Today is not only Valentine’s Day AND my home state of Arizona’s birthday, but it’s also the release day of Follow Your Bliss, the first book in my Tucson Is Where the Heart Is series.
I can’t quite believe this day is finally here. I’ve been dreaming about being a published author for years, and now I am. Now everyone will get to read my characters, my dialogue, and my amazing plot twists. Just kidding. I write contemporary romance, there usually aren’t any amazing plot twists.
If you’d like to purchase Follow Your Bliss, please click here, where you can find it on Amazon in ebook and paperback.
But I don’t just want this post to be all about promoting the book and asking you to buy it. I’d like to share some fun facts with you about the making of Follow Your Bliss.
Fun Fact Number One
The title came to me before the plot. I was reading a self-help book about all the common life advice phrases that are wrong, and one of the first chapters discussed how the advice to “follow your bliss” when it comes to finding the right career is a bad idea. When I read the phrase, I remembered that I had read a romance a long time ago with a character named Bliss in it and filed that name away to use in my own writing. Then I thought, “Huh. Follow Your Bliss would be a good book title.” And a new series was born.
Fun Fact Number Two
I struggled with the plot at first. Coming up with a title before a plot can be fun, but it can also box you in a little, as was the case with this book. The plot needed to involve the hero “following” Bliss somehow, but I had a hard time coming up with a way for him to follow her that was not creepy or stalker-ish. Finally, after brainstorming and rejecting many different ideas, I came up with one that worked.
Fun Fact Number Three
I’ve actually lived in Tucson. For my first semester of college many moons ago, I attended the University of Arizona (go Wildcats!). Sadly, I was so homesick that I transferred up to Arizona State University my second semester and spent the next three years at ASU, getting an English Lit degree. I sometimes still wonder what my life would’ve turned out like if I’d stayed at UofA.
Fun Fact Number Four
I also struggled to come up with the name of this series. I wanted something that conveyed the series falls in the romance genre and something with the word Tucson in it, so people would know where the book is set and also possibly pique the interest of anyone who lived in Tucson or had lived in Tucson. I went through many different ideas before landing on Tucson Is Where the Heart Is and I’m really proud of coming up with such a good series name.
Fun Fact Number Five
This is not the first series I’ve written. I have a bunch of other series in various stages of editing, and I really did think I’d publish one of those first, most of which are set in Phoenix, my hometown. The fact that my first published series is set in Tucson is very amusing to me.
So there you go, some fun facts about Follow Your Bliss.
Happy reading!