Emma Barry is a teacher, novelist, recovering academic, and former political staffer. She lives with her high school sweetheart and a menagerie of pets and children in Virginia, and she occasionally finds time to read and write.
I am delighted to partner with an amazing group of authors, including Annette Chavez Macias, Addie Woolridge, Eden Appiah-Kubi, Bethany Crandell, JJ Knight, Rachel Lacey, and Jennifer Bardsley, to give one lucky reader–and their friend–the ultimate audiobook library celebrating love and friendship. Celebrating it 16 times, that is. That’s right, we’re going to send the winners 16 audiobooks, which should keep them busy for a while. You can enter here, and may the odds be ever in your favor.
Also, the back cover copy for Bad Reputation is LIVE, and I answered a few frequently asked questions about it here. I’m so in love with this book, y’all, the wait until October is killing me.
I’m about to do something shocking. I’m going to pick a word for myself for 2024.
I have never done this before because it seemed…hubristic. Maybe it’s something that could be done in retrospect. Looking back at a period in my life, perhaps I could tell you what the theme had been. But to try to project a theme into the future? Not for me.
Except the more I thought about it, the more I realized that what held me back was fear, the fear of not getting it. If I declared that I wanted cake, and I didn’t get cake, that would be mortifying.
There was a season in my life when I wasn’t this afraid, when I wanted things for myself and when I pursued them. But quite frankly, that was followed by a period where I did not get the things. And it was not super pleasant.
But a few days ago, I was reading Finishing the Hat, and in it, Sondheim says of Leonard Bernstein that what he taught young Stephen was to never fall off the bottom rung of the ladder. You’re going to fail sometimes, but don’t fail small.
What on earth do I want, I wondered. What wasn’t I going after that I ought to be going after? Which of course made me think about Mary Oliver: “You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.”
So I’m doing it, folks. I’m picking a word for 2024, and it’s hungry. Because I want to be brave enough to be hungry again. To let myself admit that I want what I want. And not to be so afraid of falling that I won’t climb up the darn ladder in the first place.
All my normal caveats apply: this isn’t a best of list, it’s merely a list of things I read, watched, and listened to in the last year that made me happy or made me think. And honestly, it was a very solid year for media for me. In particular, I read lots of books that I liked, and it was a bit hard to narrow things down. Thus I did include a few honorable mentions here and there.
How would you like 2000+ FREE books? Yes, it’s that time again: Stuff Your eReader Day! Just visit RomanceBookworms.com and browse the amazing selection of books on offer. I skimmed the list, and I would particularly recommend that you check out Zara Keane, Carrie Lomax, Nicola Davidson, Asa Maria Bradley, Rachel Grant, Lucy Eden, Brighton Walsh, K.M. Jackson, Annika Martin, J.A. Rock, Ainsley Booth and Sadie Haller, Eve Pendle, Carrie Ann Ryan, Renee Dahlia, Kat Latham, Kate Meader, and Zoe York. And of course me.
If you haven’t read it, The One You Want, the first book in my contemporary political romance series, can be yours for zero pennies. It features a shy union lobbyist finding her voice while battling a pragmatic Senate staffer and falling for him in the process. If you’ve ever thought, “I want to read a romance that’s like The West Wing but with more steam,” then friends, this might be the one that you, ahem, want.
And two more podcasts that I recorded in the last year dropped and are available for your listening pleasure. I joined Elle Greco on Steam Scenes to talk about Chick Magnet. Elle and I both work in higher education, and so we ended up having a long conversation about the weaponization of taste in the academy, before she reads and we dissect a steamy moment with Will and Nic.
And I also went on Turn Me On (Spotify and Apple) to talk about Funny Guy. This is a fascinating convo because the hosts aren’t necessarily romance readers, so we talked about the goals of romance and romance in popular media.
No matter how you slice it, 2023 was a good year for me. But the way I know that is not simply my accomplishing several tasks, it’s my hungering for 2024. At the close of 2022, I was buzzing with anticipation. I had worked so hard on Chick Magnet and Funny Guy, they were finally going to see the light of day.
The sun has risen and set on them now. I love these books. I love what they taught me and how I had to grow to write them and revise them and market them. But what I’ll always be most grateful to them for is that they helped me see the future. They weren’t the highest mountain, it turns out, but having climbed this hill, I can see it now, in the distance. I just have to keep going.
I was delighted to make a donation to the Equity in Publishing auction put together by the lovely folks at Kaye Publicity. The KP team was amazing at supporting the releases of Chick Magnet and Funny Guy earlier this year, and I can’t recommend them highly enough if you’re looking for publicity.
I’m offering a set of signed copies of Chick Magnet and Funny Guy plus a 30-minute video chat with me (on Zoom, Facetime, or Skype, whichever you prefer). I’d be happy to answer all your burning questions about my books, my writing journey, my chickens, the name of my sourdough starter, etc. You can bid here if you’re interested!
Funny Guy is on sale for the month of September! Until 9/30, you can get Bree and Sam’s story for just $1.99 in the United States, $1.99 in Canada, $1.49 in Australia, and £0.99 in the UK. This is the first time it has been discounted in North America, so if you’ve been waiting to buy it–or to recommend it to a friend–now is the time. Funny Guy takes place In New York City in the autumn and it has lots of cozy vibes, so it’s also an excellent seasonal choice.
I also highly recommend the amazing audiobook, read by Teddy Hamilton and Lucy Rivers. It’s aces.
I can finally share my career news: I get to write more books!!!!
I cannot express how excited I am to continue working with Lauren Plude and the incredible team at Montlake and how grateful I am to my agent, Sarah Younger, for making this happen. Lauren and Sarah are the best, and I am the luckiest of ducks to have them in my corner.
Contracts can take a long time, so I’m almost done writing Comeback Kid. I’ve been living with these two all summer, and it’s been lovely. Cole’s a big softie with a heart of gold who’s paddling so hard to get back on top. He’s going to come face to face with some seedy truths, but because he’s a hero, he’s going to try to fix them.
But he’s fallen hard and fast for someone he absolutely shouldn’t have: Maggie. She’s a high school drama teacher who accidentally ended up in Hollywood after getting fired for directing a controversial play. So she’s got things of her own to prove, and she doesn’t want to have a crush on this guy. Except she does. She really, really does. It’s delicious.
Anyhow, I can’t wait for you to meet them and everyone working on Waverley (they’re making a steamy adaptation of a Walter Scott novel). I talked more about the book in today’s newsletter–and I may have shared an exclusive extra as well.
So more from me soon! But in the meantime, I cannot believe how the last year has played out, and I’m so grateful to be able to continue writing love stories with the help of this wonderful team.
I’ve spent the summer in my writing cave, sitting on some AMAZING news. But the dots are almost above the Is and the crosses on the Ts, because I’m going to be able to share soon. At the same time I drop that announcement, I’ll be sending out an extended epilogue for Funny Guy called Becoming Us.
I meant for this to be brief and cute, but I just kept writing and writing and writing. The next thing I knew, it had turned into a 10K novelette. Don’t worry: Sam and Bree’s happy ending is never in doubt. But we do get to see these two learn how to make their relationship work day to day.
If you aren’t signed up for my newsletter, you can do that here. I hope this will be flying into you inbox in the next week or so.
It’s been an age, and I’m so sorry about that! I have fun and exciting book news (!!!) that I cannot talk about yet. But as a result, I’ve been stuck in my writing cave since late May. I’m approaching the finish line on a draft though, and I hope to emerge–phoenix-like–from the ashes soon.
But on Thursday, July 13th, I’m going to stick my head out to be on Romance Happy Hour, and I would absolutely LOVE to see you there. You can join Shana Gray, Dawn Luedecke, Dylann Crush, and me on Facebook or YouTube at 8 p.m. CT. I’m going to read from Chick Magnet, and I’ll be giving away a print copy. I’m certain it’ll be a great time.
Emma Barry 