Introduction
Thank you.
That’s the beginning, middle and the end of this section. Actually, fuck it. That’s the whole damn point of the secondInsider’s Guide.
Thank YOU. The last two decades with the Black Dagger Brotherhood, with all of my books, wouldn’t have happened without your support. Though there have been so many changes in publishing since I started my career, the constant has been YOU. Whether it was e-books or hardcovers, mass markets or trade paperbacks, Audible, audio or old-school CDs, you were there for me. Whether it was at one of my Cinci events or Readers on the River, ApollyCon or RT or RWA way back in the day, we saw each other. You’ve read my words and felt the feels, laughed at my stupid jokes, tossed questions at me. We’ve had our picture taken together. You’ve gotten a tattoo or named your child or dog/cat/lizard/goldfish after someone from one of my books. We’ve traded likes and posts on Insta or TikTok or Facebook. DMs or emails. Hugs.
One of the greatest gifts of this job you let me do is the community we’ve all created together, especially when it comes to the Black Dagger Brotherhood. That series in particular has resonated for so many people, and it’s brought us all together. We’ve created memories, and met friend groups, and hell, made best friends—Lover Eternalgave me my bffle. We’ve gone through changes in our lives, and loss, and meeting our own next generations.
And the ride’s not over yet.
But listen, let’s go back to the beginning.
Twenty years ago this September 5th,Dark Lovercame out. When it was released, I’d already putLover Eternal, the second in the series, through production, and I was into the drafting ofLover Awakened’s manuscript. I had a three-book contract, and they were bringing the books out every six months to get the ball rolling—assuming things were going to roll at all. Knowing that there was nothing I could do about the reception to Wrath’s story, I kept my head down and kept crying myself through Z’s story.
There were two reasons for the tears. One, him. The other was that I was clearly going to be fired by a publisher for the second time and have to be a lawyer for the rest of my life.
I can still remember when the phone rang at 5:45 p.m. on Wednesday three weeks after Wrath’s release. Given the (212) area code, I knew it was either my editor or my agent, and my first thought was,Oh, they’re working late tonight. My second?Okay, it’s happening. I’m getting fired right now because the vampires have tanked so badly.
Instead, that was when theNew York Timesbestsellers list came out.
The call was my editor telling meDark Lovermade the extended list.
I hung up the phone and was absolutely dumbfounded. How in the hell had the book hittwenty-one daysafter it came out? It should be dead by now. Just like my writing career.
That wasyou. You did that.
Back then, author message boards were a way for readers to connect and share recs, and I didn’t know it that night, butDark Loverwas making the rounds on several of them. The buzz had started to gain momentum, with folks like you telling their friends, “Hey, you gotta read this...”
So that was how it all started.
That evening, I didn’t celebrate. I just went right back to Zsadist so I could stay on track. I’d also signed up to write a couple of Silhouette Special Editions, and the first of them was coming out right after Christmas. The special editions had been my backup plan. If the Brotherhood didn’t work, I figured I could write the kind of books that had started me down the romance rabbit hole in the first place, and at least try to delay having to take the Kentucky bar now that I’d moved down here.
Rhage’s release was up next in March and I was worried. One of the hard and fast rules in the genre gets broken in that book, and I was like, well, I’m going to kill whatever momentum the series is getting with the release. And really, it was a shame thatLover Eternalwas such a wallbanger because I loved the twist in the last part, and even though I hadn’t been excited about writing Rhage’s story, I’d truly fallen for him in the end—
That book also hit the extended list. And even before I handed in Z’s manuscript, my publisher offered for another three books.
Again,youdid that. You, and a bunch of other readers, were putting your hard-earned money into the series right from the jump, and my publisher wanted more from me becauseyouwanted more.
I still didn’t celebrate, though. I just thought,Thank God, I can stay alive in the business for another eighteen months.
I went back to work, and as soon as I finished with Z, I dove intoLover Revealed.
Where I slammed into writer’s block for the first and only time in my career.
Back in those early days, one of the things I worried about the most was whether the pictures and voices in my head were going to dry up. If that happened? I’d have absolutely nothingbecause as I’ve always said, I’m not smart enough to write these books. I’m the secretary. I record, I don’t create.
When I arrived at Butch and Marissa’s story, my editor said we should stick to the vampires as main characters. I tried to take that direction, but I knew that V’s book couldn’t happen without the cop going first, and after we went back and forth, she was like, “Okay, do the cop, then.” But that wasn’t the only hiccup. It was clear that the books were getting longer and longer, and my publisher urged me to keep things tighter because the bindings were getting too big for the shipping boxes.
Right, I thought. I couldn’t budge on the hero, but I can trim the material. No problem. As I started to roll with drafting that manuscript, I remember so clearly deciding to consolidate a couple of the intro scenes—
Everything went dark.
Crickets.
Nothing in my head, nothing to type, nothing going anywhere. And worse? It stayed that way for a week.
I flat-out panicked. And P.S., I didn’t realize how much chaos was in my brain until the lights went out.
