The Washington Post names AFTER HOURS ON MILAGRO STREET top 10 romance of 2022

I lived in DC for twenty years. My first summer there, I attended my first Romance Writers of America conference. Soon after, I joined the Washington Romance Writers, and attended weekend meetings and annual retreats where I got to learn how to be a romance writer.

Over the next twenty years, my non-writing friends cheered on my writerly aspirations and bought me drinks when I met my writerly goals. My first book, Lush Money, was published when I still lived in D.C. Just this month, I celebrated the three-year anniversary of my debut launch party at One More Page Books.

So for my book to appear today in The Washington Post in Adriana Herrera’s list of the Top 10 Best Romance Books of 2022 is truly meaningful. I hope it’s proof to all of those friends that their cheerleading and support was worth it.

Adriana, the amazing Latinx romance author of The Caribbean Heiress in Paris (one of my favorite books of the year), says about After Hours on Milagro Street:

Lust, animosity and forced proximity make for a potent cocktail in this emotional enemies-to-lovers romance… Lopez excels at penning strong women who know exactly what they want, but what makes this romance shine is the way she reveals the vulnerabilities and pain hiding behind Alex’s tough exterior….

Other books included in this top 10 list include ones from authors Tracey Livesay, Natalie Caña, Kennedy Ryan, Sarah MacLean, Christina Lauren and more!

A Shout Out to My Arrow Fanfic in USA Today's "Happy Ever After"

Guess who was mentioned in USA Today's romance blog, "Happy Ever After?" THIS GIRL!

Denny S. Bryce, HEA columnist and romance author, first interviewed me in 2015 about my Arrow fanfiction story Desperately Seeking. I didn't realize at the time that it was her first interview for her inaugural blog about fanfiction. Three years later, she's revisiting her favorite stories and chose mine to lead her column. 

Excerpt from USA Today's "Happy Ever After" blog by Denny S. Bryce. Roxanne was my pen name.

I've known Denny for a few years now and she's a hardworking author as well as a generous soul -- she's given so much of her time and energy to our writers' organizations, the Washington Romance Writers and Romance Writers of America. I don't know what I did to fall under this woman's special light, but I will be eternally grateful.

I wrote Desperately Seeking after a three-year writing hiatus. This story and Wattpad helped re-ignite my love of writing; it gave me my creative soul back. So having this story recognized and praised this way is tremendously gratifying. And comes just when I need it. I'm currently riding the roller coaster of submitting my book to agents, having one agent tell me she loves the concept while another agent tells me my characters are unlikeable, and writing confidence is a shaky thing right now. 

Denny's praise of my story three years later helps me believe that all these hours I've spent at the keyboard aren't a waste of time.

Check it out.

Must-read fan fiction: Denny S. Bryce celebrates 3rd anniversary of fanfic recs with ‘Arrow,’ ‘Bones,’ ‘Farscape,’ ‘Firefly’ and ‘Scandal’

by Denny S. Bryce

Can you believe it? I’ve been hanging out here at Happy Ever After, sharing fan fiction recommendations since Feb. 18, 2015, people. That’s three years! And I still haven’t covered nearly as much fic as there is out there!

Now, you know, I do have some favorite genres I simply can’t back away from. You’ve seen my unabashed love of all things BtVS from my very first post. I also have a weakness for anything and everything sci-fi, or with vampires, and I like my fan fiction heroes superhuman, alien or Supernatural. (And yes, that was a shout-out to the boys!)

For this month’s column, I decided to do a throwback fan fiction post. So, I scoured a few of my early columns from 2015 and am sharing some of those recs, here again, this month.

Happy anniversary to me! (Click to keep reading...)