It took a long time: a full year to be exact, but my latest novel, Grave Mistake—book five in the Don’t Call Me Hero series—is finally here.

Doomscrolling seriously impacted my productivity after releasing The Woman in 3B last summer. I never suffered from writer’s block between then and now; I just couldn’t stop reading the news. And after all of that anxiety and rage-producing reading, I had a really hard time switching gears and writing a love story. I would go months at a time without writing a single word. In fact, between October and February I might not have written anything at all.

Because I’m self-published, I have no deadlines. I’m able to write whenever and whatever and publish when I please. But this also means I don’t have an editor breathing down my neck with looming deadlines. It takes a lot of self-discipline to be a prolific indie author. By April, I had written about 150 pages. I gave myself a deadline. I would finish Grave Mistake by Memorial Day. So I buckled down, put the blinders on, and wrote at least five pages a day until the novel was complete.

And now that I started, I can’t seem to stop. I traditionally give myself a month off before I start researching and writing my next book, but this momentum is too good and writing is so addictive. Reading a good book is an escape from reality, but writing a book can be an even better mental vacation. I obviously don’t have a release date for my next novel just yet, but I can share that it will be a standalone that takes place on a vineyard in Napa Valley, California. And like with Anissa and Alice in The Woman in 3B, I want it to be more than *just* a romance novel. In addition to a budding romance, expect issues of social and racial inequities to be explored.

But before I put Grave Mistake in the rearview mirror, I do want to spend some time reflecting on this latest DCMH installment—and I obviously want to know what YOU thought! My origins as a writer are in fanfiction, where you post one chapter at a time and get immediate feedback in real time. The biggest thing I miss from the fanfiction world is not having that frequent interaction with readers. So let me know: Did anything make you laugh out loud? Did any lines or passages strike you? Did anything choke you up? *cringes* What did you think about the sex?

My goal for the new book was really threefold: 1) to expose more about Cassidy’s military experiences through additional flashbacks, 2) to solve a mystery but also refocus the series on Cassidy & Julia’s relationship, and 3) to reveal more about Julia herself.

Readers frequently ask if I’ll ever write a story from Julia’s point of view. The simplest, most straight forward answer is no. I did an alternate POV story once—Hunter—the prequel to the Winter Jacket series, and ya’ll: it was HARD. I’d gotten so used to seeing the world through Elle’s eyes that it was jarring to make the switch to Hunter. Most importantly, however, I never want to tell a story that I’ve already told before. While it might be interesting to know what the love interest was feeling when the protagonist did something in a previous book, I’d rather continue to write new storylines and move the story forward. In Grave Mistake, I wanted readers to get more of Julia, so you and Cassidy learn more about this enigmatic woman’s past, particularly her childhood in Embarrass. Many readers are also keenly concerned with discovering Julia’s age, but that might be a secret I take to the grave :) 

Happy Pride and Happy Reading!

Eliza