Firstly, Funny Guy—my friends-to-lovers romance featuring a chaos Muppet comedian realizing that he’s in love with his order Muppet BFF—is on sale for the month of July in North America only (sorry about that!). For just $1.99, this somewhat polarizing book can be yours. You can grab it at Amazon, and I hope you will.
Secondly, I have two items up for grabs in the Romancing the Vote auction, which opened TODAY and closes on July 5. Option A: you can bid on a signed ARC of Bad Reputation, and I’ll throw in a friendship bracelet that matches the cover. Or if you would prefer, Option B is a Backyard Chicken starter pack, which includes two guides on keeping chickens, plus a signed copy of Chick Magnet, and a 30-minute Zoom call with me. We can talk about chickens if you have them/are thinking about getting them, or we can talk books: seriously, ask me anything!
Aside from my offerings, there are literally hundreds and hundreds of amazing items, bookish, crafty, and otherwise. So I hope you’ll peruse the full auction and bid early and often.
Thirdly, the release date for Bad Reputation has shifted the tiniest bit: it’ll now drop on October 1, 2024. I am doing my best not to panic every time that I remember that’s only three months from today (!!). As a reminder, you can preorder Bad Reputation at Amazon and add it on your shelves at Goodreads. The early response has been super positive, and I’m so full of love for this book. Fingers crossed that everyone will adore it as much as I do.
I’ve started working on promo stuff, and I got to weigh in on the cast for the audiobook. I am so, so, so excited to hear what they do with it. I also chatted with the lovely folks at Reader Seeks Romance for a Romance Roundup episode. I show up at about the :30 minute mark, and we talked about the premise of Bad Reputation, intimacy coordinators, and my current reads.
Finally, I managed to finish drafting the second-chance chess romance I’ve been writing since the start of the year. It still doesn’t have an official title (I’ve been calling it SEXY CHESS or QUEEN’S KISS), but it’s an absolute unit at more than 97K words. Seriously, I haven’t ever had a first draft be this long, this angsty, or this sexy. I received the developmental edit letter on Friday, which means I’m about to slip into my absolute favorite part of the writing process: fixing the darn book. That’ll consume most of July, and I couldn’t be more excited.
Emma Barry 