Margs & Manuscripts

What if Death Becomes Her ditched the man and let the two women kiss? That’s the pitch for Vengefully Matched, Audrey Goldberg’s sapphic, witchy rom-com about a runaway bride, a prim council president, a prank war gone too far, and a fake relationship that gets very real. Audrey, a high school English teacher by day, joins Jenna and Cait to talk about the cover inspo board (Taste, Wicked, Agatha All Along, and more), why she writes with a soundtrack in her head, and why Vermont is the perfect...

This week on the Lime Light, debut author Lizzete S. Tupas joins Jenna and Cait to talk about her novel, Always on a Tuesday. Loren Thomas has built a life on competence. At work she is the one everyone trusts, and at home she is the one everyone depends on. Then Tuesdays start cracking it all open. First comes an unexplained mistake, then a phone call she can't forget, then quiet fractures that refuse to stay hidden. It is a psychologically rich literary novel about identity, resilience, and...

Ten finished manuscripts. One titanium ankle. One perfectly timed book deal. This week, Amanda Gayle joins us to talk about her debut romance, Once, Again, Always (Avon/HarperCollins), and the long, honest road that got her there. She shares what it was like to quit her job to write, query, land an agent, and go on submission twice. She also explains why a shelved manuscript isn't dead, just waiting for the market to catch up. Plus, we hear about the backyard fire pit conversation that sparke...

Spicy romance meets CSI. Allison Bettes joins Jenna and Cait to celebrate the release of Rogue Wave, book three in her Cupid Meets Crime Scene series. A sunshiny marine biologist, a grumpy sheriff next door who writes her tickets for everything, and a beach that washes up a lot more than sand dollars. We talk about writing women in STEM whose expertise actually cracks the case, the very random research behind axolotls and escape-artist octopuses, and why Allison's animals are never just pets ...

We hit almost 500 downloads in a single week, and we're marking the milestone with an episode that turned into a full-circle moment for our own indie publishing journeys. Dakoda Mazzii, author of the dark fantasy trilogy The Fate of Astoran, joins us to talk about querying, signing with a literary agent, and ultimately walking away to self-publish on her own terms. Since then she's released Chasm of Dreams and Summoner of Chaos seven months apart, sold thousands of copies, and built a devoted...