Any Classics nerds out there on the greater internet? Are your careers in law and marketing going okay? To clarify, since I’ve been asked whether it’s “classics like Shakespeare or ‘57 Chevies,” Classics is the study of ancient Greece and Rome. Robert studies the Silver Age of Latin Literature (roughly 18 - 133 AD or CE). Maria specializes in Hellenistic history (323 - 30 BC or BCE).

As always, you don’t need to know or care about arcane academic subjects to understand the book. At its core, the book is the story of a very messy, flailing former academic hotshot (Maria) and the kindly stable nerd who’s adored her since grad school (Robert). If you love a wholesome good-girl heroine, Maria is… Probably not for you. She flames out of the UNESCO Young Professionals Program only to somehow wind up accidentally making out with a grad student at her new job. She gets wasted on cheap tequila. Until she and Robert start dating, she has a friend with benefits, Trevor, who’s kind of a jerk. (But watch for his redemption arc in When It Was Us, out July 27!)

She makes poor choices, in other words, but I love Maria. She actually does mean well. I also love sweet, socially clueless Robert. He’s not the socially awkward wreck Conrad is in Baby, Unexpected. He has a lot of guy friends. Talking to women just happens to be very much not his skill set. It lands him in A Situation, the poor man.

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Once Robert and Maria finally get on the same page as far as mutual attraction, they decide to fully “nerd out.” This was one of my favorite exchanges to write, as I love nerdy banter. They reference the stories in their high school Latin book called fabellae, which is just Latin for ‘stories.’ These were basically little skits that used the vocabulary words.

In high school, ever the jokester and writer, I took the characters from the fabellae and placed them into less salubrious situations. The Latin dictionary bore fruit like ‘brothel,’ and thus “Quintus and Marcus Go to the Brothel” made its rounds through my amused study hall. No adults ever cottoned on to this underground Latin writing market, unlike Maria’s parents in the book. My friends and I merrily wrote PG-13 stories about Quintus and Marcus that we thought were absolute filth. The fabellae are currently living their best lives somewhere in my basement because of course I have them 25 years later.

And finally, as I mentioned last week, my favorite fun fact is that the lost work of the Greek playwright Menander that Maria discovered to earn hotshot status is the story upon which Strings Attached is loosely based. Unfortunately, the play being discovered is entirely fictional, and it remains only known through a Latin translation. I just hope whoever discovers it one day has better luck in the job market than Maria. And also perhaps stays away from both grad students and tequila.

Future Perfect is out today! It’s an angsty, witty, interconnected standalone contemporary romance featuring a chaotic academic heroine, a quietly devoted hero who falls first, and a sweet, slow-burn love story years in the making. Find the full Degrees of Desire series on Amazon - all the books are free to read on Kindle Unlimited.

When I reshuffled the series order prior to publishing, I made Strings Attached Book 1 in the Degrees of Desire series. Who could resist a physicist pretending to be a lobsterman having a summer fling with an economist pretending to be a barista? And then meeting on campus in the fall as their real selves…

One of the fun things about this story is the small-town cozy meddling that happens early on. The series is primarily set in Boston, which is a great setting for any academic romance, but I loved creating the fictionalized version of Southwest Harbor, Maine you see in Strings Attached. The market clerk knows Paul has the hots for Emily because the clerk went to school with him. Emily’s boss at the coffee shop has, shall we say, a past with Paul. Everyone knows the house where Emily is staying. Small towns are the best. Especially when you and your summer man decide to get a little frisky at the town fireworks.

As the title of this post suggests, there’s more than one kind of fireworks happening that evening. I was sort of intimidated going into this book’s spicy scenes because the OG Book 1, Baby, Unexpected (now Book 4), has some pretty steamy encounters going on. I set the bar high for spice. On the whole, I’m happy with the way the spice turned out in Strings Attached. I think Paul and Emily are happy, too.

Spice aside, a lot of chatter has been taking place on Goodreads about all the science and math conversations in this book! I laughed because yes, maybe it is a lot. It was definitely a lot of research. I’m a romance author. Science and math are hardly my middle names, so I had to do a lot of fact-checking. An Easter egg in the book is that Paul, who studies cosmology (the study of the universe), is an extremely sharp dresser. My brother is an actual, real-life physicist and swears this is true! Apparently, all the other branches of physics look upon the cosmologists with envy and try to keep pace with their fashions.

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In the book, without giving too much away, Paul and Emily both have their own valid reasons for the deception. In trying to get away from the stress of her impending divorce and career worries, Emily randomly blurts out that she’s a barista. Paul is trying to atone for a family situation. The idea for that atonement came from an ancient Greek play.

I was a Classical Languages major in undergrad and ended up reading a lot of New Comedy, which is basically the ancestor of modern romance plots. Tropes like grumpy/sunshine, “convince her father,” and many more all came to us by way of ancient Greek New Comedy. And people call romance fluff!

Paul’s storyline was pulled from a play called Heauton Timorumenos (say it five times fast), which was translated into Latin by the Roman playwright Terence. The original was written by the Greek playwright Menander and only survives in fragments. Fun fact, y’all - this is the lost play that Maria from Future Perfect (Book 5, out July 13) rediscovers to make a name for herself in academia. The title translates to “The Self Tormentor.”

You can read about the play more in depth on Wikipedia if you’re interested, but the super complicated plot involves a guy punishing himself for his role in a family drama by doing manual labor. Kind of like a physicist who spends the summer working in his family’s lobster business instead of in his cosmology lab. And they said I would never use my Classics degree.

Have you read Strings Attached yet? Drop a comment below before you dive into the rest of the series. The entire Degrees of Desire series is available exclusively on Amazon and is free to read on Kindle Unlimited.

For most people, it’s a fascinating, bizarre headline about medievalesque political maneuvers playing out in 2026.

For me? Same, but also it felt like the universe was peer-reviewing one of my romcoms.

In The Business of Us (Degrees of Desire Book 3), the female main character, Angela, is a brilliant, hyper-focused economics fellow at Harvard. On paper, her life is seamless: high-powered career, fresh doctorate, sharp wit, and a bright future in her field.

But her baseline for “family drama” is entirely unhinged. As she puts it, “I grew up in 1570.”

Angela did the ultimate runner. She completely cut ties with her “rad-trad,” ultra-conservative family to build a life in the modern world. She thought she had successfully outrun the guilt, the rules, and the heavy expectations of her upbringing.

Until her brother suddenly drops out of the seminary he departed for earlier in the book (against Angela’s advice) with a shocking revelation. Suddenly, her carefully curated academic life and her family’s radical theological world collide.

Full disclosure, Angela’s family isn’t SSPX in the book. They’re actually more ultra-traditionalist than that. What’s that? How much worse could it be than defying the Pope?

A lot worse, guys. Sedevacantist (one of my favorite things in the book is stoner MMC Matt trying his damndest to pronounce this word) groups like the SSPV aren’t that worried about defying the Pope. They actually think he’s an imposter.

Let’s hear from Angela and Matt themselves on this one:

“But what is all that other stuff?” Matt asked. “It’s Catholic, right? My mom hated religion, so I don’t know much about it. Are you Catholic?”

“Not technically,” she said. “Although my parents might beg to differ. We did Catholic rituals, but the church we went to isn’t recognized by the Vatican.”

“Oh, weird,” he said. “Why not?”

“My parents are sedevacantists,” she said.

“Sed…” Matt scratched his head. “Seventh-day Adventists?”

“No,” she said and repeated it more slowly. “Sedevacantists. It’s from the Latin for ‘the seat is empty.’ They think the Pope is an impostor.”

…

“Seriously.” Angela shook her head. “There’s some crazy stuff floating around, crazier than this, even. Some guy in Kansas claimed he was the true Pope, and he walked around in a Pope outfit and everything.”

“Maybe I should try that. It would totally get people to the brewery,” Matt said. “Hail, Pope Matthew.”

“It’s not a joke. This stuff is completely real to these people, and they take it seriously. Good lord, do they take it seriously.”

“So, your parents thinking the Pope is fake gives you nightmares about the Society of Fellows? And why’s the Pope fake, anyway?” His eyes were intent, no hint of dopiness or mischief.

“It’s hard to explain,” Angela said. “I guess what you have to understand is that I grew up in 1570.”

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The guy with the Pope outfit walking around in Kansas is completely true, by the way, although the person has passed away since The Business of Us was written. I did find out as I was researching this article that someone has succeeded him.

Why is this even a thing? Most people would assume that ultraconservative groups would be more likely to do what the Pope wants. Obedience being a virtue in the religious realm and all.

The issue here is with Vatican II. Back to you, Angela and Matt.

“You’ve heard of Vatican II, right?” He nodded. “Well, my parents hate Vatican II.”

“No shit? I thought Catholic people loved that thing because it made everything easier. I mean, I don’t know what it made easier, but that’s what I heard.” Matt sipped from the water glass he’d gotten for her. She didn’t mind.

“Not all of them love it,” she said. “Honestly, I get that part. Vatican II really changed things, and people were as militant about enacting those changes as my parents are about staying in 1570. It turned centuries of doing the exact same thing completely around. People just went crazy updating stuff. There’s a lot of dissension and ill will about it, all these splinter groups that broke off.” Angela took the water glass back. “Sedevacantists are just one of them. They say Vatican II was so heretical that no one who’s into it could possibly be the real Pope. But this isn’t really the point. The point is that they’ve taken their love for something aesthetically beautiful—the Latin Mass I was talking about—and their desire for something rooted in history, and they let their hatred for Vatican II and modernity completely overtake their reason. They’ve made tradition into something incredibly ugly.”

The irony, at least to me, has always been that instead of working together to preserve the beauty of tradition and the things they love, the splinter groups have chosen to quibble for going on 60 years over the minutiae of this doctrine and that canon law passage. They could be a real force in bringing back tradition, and instead they’ve settled for being a bunch of surly defiant weirdos.

That’s not to say that every single Latin Mass group is comprised of surly defiant weirdos. The FSSP and ICKSP (so many acronyms, these are the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter and Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest) are in full communion with the Pope and are not breaking any rules. It’s not 1570 in an FSSP parish. And like Angela, I understand (to a limited extent) those who feel threatened into surly defiance by modernism or think the post-Vatican II Mass lacks reverence. However, acting like Angela’s dad in the book (or wearing a Pope outfit to the minimart) is not the way.

When we think of romantic comedies, we usually think of lighthearted misunderstandings or classic tropes like enemies-to-lovers or fake dating. I love myself a trope - The Business of Us is a workplace romance/friends-to-lovers/opposites attract story. But I’ve always believed that the best chemistry happens when characters are carrying deep, textured, and highly specific emotional baggage. Matt also suffered during an extremist childhood of the opposite kind.

Watching a woman who can confidently lecture a room of Harvard economists try to navigate a modern relationship with her polar opposite stoner/slacker/fledgling brewery owner while simultaneously dealing with a family crisis rooted in an incense-drenched underground religious movement is a beautiful, hilarious, and heartbreaking mess. For the story, I really wanted to explore a different vein of “she fled her conservative upbringing” than we usually see in fiction. Speaking of tropes, it’s always the evangelical Purity Ball in novels and never 1570.

And in 2026, it turns out that real-world drama is just as wild as fiction.

Are you following the recent Vatican news, or did you grow up in a hyper-specific subculture that you’re still unpacking? Let’s talk about it in the comments!

This piece features two brief passages excerpted from Chapter 6 of my book, The Business of Us. Find the complete Kindle edition and read for free on Kindle Unlimited exclusively on Amazon.

Last week, I told you about the way these books haunted my hard drive for eight years.

But actually, Baby, Unexpected has had a longer journey. The characters have been around since 2003! At age 19, I wrote a campus novel called The University, which was as cringe as it sounds - an unhinged piece of work with roughly 15 plots. One of these involved professors Wes and Laure Ivy, who remain Alexa’s parents with their names and professions intact 23 years later. Wes and Laure had a daughter who married a Harvard economist after an accidental pregnancy.

I took this idea and ran with it during my post-freelance creative streak. The basic premise stayed intact, but of course, some heavy editing ensued. Alexa got a little older. Conrad got a little younger. I used to love the ‘age gap couple’ trope far more than I do now. Do you like reading age gap couples? It has to be an otherwise level playing field for me - similar sexual experience level, can’t have met when one of them was a minor, no massive financial disparity. I would never want a big age gap IRL, but uh, I’m not really down for an accidental pregnancy either, and that’s a trope I love.

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The biggest change and the thing that took the hardest to work out was the fact that Alexa actually was some type of paid escort in the OG manuscript. Who knows why? I was nineteen when I came up with it. Even though she was doing this on a very limited basis to spite her parents, that wasn’t what I wanted for her. Frankly, I also didn’t think readers would love this for an FMC. The problem was that it created some delicious tension between Alexa and Conrad and their motives for meeting up at Mezzo that first evening. Finally, I hit upon the idea of it being a rumor and introduced the character of slimeball Landry. I was pumped to solve the problem this way and add a new layer to the campus scrutiny aspect of the story.

The fact that Alexa was a high achiever who wanted a quieter life than everyone else wanted for her was also accounted for in the 2003 manuscript. Maybe this was prophetic because I am feeling this right now in my own life with corporate burnout. If you’re struggling with burnout, too, I hope things work out for you and that reading the book helps!

This book also has, in my own opinion (and my husband’s haha), the hottest spicy scenes of any Degrees of Desire book. The scene that leads to the titular unexpected baby is a personal favorite love scene. Definitely easy to see how our main couple might forget to reach into the bedside drawer in the heat of passion.

Anyhow. I hope you enjoy the fully edited 2026 version of Baby, Unexpected. If you’d like to linger in this universe, check out Books 1-3: Strings Attached, Stop Your Memory, and The Business of Us. (Alexa and Conrad appear many times in each of these, so you will get to see them living out their happily ever after, and maybe meddling to ensure everyone else gets an HEA, too.)

If you are one of the early birds who read Baby, Unexpected today, please consider leaving an honest review or star rating on Amazon to help fellow readers find the book.

If you haven’t already, please take a quick second to subscribe to this Substack. I will never spam you, and you’ll get a free cozy small town HEA story (10k words!) immediately delivered to your inbox with my thanks.

The floodgates of creativity opened. I was at leisure (ha, but actually, I had a toddler by that point) to get back to my true love of writing fiction. As a notoriously speedy writer, I turned out the entire Degrees of Desire series between May 2017 and late 2018. Then I moved on to write the Inner Circle series (coming Fall 2026, subscribe for release dates).

I went on to make a huge hash of trying to publish the Inner Circle series (more to come on that). Degrees of Desire was left to languish in obscurity on my hard drive. Not because I wasn’t happy with the books. I’m thrilled with them! They’re so much fun! I’m not entirely sure why they got pushed aside, but honestly, I’m glad they did because I can bring them out for you now, when the time is right.

So, I’m the woman who sat with eight finished, completely publishable manuscripts on her hard drive for eight years. Which is poetic, I guess?

Fun facts about Degrees of Desire:

It was originally called the Cambridge Series.

The books were initially set in specific years! Only Baby, Unexpected survived this on the cutting room floor. The original series order was different, too. I swapped it around to make sure my readers are getting the tropes they crave in the order in which they crave them. The OG series order and setting years are:

Baby, Unexpected (1999); Strings Attached (2006); The Business of Us (2009); On My Side (2012); Stop Your Memory (2013); Future Perfect (2015); The Life We Chose (2017); When It Was Us (2018)

Several of the books had different working titles - Baby, Unexpected was called Chasing Ivy. The Business of Us went through a ton of titles, but landed on High Society before its published title was locked in. On My Side was called Copycats. The Life We Chose was originally Alchemy, and When It Was Us was titled Fatherly.

The last time I tried querying a tradpub agent was for Baby, Unexpected/Chasing Ivy back in 2017. A huge, noteworthy agent requested the full manuscript (omg was I pumped), but she rejected it on Valentine’s Day 2018! Of all the daaayysss to reject a romance novel. I was really upset at the time, but honestly, her rejection email that said ‘best of luck as you continue to write’ was something I found very encouraging. I’m glad in retrospect that this didn’t work out. I love publishing contemporary romance for Kindle Unlimited and being hands-on in the process.

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The moral of the story is that I let EIGHT BOOKS languish for EIGHT YEARS. It’s about damn time they saw the light of day.

If you’re reading this, thanks, and please consider subscribing - you’ll get my 10k word second epilogue to When It Was Us (no spoilers and it will make sense if you haven’t read the book yet). It’s a peek into the future of Trevor and Caroline’s cozy small-town HEA, but also there is murder. Hilarious murder. Caroline, as well as Angela’s brother Brian from The Business of Us, are on the case. The story is 100% free for subscribers, and the download link will arrive in your inbox via the welcome email.

Speaking of rapid release! The first three books (Strings Attached, Stop Your Memory, and The Business of Us) are already available for all your binging needs. Next up is Baby, Unexpected, which drops on June 29. This is obviously an accidental pregnancy romance.

Future Perfect goes live on July 13 - there is currently an ARC campaign live for this book on Booksirens. The book follows the epic career collapse of classicist Dr. Maria Lyons, who winds up tending bar at Fowler Aleworks, the brewery that Angela and Matt open in The Business of Us, and where Roger and Iris drown their sorrows in Stop Your Memory. Her nerdy former classmate - now hugely successful - walks up to her bar. Robert has always pined for her, and this time, he’s determined to make his move. If you’d like to join the ARC team for Future Perfect, please reach out - happy to share my Booksirens link!

Also available for preorder right now is When It Was Us, one of my absolute favorites. I cried writing it. I cried editing it. I cried formatting it in Kindle Create. I hope you love it, too. When you read Future Perfect, watch out for Trevor Miles - When It Was Us is his redemption arc, and dear God, does he need one.

The final two installments (both marriage-in-crisis stories) will also be live for preorder soon - On My Side and The Life We Chose.

Read the Degrees of Desire series on Kindle Unlimited for free

In better news, the advance reader copy of Strings Attached was accepted over on Booksirens! It’s live now, so if you’re interested in an early look at Paul and Emily’s story - here is the link to read the ARC.

Whether you read it as an advance reader or are waiting for it to drop on KU, I hope you enjoy.

P.S. What’s your craziest car story? The guy at Jiffy Lube, where I took the car initially to get the check engine code read, had never seen a squirrel-chewed engine before, but apparently it’s incredibly common? A day job coworker is dealing with this exact same thing this week. My car was stolen from outside my apartment in undergrad and was found by the Pittsburgh Police after they’d spent months ticketing it for illegal parking rather than running the plates to discover it was stolen. So, that’s somewhat crazier. Please comment with your insane car stories.

Is your summer TBR looking for a few good nerds? The first three installments of the Degrees of Desire series - Strings Attached, Stop Your Memory, and The Business of Us - drop Monday, June 15! They’re available for preorder if you prefer to own your ebooks. They’ll also be part of Kindle Unlimited for those who binge.

Strings Attached follows brilliant economist Emily, who comes home from the grocery store to find her husband’s secret (very pregnant) wife in her living room. She flees to coastal Maine and into the arms of a hot lobsterman named Paul. Little does she know that Paul is actually a hot physicist at MIT.

Stop Your Memory throws buttoned-up Roger (also an economist) into a cramped apartment with his high-school ex, Iris, a ballerina whose career was tragically cut short. A citywide tragedy forces them back together as they grapple with their past (look out for the deranged way Iris tried to get expelled!) and their uncertain present.

The Business of Us stars Harvard Junior Fellow Angela (another economist, obvs) and lovable stoner Matt. When Angela takes a job in Matt’s startup brewery to pay down her student loans, she doesn’t expect a) the business to last, b) to fall in love with her polar opposite, or c) her estranged brother to return for a final reckoning the second A and B are finally squared away.

More is on the way - a new Degrees of Desire title drops every other week, all summer long! Hot Nerd Summer is underway.

Learn more and preorder