Y’all, I have been waiting impatiently for a week to share this cover with you. I thought I would burst before those last few buy links went live. It’s embarrassing, but I have refreshed the vendors’ sites so many times, my fingers simply must be calloused.
However, at long last, I can reveal the gorgeous cover for You, Me, and the Conspiracy to the world.
Friends, I need your help!
The cover reveal for You, Me, and the Conspiracy is almost upon us, and I would love to recruit some folks to help me get the word out. If you’re interested, please fill out this form.
Essentially, I’m waiting for the buy links to go live. If everything goes according to schedule, I’ll reach out to everyone who wants to help me amplify my BEAUTIFUL cover on Sunday, February 22. I’ll send you a link to a Google drive folder with the cover, a few promo graphics, the back cover copy, and the buy links. My request would be that you post the cover on your social media channels on Monday, February 23, including the buy links if possible. (I know that IG is a jerk about links. No worries!)
Anyhow, I would be eternally grateful if you’d be willing to join my brigade.
I suspect that every author has a list of hopes and dreams for their books. For example, I would love to see my one of mine in an airport bookstore. I mean, I’d love to see them in any bookstore at all, but for reasons that I can’t really explain, the airport bookstore feels like an especially high bar. Probably because the titles you see there tend to be super mega ultra bestsellers, and, well, who wouldn’t want that?
But another goal for me was translations; I desperately wanted to sell foreign language rights to one of my books. And two years ago, the lovely folks at Queen Edizioni bought the rights to Chick Magnet and Funny Guy, and Chick Magnet is going to release on April 22, 2025: the same day that Bold Moves will appear in English.
Isn’t the cover for the Italian translation gorgeous? It’s so bucolic, and I adore that they kept the pink and yellow cover scheme from the English-language version.
Anyhow, if you read in Italian, you can preorder Chick Magnet for Kindle here.
I have something that I hope will be a distraction on a tense afternoon: the cover for Bold Moves! Isn’t it gorgeous? It’s the work of the amazing Caroline Teagle Johnson.
After writing several slow burns in a row, I was craving something that was different, and Jaime and Scarlett’s story couldn’t be less like Cole and Maggie’s. It’s raw and messy in the way that only second chance can deliver, and I’m so excited for it to be in your hands. And the release date shifted the tiniest bit: it’s going to drop on April 22, 2025! You can preorder it on Kindle and paperback at Amazon and add it on Goodreads, and I hope you do.
Also, as I’ve been doomscrolling at 3 a.m., I ended up rereading The One You Crave, an anthology of my short political romances. It includes three pieces I wrote mostly to talk myself out of despair: “Kissing and Other Forms of Sedition,” “The Fourth Estate,” and “Run.” This will either be exactly what you want right now, or it will be the absolute anathema to what you want right now, but just case, I made it free for Kindle. You can grab it here if you’re so inclined. It’ll revert to the regular price on November 6.
I’ll get right down to it: I’m so excited to be able to share the cover for Bad Reputation with you! Designed by the incredible Caroline Teagle Johnson, it absolutely captures the vibe of the book. Plus it’s objectively lovely.
If you need to hear the pitch again, Bad Reputation is a workplace, friends-to-lovers romance about two people with bad reputations who just might be able to change their lives–if they can only resist falling for each other. I absolutely adore this book, and I hope you will too.
You can preorder Bad Reputation at Amazon and add it to your Goodreads shelves now. And if you happen to be a reviewer, I do have an ARC request form here. I don’t have my ARCs yet, but I love to plan ahead.
And while I have your attention: Funny Guy is on sale this month in North America. The ebook can be yours for just $1.99 at Amazon, and the paperback is currently discounted too if you need a copy of Sam and Bree’s pining-filled, late night comedy romance for your shelves.
Isn’t the cover for Funny Guy amazing? Well, the blurb is even better:
From the author of Chick Magnet comes a heartfelt friends-to-lovers story about what can happen when a funny guy and his childhood best friend are stuck together in a small New York City apartment.
Sam can’t escape the smash hit “Lost Boy” because, well, he is the lost boy. His pop-singer ex immortalized him in a song about his childish ways, and now his comedy career is on the line.
At least he still has Bree, his best friend and confidante. Bree has always been there for Sam, but she’s never revealed her biggest secret: she’s in love with him. To help herself move on, Bree applies for her dream job across the country―and doesn’t say a thing to Sam.
But as Sam tries to resuscitate his career, he turns to Bree for support―and maybe more. In the confines of her tiny apartment, they share a different dynamic. A charged dynamic. But she’s his friend. He can’t be falling for her.
Except he is.
Are his feelings for Bree just funny business? Or is their smoldering attraction the real deal?
It’ll release on May 16, 2023, but you can preorder it on Amazon and add it to your Goodreads shelves now.
And while I have your attention, I had a wonderful chat with Meg and Liz at the Make Out Already podcast about Chick Magnet. You can listen here, and you should because they’re charming.
Y’all, the cover for Chick Magnet is here, and I am in love…with the cover. Not with Will. I mean, not that much with Will. But you can see why I was teasing it as #BringingSexyCoversBack, right??
And here’s the blurb:
From Emma Barry comes a clever romance about a hot veterinarian and a chicken-loving influencer who can’t help but ruffle each other’s feathers.
Nicole Jones needs a fresh start. “Chick Nic” to millions of internet fans, the social media star and her flock of chickens bask in the spotlight—until she’s publicly dumped by a YouTuber for clout. She has no choice but to round up her birds and move on.
But when one of her hens has an emergency, Nic gets her first taste of her new stomping grounds—and it isn’t good. Veterinarian Will Lund is wildly attractive, yes, but he’s also surly. In fact, he comes right out and calls her a menace for parading her chickens on social media.
As neighbors, Nic and Will can’t exactly avoid each other. Then again, maybe they don’t want to. The two can’t deny their smoldering attraction, and it isn’t long before late-night confessions lead to backyard shenanigans.
Is this the start of a neighborly relationship—or could something more be hatching?
It’ll be out in FIVE MONTHS, and you can already preorder it on Amazon and add it to your Goodreads shelves. But for now, I’ll just be taking in those shoulders.
The books formerly known as Special Interests, Private Politics, and Party Lines are about to get a new lease on life as Political Persuasions! It’ll take me a bit to fully update my website, but here’s the pretty.
Are they not lovely? Do you not adore them? And they’ll be available in print too for the first time ever!
All this goodness drops on February 21, but if you want to preorder, here are the links:
And I am offering a complete, annotated set in the Romancing the Vote 2022 auction, which you can look at here. Bidding starts on February 14!
I have a super exciting announcement: my next project has an absolutely stunning cover and a release date.
Feast your eyes on the spectacular artwork for He’s Come Undone, and, on May 12, 2020, you can savor what’s inside.
The anthology is the brain child of the lovely Olivia Dade. Her pitch to us was that each story should feature a gloriously uptight male protag being undone, basically, by love. I might have sat at my desk and clapped when I was asked to contribute.
My story is one that’s been rolling around my head for years, about a tempestuous concert pianist who’s frozen by stage fright and the piano technician–a literal master of tension and control–who helps her find her passion again. So there’s classical music and second chance with a first crush and a super hot greenroom hook up and fear and redemption and courage. It’s called “Appassionata,” and it’s joined in the anthology by amazing stories by Olivia Dade, Adriana Herrera, Ruby Lang, and Cat Sebastian. Check out this AMAZING video Adriana put together with hooks and aesthetics for all the stories.
If you’re interested in pre-ordering He’s Come Undone, it’s available at Amazon, Kobo, Apple, and B&N (Google Play, etc. coming soon!), and you can also add it to your Goodreads shelves and check out the slightly spoilery Pinterest board for “Appassionata” to tide you over ’til May.
You want to see something pretty? Like maybe the just-revealed cover for Rogue Hearts?
My story is called “Run.”
Public defender Maddie Clark doesn’t want to be a candidate for the state senate—but she’s running. Her high school nemesis turned campaign advisor Adam Kadlick shouldn’t be back home managing campaigns—but he is. They definitely should avoid falling for each other—but they won’t.
I’ve wanted to write a woman seeking political office for years. I considering making one of the presidential candidates in Party Lines a woman, but I worried that it would be distracting, that I would want the entire book to be about her. I promised myself I’d write about a female candidate someday, and my final Rogue series story seemed like the right time.
As you probably expect from me, Maddie and Adam’s story is bantery and deeply nerdy. If you’ve felt like romance suffers from a decided lack of Cross-X debate references, this one’s for you. It’s 19K, or short novella length, and the Pinterest board is here.
“Run,” like “The Fourth Estate,” ended up lower heat, but hey, it includes a diatribe on the Fourth Amendment, so that balances things out (?). And if you liked the Montana setting of “Free,” you’ll enjoy this too.
You can preorder Rogue Hearts for 99 cents at Amazon, B&N, iBooks, Google Play, and Kobo and you can add it to your Goodreads shelves. The price will go up to $3.99 after release week. If you’re a reviewer and are interested in an ARC, you can request one here.
Emma Barry 