I have been a romance reader since I was a teenager. It’s my jam. I started writing my first romance novel when I was in college. I published my first novel in 2005 (historical romance under a different name) and have stuck to that particular subgenre pretty much the entirety of my career. And then something changed. Frankly I don’t really know what it was, but suddenly this romance world was much bigger than I’d ever acknowledged.
It started with a handful of steamy contemporaries. I’ve become a reading machine in the last three years (I’m not going to wholly blame it on the political climate, but that is a big reason…) Being a voracious reader isn’t entirely new for me as I was like this as a child, but somehow once I started writing I read fewer and fewer books. It made me sad it made it infinitely more difficult to fill my writing well when my reading well was bond dry.
But then I sorta got burnout and to compensate, I made reading a priority. Authors like Kate Canterbary, Pippa Grant, Mariana Zapata, Sally Thorne, Helen Hoang, Penny Reid and the list could literally go on FOREVER… and they just inspired me. I devoured their books and plenty of others. I went back and read a huge chunk of Susan Elizabeth Phillips backlist titles – ones I’d honestly never read. Somewhere in all of this I discovered science-fiction romance and hello mail order brides for aliens…yes, please! And y’all, I filled my well. My well was so overflowing.
So I started to write. And I wrote my first ever contemporary romance. It stretched me as a writer, but it also allowed me to play. To get a little naughtier. To use harsher language (f-bomb anyone – can’t really use those so much in traditional historical romance) and to just have a damn good time. Thus Kat Baxter was born. First in the form of a novella in the Men in Uniform anthology headlined by our hostess with the mostest (btw that word totally autocorrected to moistest – glad I caught that! LOL!), Delilah. Now in the my first full-length book, KNOCKING UP HIS BEST FRIEND, a best-friends to lovers/marriage of convenience/friends with benefits romance.
My goal, no matter what I’m writing – or reading for that matter – is to hit on authentic characters, people that feel like your friends or neighbors, real emotions….all the sexy feels, the laugh out louds. I want all of that.
So let’s chat books. What’s been your favorite read so far this year?
Knocking Up His Best Friend
Ally
Hot guy, medical intervention, turkey baster,
Whatever it takes.
I want a baby,
And I want that little bundle of joy now.So when life knocks me down,
I decide getting knocked up is the only option.
And Cooper Janns is–has–a perfect specimen.
IÂ want him–and his baby-making stuff.But crossing that line with your best friend,
Just may be a disaster in the making.Cooper
Anything.
I would do anything for Allyson Patterson.
Always have,
Always would.After all, we’re best friends,
Have been since acne and raging hormones.
I’d cross any line she’d ask.
Even if it means offering an easy-peasy marriage
of convenience (and hopefully benefits.)But, I’m in this for the long haul.
Knocking boots or knocking her up,
Either way, it’s a deal.
For good,
Even if she doesn’t know it yet.*~*~*
Readers are already calling Kat Baxter’s KNOCKING UP HIS BEST FRIEND, laugh out loud funny, sweet and sexy and deeply emotional. Don’t miss this best friends to lovers, fake-relationship steamy romance with a sweet dirty-talking hero (who has been love with his best friend for years) and a sassy heroine (who will do just about anything to get a baby.)
GIVEAWAY
Free copy of Knocking Up His Best Friend. To play along do one of the following (or all of three!). And comment and tell me about your favorite read of the year.
Join Kat’s reader group – Baxter Babes https://www.facebook.com/groups/455684435169876/
Add Knocking Up His Best Friend on Goodreads – https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48144412-knocking-up-his-best-friend
Follow Kat on Bookbub – https://www.bookbub.com/profile/kat-baxter
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48144412-knocking-up-his-best-friend
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1 ummmm that’s really tricky it depends what you want to read as I read so many different sub genres…. But I think my most rewarding read has been all they desire by Zoe York, it was the last book in her Wardham series and I have been waiting years for it so to finally read it was so satisfying
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followed on Bookbub, no fav
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I’ve had many favorites this year, but one of them was Fix Her Up by Tessa Bailey.
Followed on BookBub, Goodreads, and added it to my TBR
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My favs change from day to day. I am a mood reader and paranormal is my favorite right now. that and JD Robb.
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I’m not sure I’ve got one fave series much less one fave read, LOL! A few favorites are Erin Nicholas’s Boys of the Bayou series, Serena Bell’s Returning Home, Inara Scott’s Bad Angels… Already on the GR TBR and following on BB!
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Oh y’all mentioned some that weren’t yet on my radar so I’ve add them to my TBR piles. Thanks!