I Have Another Book Coming Out!!! (And You Can Read It NOW)
...kind of.
I couldn't be more over the moon to announce that Bittersweet, my queer Adult Rom Com, comes out in literally two weeks, via my new pay-what-you-can Patreon The Big Feelings Book Club. You can read the first two chapters on my website for free, and the rest will upload chapter by chapter on Patreon every Thursday at Midnight GMT.
Star baker Lenny just left her fiancé, her city and her life of awkwardly B-list celebrity.
Carey just became the U.K.’s first trans chef to win a Michelin star.
Sparks may fly the first time they meet but safe to say, these two are not on the same page.
Throw in a pride brunch in peril, the queer found family Lenny never had, the world’s most awful cat and a book proposal that won’t write itself and it looks like these two friends with benefits aren’t ever leaving their hookup phase.
But any good baker knows it only takes a little bit of sweetness to fix all that bitter…
What You'll Find Inside This Book:
- A transmasc love interest so hot it'll bring a terf to their knees
- fwb to lovers
- She falls fast/he falls harder
- Queer joy
- Queer found family
- Grump x sunshine
- ‘I hate everyone but you’
- Road trip
- 3/5 Spice rating
- Teeny tiny (5 year) age gap romance
- + plenty of food writing, fun recipes and lots of Edinburgh sites (mostly real, some imagined)
Content Warning: while this is for the most part a very fun, lighthearted novel, Lenny our fmc is in ED recovery. While there will be no graphic details and the book in no way glorifies having an ED, it is still an important part of her story and arc. If this doesn't sound like your cup of tea please go carefully! There will be plenty more books shared on the Patreon in due course so if this doesn't sound like the best fit for you please give it a miss if that feels like the best choice!
It would take more than a few lines in a newsletter to convey how badly I've been wanting to write a Romance novel. The fact that I'm an indie author comes down, in part, to years worth of emotional angst over whether or not I'm a Fantasy author or a Romance author, to the extent that I couldn't start a single project or enjoy writing anything at all. My hope is that by doing things this way - by keeping my Romance writing mostly confined to Patreon, with only a few posts here and there on Instagram and Tiktok - I won't alienate anyone who is used to following me just for Fantasy, but will open up a fun new creative avenue for both myself and anyone who might also want to follow this part of my career, while also getting to live out a huge dream by writing and sharing my excruciatingly earnest queer Romances with you all.
I'm hoping to release at least a book a year, hopefully two, via the Big Feelings Bookclub for as long as it stays fun for all of us. In addition to this every week I'll also be uploading some kind of fun extra - personal writing, bts of the characters, related recipes etc - and a short playlist for each week's chapter, on a Monday and a Wednesday respectively. The first two chapters are live now, and the extra features will begin going live next week so there's plenty of time to have a look around and get acquainted with how everything's going to go down before we really get into the swing of things with new chapters on February 27th.
The Patreon is, and will always be, pay-what-you-can, as part of my ongoing tussle between wanting to promote accessibility to art and also needing to pay my bills. There's not really a perfect pay-what-you-can subscription model yet so the way this will work is this; I've set membership to The Big Feelings Book Club at £2/month, which is the lowest the site will let me. If for whatever reason that's not accessible for you - either right now, or on a monthly basis please email me at crobertsonauthor@gmail.com, no explanations needed or intrusive questions coming your way, and we'll work something out. If for any reason you ever want to make a further donation (there is truly no need or pressure) I have a Ko-Fi set up for tips.
Getting to put this book out is a complete dream for me. I began writing it in 2023, heavily pregnant with my son and as an escape when my family was going through a really tough time. It's a love letter to the queer community, to found family, to food, eating and food culture, to the kind of crazy nature of dating someone who works in the service industry and all the love-hate with it you watch them go through in that time (something I know well, my partner was a cocktail bartender when we met and managed bars for years before getting a job sliiightly more in line with having a kiddo and a home) and to Edinburgh, my home of nearly a decade.
Lenny and Carey are comfortably my favourite characters I’ve ever written (including the entire crew from SANOPD, and you all know by now how much those guys mean to me) sharing them feels vulnerable but mostly just incredibly exciting. I don’t know how many times I can use the phrase ‘dream come true’ in one newsletter but truly, that’s what this is.
Bittersweet is fun, it's silly, I think the heavy moments will hit and I think the love will hit even harder.
And did I mention the LI is crazy hot?
I hope to see you guys over there. I hope you love Lenny and Carey as much as I do.
I hope, regardless, that you're all doing well.
Clarey