Ice out, Gabby in

Grace will bring the champagne!

It’s been a weird month. Gabby Greene Knows Whodunit came out on January 20th, smack dab between the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti and the shooting of Julio Sosa-Celis, who didn’t attack anyone with a shovel btw. Businesses and schools have been closed. Everyone has been stressed, or at least amped up. Minneapolis was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for peaceful resistance in the face of a violent government occupation. Cardi B stepped up to pay for Renee Good’s kid.

There’s really no good news cycle to release a book, but this one was more immediate than most. I live in St. Paul. My husband is a paramedic in Minneapolis. My release party was at Magers & Quinn, in the same area of town where Pretti and Good were killed. The photographer who took my picture for the Star Tribune article was tear gassed at a protest before he came to my house. Nothing about this month said, “Promote your book! Have fun!”

Still, we had a lovely release party.

Ellie Palmer was a fabulous convo partner.

My daughter said I looked like Anthony Bridgerton going to the strip club.

My parents and two out of four kids braved ice and ICE.

With Denise Williams at Tropes and Trifles on Jan 31st. Notice our pins. I got to be her convo partner for The Re-Do List!

Diehard Smut U members came out for my release party.

This was not my first release affected by world events. Siri, Who Am I? was supposed to come out in May of 2020. The publisher delayed the release until January of 2021 in hopes of missing the pandemic. Lol. They managed to skip over George Flloyd’s murder and our summer of riots and curfews, but in January of ‘21, we were still at home. It has been a tumultuous time.

One thing I learned over the course of these ill-timed book releases—when times are tough, count on Grace to bring the champagne! Thank you, Grace, for showing up with the bubbly.

Grace at the Gabby Greene release! She ordered two bottles of something delicious!

My Siri release party was zoom only for pandemic reasons, but Grace showed up with a bottle of champagne. She was my only in-person celebrant. <3

I expect to be promoting one of Grace’s books one of these days. I owe her some champagne!

Normally, during a book release month, I spend too much time making TikTok reels, writing blogs. This time, I didn’t even take a selfie in a red wig and shades to cosplay the cover. Expect that soon. Instead, I’ve been participating in various literary fundraisers. Ellie Palmer, Andie J Christopher, Elizabeth Davis, and I auctioned off hockey smut and gift certificates to Tropes & Trifles to raise money. I think we collected $4800 for MNCAN.

On February 28th, I’m headed to Drury Lane Books in Grand Marais where I’ll be giving away twenty copies of my books in exchange for donations. Thanks to Jess Lourey and Kristi Belcamino for organizing this one!

Finally, Smut University threw together an anthology of icy, smutty stories. All proceeds go to immigrant legal aid. It’s good. You can preorder the ebook now. Still working on the physical copy. I’ll share this one again. Release date is March 2nd!

But man, if you haven’t picked up a copy of Gabby Greene Knows Whodunit, grab one now. In this installment, Gabby and Markus go to the Azores to infiltrate a cult. It’s a fun romantic romp on an island. As Kirkus said, “It’s a mission worth accepting.” On page 13, Markus asks Gabby to strangle him with her thighs. People have mentioned that a few times. Buy a copy and find out why.

If you read the book, I would so appreciate a review. That’s one of the easiest things you can do to support authors besides buying books.

That’s it for now. I’ll be back to my usual bullshit in the next newsletter.

Fuck ice and read books!

xoxo

Sam