Hey, guys — MJ Post here. My motto, taken from the great Stan Lee, is “Excelsior!” It’s the state motto of New York State, where I reside. (I’m a Brooklyn school teacher, of course!) It means lots of things, but the most exciting thing it means is, “Keep on climbing! Keep pursuing your goals!” And sisters and brothers, I am doing that..
A few years back, I decided to take on this pseudonym and ask the great Mysti Parker to train me as a romance writer. That part of my heart just wasn’t getting expressed in my other work, and I wanted to write in a genre with loyal and passionate fans. So I’ll be working to get your loyalty by creating my own style of stories about strong, spunky heroines and the men who love them just the way they are.
Mysti and I entered the market as a team with Chances Are a while back, and since then we’ve been working on the City Meets Country series, a group of four interlocking new adult romance novellas with a couple of things that make them stand out.
First of all, they celebrate the diversity of the United States by showing what happens when people from different parts of the country and with different cultural backgrounds meet and fall in love. With me writing the city folks and Mysti writing the country folks, we make sure that both sides of the story are told by people who know their own communities well. You’ll find both the intense pace of the big city and the frank charm of the country — the best of both worlds!. (Wowz, that’s some value, I tell ya!)
I should mention: the books share characters by moving each heroine’s best girlfriend into the starring role in the next book. In Drive Me Crazy, the heroine Ellison Carlisle’s best friend is the Brooklyn loudmouth Lena Bosko. Guess who stars in book two, High on You? Yep, it’s Lena (foot in mouth, yipe!), and her buddy, Harper Wheeler, moves to Brooklyn for book three, Sealed with a Kiss. Harper’s best friend in Brooklyn is … well, you get the point. (Could we keep doing that forever, really? Hey, tell your friends to buy ‘em all and we might!)
Our stories are crazy with the laugh-out-loud funny bits, but at the same time, they’re about real people with real hearts who fall in love because they’re well-suited to be together. And if some steamy stuff happens between them (news flash, it definitely does!) — well, you know, times are tough all around, and our young couples deserve it.
These are novellas you’ll read again and again for the little moments you remember, some of them sweet, some of them a little bit, erm, naughty. (Who, me? No, I was just standing there…)
So here’s a bit of a selection for you, from book #1, Drive Me Crazy, now available at Amazon to buy or read on Kindle Unlimited. Book #2, High on You, is already available for preorder, and we’ll have one per month through April.)
Thanks for reading. I hope you’ll connect with Mysti and me online. We really appreciate our readers!!
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Ellie hurried through the curtain and came nose to neck with a man.
“Hey, watch it!” He had a deep voice with a distinct Brooklyn accent like Lena’s.
“Um, oh, sorry,” she muttered before stepping out of his personal space.
“It’s fine. I’m looking for Kate.”
Ellie looked up at him. Big mistake. Luke Martelli blinked down at her. This time he wore a black t-shirt with a silvery “Quicksilver Performance Parts” logo on the front. She glanced down at his faded jeans, surprised to see a navy-blue brace on his left knee.
He tilted his head to one side and gave her a quick once-over with scrutinizing dark eyes. He didn’t have pissed-off written all over his face this time. His inviting lips slanted upward in a slight smile. Did he recognize her? At least she didn’t have tomato sauce all over her mouth. But, God, now all she could think of was having her mouth all over his. What was she? Fourteen?
“Oh, hey Luke,” Kate said as she came around Ellie, who had apparently forgotten how to move, speak, or breathe. “I’ve got the balloons, but the crepe paper is on backorder.”
Luke’s pissed off expression returned. “Damn it. You know when it’ll be in?”
“Let me check.”
He followed Kate to the counter and propped his elbows on it while she punched some keys on the computer.
“It’ll be at least a week,” Kate said. “Apparently, every float on the east coast is getting covered in crepe. My friend Jilly has a lot of silk flowers…”
“No silk,” Luke said, slicing the air with one big strong hand as though severing such a notion’s jugular vein. “Big Al is already on my ass over the Lemon Factory float. I’m tired of his itchin’, you know?”
“Oh, I know. You’d’ve been a lot better off in Pocono.”
“Tell my knee that.” He shifted his feet, taking some weight off the leg with the knee brace. “I’d take Pocono over this rat’s nest any day. No offense.”
“None taken, though we’ve not had a rat in a good two months.”
Luke chuckled. It was a deep and genuine sound, and Ellie suspected he didn’t have much to laugh at these days. She lingered near the bins of cheap toys, candy, and temporary tattoos designed to spur those last-minute buys as people waited in line with fussy kids. As though taking inventory or whatever would make her look less gaga teenager and more twenties professional, she examined some of the butterfly tattoos. “The real ones hurt, baby doll,” he said.
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MJ Post is the pseudonym of a New York City teacher who writes contemporary romance. MJ writes about driven, spunky heroines and the men who love them for who they really are. MJ’s interests include fiction, education, and comic books — MJ particularly likes, of course, MJ (Mary Jane) Watson, who is an inspiration! MJ’s slogan is taken from Stan Lee: Excelsior!
MJ’s first romance novel will come out some time before summer 2018. You can track MJ’s progress with the novel, and see selections, by clicking like on MJ’s Facebook fan page ( https://www.facebook.com/MJ-Post-Author-302156203319243/ ) or even friending MJ on Facebook ( https://www.facebook.com/people/MJ-Post/1000084839887900 ) — MJ likes friend requests from prospective readers.
Mysti Parker is an award-winning author and shameless chocoholic. She writes romance for every reader’s taste from super sweet to scandalously spicy. When she’s not writing the next best-story-ever or tackling the endless mountain of laundry, she works as a freelance copywriter and editor. Mysti resides in Louisville, Kentucky with her husband, three children and too many pets.
For more updates and an endless array of food pics, follow her at:
http://www.facebook.com/RomanceforEveryReader/
http://twitter.com/MystiParker
http://www.instagram.com/mysti_parker/
Emily E K Murdoch 