A Love Like the Sun is out today!!! Gahh.

Cancelled launch events (sickie) & thoughts on writing a chronically ill main character finding love and feeling sexy

This was last week trying on a dress made for my book that I promise to take pics in soon. Currently, I’m reporting to you on A Love Like the Sun’s book birthday from… my bed haha.

If you didn’t see the announcement on my socials yesterday, I’m sick with a virus that has been kicking my chronically ill ass, and I had to cancel my launch events for today in Providence at Riffraff, tomorrow in Newport at Charterbooks and Saturday the 15th at Steamy Lit in Florida.

I’m so bummed about not being able to celebrate with family, friends and long time readers, and I couldn’t wait to meet new readers in person, but I’m healing and I didn’t want to get anyone sick. The plus side of this (optimism always for me), is that being sick means my adhd having self has actually been slowed down enough to scroll my socials and enjoy and truly appreciate all the early love I’ve been seeing for SUN. If you’ve posted about it or reviewed or bought it, thank you so much. The downside: I’m sorry for those who were planning to attend one of these events and for any inconvenience it has caused. I‘m sending hugs (germ free ones).

& If you were going to buy a copy of A Love Like the Sun at one of the stores, I so hope you still will. <3 The finished copy is very pretty, much more in person, I promise. And it’d make me so very happy, if it matters hehe

Here are some links to buy it should you wish to order it today:

Amazon

B&N

Steamy Lit Bookstore

Charter Books

You could also pick it up in person at B&N and a lot of indies near you. Here’s a beautiful photo from Charterbooks of a SUN display in case you’re close to R.I:

Okay, so now I want you to know why this book is deeply personal and so very close to my heart, the closest book thus far and tbh probably ever with these thoughts

on writing a main character in a romance novel with a chronic illness:

A lot of things were happening in 2021. I was deeply in love with a man but our timing was wrong and it was complicated. My doctor was calling me a hypochondriac and telling me I needed to lose weight to alleviate whatever “symptoms” I was feeling. I was downloading dating apps, only to be horrified when bombarded by requests for sex and feet pics and no substance conversations. Around my birthday in April (I’m a Taurus, yes), I decided to dig through lab results which led me to diagnose myself with kidney disease. Weeks later, I got an appointment with a specialist who confirmed my diagnosis: stage three chronic kidney disease at the young age of thirty three.

As you might imagine, I went through it after that and I’ll spare you the details because I’m telling you these personal things, my dear reader, to better explain why when I sat down to write a book during Nanowrimo, A Love Like the Sun poured out of me like it was begging to be told. While writing it, I was contemplating mortality, life for my children, and what my new diagnosis meant for me regarding love and dating. I was already struggling in that department, heart wanting one thing, brain saying I needed to find something else. And I’d be coming to a potential partner with two kids, a divorce under my belt, a cat, a dog, and a bunny named Michael Myers at home. But now, I was also going to have to tell them about a chronic illness that alters my life (and sometimes ability to have fun; see cutting out alcohol as an example) and can be potentially fatal. 

 What would it look like if I tried? How soon should I tell them about my CKD?

“Hey, I’m enjoying our first date. Thanks for the mocktail. No, I’m not having a non-alcoholic beverage while you’ve downed three shots of Patron in front of me because I have an early work day tomorrow, it’s because I have a chronic illness that may require future kidney transplant and or being hooked to a dialysis machine that filters the toxins from my blood so that my kidneys don’t have to. By the way, what’s your blood type and would you ever consider being a donor? Pass the fries. Actually, they have too much salt and I need to watch my sodium so never mind. Are you having fun?”

As you can see, I was going on a spiral. So, I did my own therapy in the form of creating Laniah Thompson, my main character from A Love Like the Sun and giving her the same chronic illness I have. But what I also gave her was Issac Jordan, the most amazing book boyfriend imho LOL.

Laniah and Issac have been friends since they were pre-teens and they’ve been through so much together, including having to work through grieving the loss of their respective parents. When Laniah finds out she has chronic kidney disease, she worries about how it’s going to affect Issac long term. If she should “subject him” to a life as her romantic partner because what if that means life won’t always be fun and easy and she might not live as long as him?

Like I did, Laniah goes through her stage of feeling like she’s hard to love, and because of that she doesn’t want to be a burden to this man she’s in love with. But the real healing for me was that Laniah gets her happy ending with Issac, who shows her that her illness doesn’t define her and that they can have everything they want together. He loves her thoroughly, and still finds her incredibly sexy, which is something Laniah needed to feel. And though I’m still navigating love and dating with a chronic illness, writing A Love Like the Sun helped me to realize that I am still deserving of a full, beautiful, and yes, sexy love. It was so important to me to have a main character with a chronic illness who feels this way. It was also important to depict medical negligence, and the importance of find a good care team and getting a second opinion. Being gaslight and ignored by doctors is something a lot of people face, especially bipoc women (the rates are awful). When I read books that have any of that representation they mean so much to me and sometimes truly change my life (most recently Abby Jimenez made me sob with Yours Truly and the transplant).

So I hope this book finds readers who can relate to its dedication:

(look-it my A Love Like the Sun themed nails- my tech did what needed to be done)

And I also hope this book finds readers who just love a deep friends to lovers, possibly could make you cry, slow burn romance that’s very sexy once it gets there. AKA: you should still buy it, even if you can’t relate to the doctors office bit and the chronical illness part because, like me and Laniah, it has much more to offer than that.

Just ask Emily Henry (still blushing and kicking my feet and can’t believe this):

Ok. I’m off to put food in my system, take meds then knock out for a bit. Thank you for spending time with me today and I hope you spend some time with SUN!

Love, a stuffy but warm and happy Riss