Writing An Alpha Heroine

Note: I’m now offering a workshop on Writing Alpha Heroines: How to Write Strong Heroines Readers will Root For. See the bottom of this article to discover where it’s available to watch now. Interested in this virtual workshop for your romance writing chapter or group? Contact me.

The heroine of my debut book, Lush Money, came from a lightning strike of an idea: What if the romance billionaire we’ve spent so many years reading and writing about was a woman?

Great idea, right? But Roxanne Medina, self-made Mexican-American billionaire and CEO of Medina Now Enterprises, was a struggle to write.

I’m a writer and ex-journalist who works from my suburban home and, while now an empty nester, I spent the last 21 years taking care of children. I’m ruler of my fiefdom – my husband concedes that the dog recognizes me as alpha – but that doesn’t make me knowledgeable in Roxanne’s skin.

In the beginning of the book, I had to stop a lot to ponder what Roxanne’s thoughts, impulses, and reactions would be. How would a woman with a billionaire’s level of power and self-determination move in the world? What would her desires be? How would she interact with others? What could she still want for herself when she could buy everything?

All the things I figured out writing Roxanne Medina allowed me to develop some guidelines to make writing alpha heroines in the future easier.

1) Don’t write a man

Okay, we’ve all read her: She’s a “tough” heroine, doesn’t like “girly” stuff, is sexually adventurous, into technology, and spares the man in her life (who women can’t get enough of) all her messy emotional stuff. She’s generally written by a man. And, if you squint, she IS a prototypical man with the addition of the fun lady parts.

Creators can do better than this. We women deserve better than this. To dismiss all of our womanliness as something that makes us weak or lesser is just a phenomenal bunch of crap.

Roxanne Medina wants a baby and uses her Wall Street Journal to bookmark her Vogue and enjoys her phenomenal good looks as a tool and cries easier than she likes. And all of these attributes are an extension of what make her a great leader and a great boss: she’s a nurturer, she stays in-the-know, she uses all the tools at her disposal, and she’s empathetic.

Our womanliness makes us mighty.

2) Honor her femininity

As we embrace the fact that gender is fluid – and that personalities, preferences, upbringings, and cultures vary widely – it’s counter-productive and dangerous to define specific traits as “womanly” or “feminine.” Being a woman can be all things and everything. But whoever our female character is – whatever female traits we’re bringing to the table as the story builders and our character is bringing as she develops in our heads – we should value her female-ness as part of her alpha strength. Not shy away from it as something that makes her weak.

I realized early writing Roxanne that she was a mama bear, a protective nurturer. How did she take care of those in her den? By supporting and engaging the female business owners whose companies she invested in or acquired, running a morally responsible company that took care of her employees, and funding her small Kansas hometown that she claimed to disdain.

Roxanne’s feminine instinct to nurture was the engine that made her powerful.

“The elephant in the room with strong, alpha heroines is that many times they’re called “unlikeable.” We’ve coded “make her likeable” with “make her relatable.””

3) Allow her to fully occupy her space

What defines an alpha heroine? I don’t believe it’s her job – soldier, spy, billionaire – or the fact that she can kick ass. An alpha heroine is defined by the way she occupies her space and understands her importance in that space.

Imagine a woman standing in the middle of an empty room. As people come into this room, we are preprogrammed to expect this woman to shuffle to the side. Usually as she’s asking everyone who enters if they need anything. She might even press herself into a corner to make sure others have more space.

We’ve been taught to appreciate women who accommodate other’s needs. Women as caretakers used to be an evolutionary imperative.

But an alpha heroine stays in the center of the room. Why? Because she knows how important her place there is. Only from the center can she get a full picture, assess what other’s need, and balance those needs against her own. She doesn’t diminish herself because she knows she is necessary. Others will not receive the best she can give if she’s tucked into a corner.

Roxanne makes mistakes when she first meets Príncipe Mateo de Esperanza y Santos, a Spanish prince with a struggling kingdom, who she contracts for a year-long marriage of convenience and sex three-days-a-month so she can have her royal baby. But it’s her own judgement – that Mateo is a good man, that she behaved poorly and against her own standards and morals -- that inspires her to change and triggers this enemies-to-lovers couple to work together instead of against each other. Roxanne doesn’t let Mateo take over as her mea culpa; instead she apologizes, sincerely makes amends, and welcomes him to stand as an equal by her side.

4) Know her vulnerability

Her vulnerabilities – the balance to her strengths -- are what make our alpha heroine fascinating and real. Not weak. If we deny her those vulnerabilities, all we have is a caricature of a strong woman. So it’s important we know those tender spots going in.

Roxanne’s strength is that she’s a nurturer. Therefore her vulnerability had to be that she was lonely. She worried, because of her upbringing, that she would never be valued and loved. That she would never have anyone to truly nurture. So why wouldn’t she try to buy herself a baby? Her exterior strength is her vast resources and wealth. Her vulnerability: That no one – not her employees, her hometown, or her prince – could love her unless she paid them.

I don’t want to get to spoilery so I’ll just say that vulnerabilities create issues for the hero to discover and comfort and provide fun, wrenching, awesome, heart-rending moments for the author to explore.

5) Make her human

The elephant in the room with strong, alpha heroines is that many times they’re called “unlikeable.” We’ve coded “make her likeable” with “make her relatable.” I hate both words. Instead, we should just make sure to create a living, breathing human with all of the corresponding foibles.

Give her a favorite junk food. Or an irritating habit. Or a favorite reality show. Whatever. We just make sure she isn’t perfect because perfect is sterile and boring.

When Roxanne first sees her prince in a suit, she’s so knocked out by how gorgeous he is that she slips on her four-inch-high Louboutins. It’s a tiny moment – she just passes it off like there was something on the floor – but after a couple of chapters of her imperviously ramming her agenda down his throat, I loved seeing her this way. Human. Jaw-dropped.

Because of the close perspective that romance novels are written in, it can be difficult sometimes to show an alpha heroine’s love-strewn and foible-filled humanity. An alpha heroine is not going to acknowledge them in her POV and the hero – either filled with lust or enemies-to-lovers irritation -- might not see them in his.

So, I found it useful to let my secondary characters do that work. I showed my secondary characters loving her, respecting her, teasing her, valuing her for her strengths AND vulnerabilities AND foibles, and—hopefully—set the tone for the hero and the reader.

---

Want to take my Alpha Heroine WorkshoP?

• Sign up for the Toronto Romance Writers conference and you can take the How to Write Alpha Heroines workshop with me Saturday, September 17 at 9:00 am CT.

Click to learn more

Read more: Why I write “Unlikeable Heroines.”

---

Great Early Reviews for LUSH MONEY

The first reviews are coming in for Lush Money and I’m completely knocked out by them.

Publishers Weekly said: “Fans of fake-relationship romances will delight in this fresh spin on the trope.”

And Aarya of Smart Bitches, Trashy Books said: “This book is a shining jewel.... The initial animosity is delicious, the authorial voice is magnetic, and I just want to slap these two idiots and make them swear their undying love for each other (this is a compliment!).”

Blurbs

The blurbs from published authors I deeply admire are phenomenal gifts.

I discovered Sierra Simone last year and her book Priest is one of the most incredible romance stories I’ve ever read. It’s incredibly hot, loving, dirty, and sacred all at the same time. I don’t think I’ll ever write with Sierra’s bravery, but I do hope to one day to write with her depth. So when it came to be “blurb” time, she’s one of the first authors I asked.

Her blurb was so fantastic that I’ve put it at the top of all of my book pages: “Sweeping, sensual, and rawly emotional, Angelina M. Lopez crafts a debut that matches a strong, complicated heroine to a beautiful, tortured prince, and spins a swoon-worthy fairy tale for the 2019 reader. Lush Money is a gorgeous story full of heat and feels—and tons of sexy, royal fun!”

Naima Simone is also an author I deeply admire. Naima is able to maintain a tremendous output while writing books that have deep-felt heart, humor and heat. As a book-every-nine-months writer, I have no idea how she does it!

Naima gave me THREE blurbs to choose from (because that’s the kind of awesome person she is!!) and we chose this one: “Lush Money was nothing I expected and everything I needed. It took the billionaire and marriage of convenience tropes and flipped them on their heads. A bold, millionaire heroine, a sexy prince of a hero, an exhilarating power struggle and off-the-charts chemistry and passion that had my Kindle smoking. It's the perfect dirty fairy tale."

She also wrote the most hilarious post in our shared reader group, the Racy Reads Party Room on Facebook. You should join Racy Reads just for Naima’s hilarious posts. She’s the most joyous person!

Goodreads

The Goodreads reviews have also been fantastic. Right now, 120 people have marked it to-read, which blows my mind! It’s hard to imagine all this stuff when you’re writing a book, alone, in yoga pants, at the quiet of your desk. What was created in private has become VERY public.

These reviews — on Goodreads and Amazon — make a huge difference in how Amazon promotes the book and how people discover it. This is my first of many requests that if you read the book and enjoy it, please review it.

Fellow Carina Press author Felicia Grossman (who writes gorgeous historical romances!!) said: “I just adored Roxanne and Mateo. Watching two people who started partially as enemies fall in love through friendship and understanding despite the fact that each fought it so hard was just wonderful to read. Both were complex and stubborn and proud and self-protective (They had wounds that matched each other really well as well as strengths), but also loyal and kind and caring, and just electrifying together (like so very hot and passionate and sexy but yet still very poignant somehow).”

Elizabeth said: “Old skool romance for the twenty-first century! I cried three times. The sexy times are fire. The writing is beautiful. I don't have anything else coherent to say because I'm still basking in book afterglow.”

And b.andherbooks said: “What follows is an absolutely delicious, soapy, and over the top clash of the titans romance for the ages, and the start of what will sure be a stunning career for debut novelist Angelina M. Lopez.”

Want to add Lush Money to Goodreads, request it on NetGalley, or preorder it?

---

GIVEAWAY: An e-ARC of LUSH MONEY

Update: Thank you to everyone who liked my Facebook page and participated! Ree Cee, a new Facebook follower, was the winner of the e-ARC. Make sure to follow me on all my social media and never miss a giveaway!

Want to get an early copy of Lush Money? I’m giving one away over on my Facebook page. Click the image below to find out what you need to do to enter (it’s painless; I promise!).

LUSH MONEY Now Available on NetGalley

Thrilled to announce that Lush Money is now available on NetGalley. What’s NetGalley? It’s a site that distributes Advanced Reader Copies (ARCs) to book reviewers and other influencers before the sale of the book. These early reviews help develop “buzz” and early excitement for the book.

There have already been some knock-out-amazing reviews from early readers:

Are you excited about Lush Money? You can help keep the buzz up by preordering it here. You can preorder it on many sites, as well as at my local bookstore, One More Page, where you can get a signed copy!

Buzz, buzz, buzz…

---

GIVEAWAY: One copy of LUSH MONEY plus four other Carina Press Books

Update: Thank you to all my newsletter subscribers, new and old! DC Evans was the winner. But no worries if you didn’t win; subscribers will be the first entries into many giveaways in the future!

Want to get your hands on Lush Money sooner than later?

On August 14, I’m celebrating the two-month mark before Lush Money is unleashed on the world by giving away a USB with my book as well as four other fall releases from Carina Press authors. On this USB is also Ruby Lang’s highly anticipated August release, Playing House. You’ll also receive some Angelina M. Lopez swag as well as an autographed postcard.

What do you have to do to enter? Just sign up for my newsletter by midnight, August 13. The drawing will be for current subscribers as well as new ones - it’s not a very big list so you have a GOOD chance of winning ;-) Because of the postage, this contest is for U.S. residents only.

I only send out a newsletter once a month and I will never, ever, ever abuse the precious baby of your email address. I will treat it the way I want mine treated — respectfully and preciously! And, as a thank you, all newsletter subscribers get my free sexy short story, The Phone Call.

VIDEO: My reading of LUSH MONEY at Lady Jane's Salon, NYC

Thanks to my phenomenal friend and fellow writer J.T. Bock, I have a video of my reading from Lush Money at Lady Jane’s Salon in New York City. It was an incredible night, reading with debut authors and the incredible Brenda Jackson in front of a full house. It’s about 7:30 minutes and I drop a couple of f-bombs (of course I do). Enjoy!

Like what you heard?

Learn more about Lush Money here.

---

Self-Care for Authors at Conferences and Conventions

The biggest annual event for romance authors is the Romance Writers of America’s conference, which took place last week in New York City. I’ve been a member of RWA since 2000 and have attended 10 conferences. You’d think I’d be an expert by this time.

But last week, as a debut author, I felt like it was my first time: I was anxious, stressed out, and mildly miserable. I was taking part in so many firsts – first reading, first signing, first lunch with my editor, first publisher party, etc. – and every moment felt weighty. Every smile felt important. Every impression I made felt like the one that would make or break my career.

AH!!

I didn’t take good care of myself. I drank too much, stayed up too late, didn’t have regular meals, and didn’t take enough downtime. The massive hotel didn’t help the situation: we were waiting up to 15 minutes for elevators, so you had to schedule 30 minutes for what should have been a restful 10-minute break in your room. And food was very hard to access.

Next year, when I attend the RWA conference in San Francisco with the first two books in the “Filthy Rich” series – Lush Money and Hate Crush – I want to do it different. Better. I want to be more centered and less frantic.

How do you take care of yourself at intense conventions and conferences? I asked fellow romance author and friends for their suggestions:

In-room self-care

I splurged and got room service for breakfast twice, and took a hot bath every night before bed. – Mia Hopkins

I take candles that remind me of home and light them nightly. – Aliza Mann

I stayed in my own room this year and that helped because I could decompress alone at night. – Roni Loren

I read for a few minutes before sleep. – Tara Kennedy

I tried to minimize the need to change clothes, RITAs notwithstanding. I was the queen of the denim and black dresses! – Amanda Reid

I made sure to have a refrigerator in my room. – Jordyn Kross

Managing conference chaos

I learned from last year not to try to do everything. Most of the session were recorded & it's worth the investment. If you tend to be introverted, absolutely take a break from all the people-ing. I was able to duck into the PAN lounge a few times just to recharge (saved me from having to use the elevators).- Tarina Deaton

I didn't let FOMO run me too ragged. It was a lot going on. – Lory Wendy

I left sessions that weren’t right for me, once leaving to get some quiet time in the room, so I could feel more centered. I also left the Marriott each day just to get some fresher air. – Ana Coqui

On the 1st day of the conference, I tried to live-tweet my way through every workshop I attended and very quickly realized that I was missing out on so much and exhausting myself in the process. I quit tweeting after that and just listened, and it was SO MUCH BETTER – Christine Parker

Mental self-care

I think the best thing you can do for self care is reflect before you go. What kind of person am I? What part of all this is going to take the most out of me? And then try to be aware of those needs and limitations while you're doing all the things. It's okay to say I need to not do this right now. It's okay to say, I need to meet this person, but the bar isn't going to let me focus on our conversation. Maybe I'll invite her to meet me somewhere else. It's okay to say, I didn't get everything done on my to do list, but I'm inspired and reinvigorated by what I DID get accomplished,...or at least I will be after another nap. – Eva Moore (Angelina’s note: Eva wrote more; it’s such a wise, thoughtful response that I created a separate page for it here.)

Headphones. Because you can only stress so much if you’re dancing. – Luna Joy

After spending so much time, money, and energy to get there, you feel you should be doing and seeing everything, but I've learned how important it is to prioritize what matters most, schedule down time for rest, and pick up recorded sessions for anything I've missed. That, and wear the most comfortable shoes possible to deal with all the standing and walking, even if they happen to be a pair of Skechers slip-on sneakers. – Colleen Thompson

Take time to reset. I like to go to my room and let the quiet envelope me. Appreciate the silence. An hour does wonders to help me recharge when I feel overwhelmed. – Tricia Lynne

Physical self-care

I use the meditation app Calm - it only takes 10 minutes and makes a world of difference. Also exercised (not every day, but even getting in 2 helps!). VERY important to schedule a full day of rest right after - trying to power through will just make you feel worse. – Christi Barth

I managed to stay hydrated, so there's a plus. :) – Xio Axelrod

I did my best to make sure I slept enough. Went to bed at decent hours (even if it meant missing out on some things!) and um, not TOO much booze...– Keely Thrall

I made sure to drink at least 20 oz. of water as soon as I woke up which helped a little. I also tried to go back to my room at least once a day, even for just 20 minutes. – Kelly Maher

Exercised twice, planned alone time during the conference, and took time to rest yesterday. I also had a stash of protein bars and apples in my room. – M.C. Vaughan

Taking a break

I took one half day, and one evening, off. Meaning I left the hotel and did something I wanted to do when I wanted to do it. As a recovering rule-follower this was a big step for me, and a smart one. – Geri Krotow

I didn't do as many workshops as last year. But the people got overwhelming so getting out of the hotel and city for a night helped big time. – Meka James

Food self-care

I think you need to give yourself permission to miss things and purposefully schedule two hour blocks for meals. …Next time I will make sure I have a meal plan, even if it's alone, for every regular meal and make it a priority. – Felicia Grossman

The instant oatmeal and apples I brought was helpful in the mornings to save time and money. – Veronica Forand

Damon Suede recommended this a fantastic FOLDABLE electric kettle:

I ate chocolate cake for dinner one night. Does that count? 😉- Jessica Snyder

I find that grabbing a cup of coffee or even a meal by myself can be a great re-set. Also, carrying an easy snack is great, for those moments when you realize the over-charge is actually incipient hypoglycemia -- a handful of nuts can be a lifesaver!– Mindy Klasky

I made a few Nutella sandwiches to keep my blood sugar up during the day, which sort of helped. – Margot Pierce

Fav protein bars in purse. Carry extras to share. Stock room with snacks and beverages. Always have Throat Coat tea. Have at least one meal a day outside the hotel. – Isobel Carr

Recovering post conference

And take off at least two full days after you get back! One is not enough. – Alexis Daria

One of my unbreakable rules has always been that I never leave on Sunday. I give myself that night to ease out of conference mode and prepare for the inevitable crises waiting at home. – Eileen Dreyer

Hopefully, next year, these tips will allow me to feel as cool, calm and collected as I pretend to be!

---

Read First Pages and Preorder LUSH MONEY

I am so glad to finally share with you the first pages of LUSH MONEY, my debut romance novel. Dedications have been written, typeset is complete, and now begins the marketing that hopefully gets this book noticed by readers. You can help: preorders are a big part of getting my book noticed by reviewers, so if you're planning to buy it, preordering it is hugely appreciated. I hope you enjoy this excerpt. It’s long so I put the beginning here and the rest in the link.

Lush Money
by
Angelina M. Lopez

A marriage of convenience and three nights a month.
That’s all the sultry, self-made billionaire wants from the impoverished prince.
And at the end of the year, she’ll grant him his divorce…with a settlement large enough to save his beloved kingdom.

As a Latinx woman, Roxanne Medina has conquered small-town bullies, Ivy League snobs and boardrooms full of men. She’s earned the right to mother a princess and feel a little less lonely at the top. The offer she’s made is more than generous, and when the contract’s fulfilled, they’ll both walk away with everything they’ve ever wanted.

Príncipe Mateo Ferdinand Juan Carlos de Esperanza y Santos is one of the top winegrowers in the world, and he’s not marrying and having a baby with a stranger. Even if the millions she’s offering could save his once-legendary wine-producing principality.

But the successful, single-minded beauty uses a weapon prince Mateo hadn’t counted on: his own desire.

January: Night One

Mateo Ferdinand Juan Carlos de Esperanza y Santos—the “Golden Prince,” the only son of King Felipe, and heir to the tiny principality of Monte del Vino Real in northwestern Spain—had dirt under his fingernails, a twig of Tempranillo FOS 02 in his back pocket, and a burning desire to wipe the mud of his muck boots on the white carpet where he waited. But he didn’t. Under the watchful gaze of the executive assistant, who stared with disapproving eyes from his standing desk, Mateo kept his boots tipped back on the well-worn heels and his white-knuckled fists jammed into the pits of his UC Davis t-shirt. Staying completely still and deep breathing while he sat on the white couch was the only way he kept himself from storming away from this lunacy.

What the fuck had his father gotten him into?

A breathy ding sighed from the assistant’s laptop. He granted Mateo the tiniest of smiles. “You may go in now,” he said, hustling to the chrome-and-glass doors and pulling one open with a flourish. The assistant didn’t seem to mind the dirt so much now as his eyes traveled—lingeringly—over Mateo’s dusty jeans and t-shirt.

Mateo felt his niñera give him a mental smack upside the head when he kept his baseball cap on as he entered the office. But he was no more willing to take his cap off now than he’d been willing to change his clothes when the town car showed up at his lab, his ears ringing with his father’s screams about why Mateo couldn’t refuse.

The frosted-glass door closed behind him, enclosing him in a sky-high corner office as regal as any throne room. The floor-to-ceiling windows showed off Coit Tower to the west, the Bay Bridge to the east, and the darkening hills of San Francisco in between. The twinkling lights of the city flicked on like discovered jewels in the gathering night, adornment for this white office with its pale woods, faux fur pillows, and acrylic side tables. This office at the top of the fifty-five-floor Medina Building was opulent, self-assured. Feminine.

And empty.

He’d walked in the Rose Garden with the U.S. President, shaken the hand of Britain’s queen, and kneeled in the dirt with the finest winemakers in Burgundy, but he stood in the middle of this empty palatial office like a jackass, not knowing where to sit or how to stand or who to yell at to make this situación idiota go away.

A door hidden in the pale wood wall opened. A woman walked out, drying her hands.

Dear God, no.

She nodded at him, her jowls wriggling as she tossed her paper towel back into the bathroom. “Take a seat, Príncipe Mateo. I’ll prepare Roxanne to speak with you.”

Of course. Of course Roxanne Medina, founder and CEO of Medina Now Enterprises, wasn’t a sixty-year-old woman with a thick waist in medical scrubs. But “prepare” Roxanne to…

Ah.

The nurse leaned across the delicate, Japanese-style desk and opened a laptop perched on the edge. She pushed a button and a woman came into view on the screen. Or at least, the top of a woman’s head came into view. The woman was staring down through black-framed glasses, writing something on a pad of paper. A sunny, tropical day loomed outside the balcony door behind her.

Inwardly laughing at the farce of this situation, Mateo took a seat in a leather chair facing the screen. Apparently, Roxanne Medina couldn't be bothered to meet the man she wanted to marry in person.

Two minutes later, he was no longer laughing. She hadn’t looked at him. She just kept scribbling, giving him nothing to look at but the palm tree swaying behind her and the part in her dark, shiny hair.

He glanced at the nurse. She stared back, blank-eyed. He’d already cleared his throat twice.

Fuck this. “Excuse me,” he began.

“Helen, it sounds like the prince may have a bit of a dry throat.” Roxanne Medina spoke, finally, without raising her eyes from her document. “Could you get him a glass of water?”

“Of course, ma’am.”

As the nurse headed to a decanter, Mateo said, “I don’t need water. I’m trying to find out…”

Roxanne Medina raised one delicate finger to the screen. Without looking up. Continuing to write. Without a word or a sound, Roxanne Medina shushed him, and Mateo—top of his field, head of his lab, a goddamned príncipe—he let her, out of shock and awe that another human being would treat him this way.

He never treated people this way.

He moved to stand, to storm out, when a water glass appeared in front of his face and a hair was tugged from his head.

“Ow!” he yelled as he turned to glare at the granite-faced nurse holding a strand of his light brown hair.

“Fantastic, I see the tests have begun.”

Mateo turned back to the screen and pushed the water glass out of his way so he could see the woman who finally deigned to speak to him.

“Tests?”

She was beautiful. Of course she was beautiful. When you have billions of dollars at your disposal, you can look any way you want. Roxanne Medina was sky-blue eyed, high-breasted and lush-lipped, with long and lustrous black hair. On the pixelated screen, he couldn’t tell how much of her was real or fake. He doubted even her stylist could remember what was Botoxed, extended, and implanted.

Still, she was striking. Mateo closed his mouth with a snap.

Her slow, sensual smile let him know she’d seen him do it.

Mateo glowered as Roxanne Medina slipped her delicate black reading glasses up on her head and aimed those searing blue eyes at him. “These tests are just a formality. We’ve tested your father and sister and there were no genetic surprises.”

“Great,” he deadpanned. “Why are you testing me?”

Her sleek eyebrows quirked. “Didn’t your father explain this already?” A tiny gold cross hung in the V of her ivory silk top. “We’re testing for anything that might make the Golden Prince a less-than-ideal specimen to impregnate me.”

(Click to keep reading…)

P.S. Save the date! My book launch party will be Friday, November 8 at One More Page Books in Falls Church, Virginia. Pre-order your book by clicking “One More Page” in the above link, and I’ll sign it Nov. 8! We’ll celebrate with tapas and wine!!

Angelina and "Lush Money" in the Media

Folks, there’s buzz. The cover release for my debut book, Lush Money, has created the faintest hint of buzz. It’s surreal and awesome to see my name mentioned in publications and beside authors I deeply admire. It’s surreally awesome. Here’s a roundup…

Lush Money in Publishers Weekly

I was thrilled to discover that Lush Money was featured in Publishers Weekly at the end of May in an article about upcoming “royalty” stories with a modern tone. To see my cover next to Alyssa Cole’s fabulous A Prince on Paper was really awesome. Also discussed in this article is Casey McQuiston’s massively popular, Red, White & Royal Blue, as well as Jasmine Guillory’s Royal Holiday. You can click the image below to read the full article.

Lush Money in Frolic

I’m hiding deep in my writing cave this week to finish the first draft of the second book in the Filthy Rich series, so I planned to stay offline. Thank goodness I broke my own rule: When I poked my head up on Twitter on Tuesday, I discovered I’d been featured in a Frolic story, “4 Upcoming Romance Novels By Latinx Authors I’m Most Excited About.” Featured along with Lush Money in the article are books by Adriana Herrera, Andie J. Christopher, and Zoey Castile.

Angelina Talking Craft on DIYMFA Interview Series

I gave my first craft talk with Gabriela Pereira for the DIYMFA Writer Igniter Romance Summit. I truly loved the topic: I talked about how to write alpha heroines, how to make them distinctive from alpha heroes, and how their femininity is an aspect of alpha heroines’ strength. My billionaire businesswoman Roxanne Medina taught me a lot about strong women! It will air next Wednesday, June 19, but if you sign up now, you can get two weeks of romance craft from phenomenal authors like Roni Loren, Tiffany Reisz, Jodi Thomas and Heather Graham.

Sign up now to hear episode on Wednesday, June 19

Cover Reveal!!!

The title -- "The Billionaire's Prince" -- was the first spark of inspiration I had back in 2015 during Christmas break, while I was visiting my parents at the vineyard: What if the billionaire we romance writers spend so much time writing about was a woman?

In three-and-a-half years, that spark has grown into a completed book, an agent, a three-book publishing deal, a new title, and, at long last, a cover.

I am thrilled to reveal the cover for my debut novel, Lush Money:

Preorder now available!

Creating a cover is an intricate process of me giving suggestions and then the smart people at Carina Press -- art, editorial, marketing and publicity -- putting together their much-more-experienced heads and coming up with a cover that defines the book and leaps out among a million romance novels.

There are some awesome things that make this cover distinctive from the others on the shelves.

One of the best bits -- they got the woman on top! It's super hard to find stock photographs with the woman in a dominant position. And my self-made billionaire heroine, Roxanne Medina, is certainly in charge of this book.

Initially, I thought our prince, Mateo de Esperanza y Santos, was a little scruffier here than I'd imagined him in my head. But my brilliant editor Kerri Buckley pointed out that in the opening of the book, he's in a baseball cap and muddy muck boots. She said:

"Mateo is a next-gen prince... He’s the winemaker, he’s the man-of-the-people savior, he’s down on his knees in the literal dirt. He’s the one who doesn’t want the throne or all the trappings that go with it. I think that is infinitely more interesting and appealing to depict than yet another guy in a suit."

See, I said they were smarter and more experienced than I am.

Additionally, I love the golden vineyard in the background. So many romance novels fade to black. I think the lush couple and mellow gold scene will make it stick out when people are rushing through thumbnails on Amazon.

The fact that my cover will be one of those thumbnails is a dream come true.

PREORDER NOW AVAILABLE!