Work in progress.
Romantic Comedy
Ring Around the Finger
Love is her business. He thinks it’s a scam. Why not fake an engagement? Nothing could possibly go wrong.
Ring Around the Finger is a romantic comedy (and labor of love) written with Deb Lee, my BFF Twinsie, and co-conspirator in tracking down Mexico’s best margarita. What started as “Small talk with a stranger in line and accidentally querying an agent together” turned into years of friendship—and eventually, writing the kind of funny, messy, heartfelt love story we both love to read.
Sneak Peek
Iris McCloud makes a living helping other people find love. Unfortunately, she’s spent the last ten years secretly in love with Ben Van Rys—her brother’s best friend and a man who’s fairly certain love is a scam.
Then Ben needs a fake fiancée for a destination wedding in Mexico.
For Iris, one week of pretending might finally be enough to get over him. For Ben, it’s just a practical solution to a temporary problem.
Obviously, this goes exactly according to plan.
The Story Behind the Story
It started in line for a literary agent.
Deb and I met standing in line to query the same literary agent—her with a second-chance sweet romance, me with a YA contemporary fantasy. We got so busy talking that the agent finally asked if we were querying together.
We looked at each other. “Why not?”
Apparently, that was a good enough answer. The agent wanted to hear more, so we scheduled a joint appointment for the next day. Then Deb and I proceeded to accidentally wear the same color shirt every day of the conference, which is how she became my BFF Twinsie.
We exchanged information, started reading and working on each other’s manuscripts, and never really stopped.
Eventually, I started pressuring her to write a book with me.
She was already sending me entire manuscripts to read, critique, and edit, and we worked ridiculously well together. I wanted to know what would happen if we took the things each of us did best and put them into the same book.
Ten years later, I don’t think I could write with anyone else. We love each other’s quirks (mostly) in a way I’m not sure anyone else could.
Ring Around the Finger began with one genius little scene that lodged itself in Deb’s brain and refused to leave until we wrote it. We built an entire outline designed to get us to that scene.
That outline has been dead and buried for years.
The book that grew out of it, though, is one we’re incredibly proud of.
How we write together
We outline deeply together, using it as an excuse for Deb to come on a trip to Mexico. Then she writes the first draft—the bones. I come behind her and add setting, emotional depth, continuity, and character work where it’s needed, then do the final edit. She reads every chapter, gives it her stamp of approval, and eventually we call it a book.
At least, until life happens.
Five years, one damn book
We’ve been working on this book for five years. During those five years, I moved to Mexico, got divorced, and rebuilt my life from ground zero.
For a while, Iris and Ben had to wait.
Turns out writing a romantic comedy with a broken heart isn’t particularly funny.
Deb didn’t go anywhere.
She was part of the comfort and healing that got me through it, just as we’ve shown up for each other when life has happened on her side. Not too long ago, we got to celebrate something that meant more than simply getting back to work: I was finally in the head—and heartspace—to pick up Iris and Ben’s love story again.
We’re friends first. Co-writers a close second.
A CLOOOOOOSE second.
And maybe that’s part of why this book matters so much to us. Iris and Ben are funny—sometimes riotously so—but their story has had real life underneath it.
Friendship. Family. Hurt. Healing. And the people who stick.
They’re also only the beginning. Two more books are waiting behind them, filled with people we already love and stories we want to tell.
These characters have been part of our lives for a long time.
They deserve their turn out in the world.
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