Stacey Lynn

[00:00:00]

Laura: Hi Stacey, welcome to What's Your Next Podcast.

Stacey Lynn: Hi, thanks so much for having me.

Laura: So happy to have you here. Tell us a little about yourself.

Stacey Lynn: I am a romance author. I've been writing since 2011. I think I also have a husband and four teenagers.

Laura: Oh my gosh, when you're busy and you have a garden.

Stacey Lynn: Yeah, I've tried. I have tried to garden this year. It has not been going so well. So we'll learn more, I think, in the winter and start again next year.

Laura: Yeah, how do you manage to do it all? Like, writing, chowder like

Stacey Lynn: I know. I don't do that.

Laura: the whole, like having children, like now they're teenagers, so they're probably, their needs are different, but they're still a teenager, you know,

Stacey Lynn: it's crazy because when I started writing my very first book, my kids were there. 1, 3, 5, and 7. now [00:01:00] they're 13, 15, 17, and 19. And so, but when they were younger, it was almost easier to write when they were home, because they entertained themselves and we just stayed home. Like we didn't do a lot.

Stacey Lynn: We lived in Minnesota then. And so the winters were long and we were stuck inside a lot, or I could take them to the library and they could run and play there while I wrote a little bit. And now that they're older, it's like, Oh, we're going. And I'm like, it's harder now than that.

Stacey Lynn: I don't know. I think I expected it to get easier and it's kind of different. So,

Laura: because

Stacey Lynn: We figure it out.

Laura: you probably have to drive people around, but you're an Uber driver,

Stacey Lynn: Right. And I'm right. And I'm lucky that, I mean, my oldest two are driving, so they, you know, they can come and go as they please, but it's still the constant coming and going and who's where, you know, where's, , so and so going today and who needs the car and this and our daughter. We'll be turning 16 in September.

Stacey Lynn: So we'll add a third driver with [00:02:00] fewer cars. So it'll add a whole new, you know, traumatic thing that we have to work through. But it's fine. I think you just get used to what you have. And then you just figure out how to live with it. You know,

Laura: So what if I could just start writing in 2011, because it's a whole different time, but I know the industry was young and like a very young industry. Yes, it did have the booths at 50 Shades of Grey, but there was a lot of things, a lot of pieces that were really young and the audience was very different.

Laura: We didn't have talk, we didn't have like even Instagram, like we didn't have like this influencer culture that

Stacey Lynn: right.

Laura: were actually going to V bloggers and like maybe Facebook

Stacey Lynn: Yeah, I was so nervous and I was so, I don't know how to describe it because I've always been a huge reader and I've always wanted to write, but I wrote my first book. Just, you know, Kindle's had, you know, we're just coming out and I had just gotten one and started falling down [00:03:00] this rabbit hole of all of these 99 cent free books, that kind of thing.

Stacey Lynn: Cause they were all so cheap back then too, especially, you know, indie books and I'd obviously never heard of that either. And so, it was fall. We were, like I said, we were in Minnesota. And I just thought, I'm just going to do this. I'm just going to write this book for me. And just to be able to say that I wrote a book, like that was really my intention behind it.

Stacey Lynn: And I finished it in sometime over the winter and hated it, but I was like, you know what? I did it. I don't like we're done with this. Like that was fun. And that was stressful. And whatever we're done. And so I just put it in a drawer. And about three weeks later, I was like, Nope. Nope. Absolutely not. Cause if you're going to do something, then I'm at least going to be happy with it.

Stacey Lynn: And so I got it back out, rewrote like the entire middle third of it to the last half. I don't know. It was a lot. And then when spring came, I was finally like, you know what, let's just, let's do this. Let's just see what happens. And you [00:04:00] know, we had our family life was very different back then. My husband worked, I stayed home with the kids.

Stacey Lynn: But we were not. I was terrified to spend any money investing in a silly dream at that point when we didn't have the money to invest in it. And like, our budget was so tight that we had so little to just give for this. And so, I, So I don't know. It was just, it was so bare bones. And I think back then you could kind of get away with that too, a little bit more, you know, like readers were a lot more forgiving back then about some of the things that would never fly today.

Stacey Lynn: But I remember I reached out to, I think I got bold enough to reach out to like seven, I think. And I was like, I can't do this anymore. I can't do this. I can't, I cannot continue to ask people to like read my book. And so that was all I did. And then. It just snowballed from there. And so it was just crazy how it happened and how it's been able to be sustainable.

Stacey Lynn: And you're [00:05:00] right. Like it's such a different world today than it used to be for sure.

Laura: Well, it has changed. I started reading Romance in 2016 and it was like the age of like maybe YouTube, maybe some Instagram, the influencer machine of PR boxes and arcs and book signings and then we get the TikTok and everyone's doing aesthetics and doing. And it's like, you get to a point where I'm like, I missed it all the time, so it was 99 cents, or a dollar, or unlimited, and you're just like, I had a job that I had, I was under earning, I was earning like little to no money in New York City, and I had nothing but time, and all I had to spread was bucks, and it was like, the greatest time, you know.

Stacey Lynn: Exactly.

Laura: You know, I look longingly at that time, but at the same time, I'm kind of grateful that I am where I am now. But, like,

Stacey Lynn: pros and cons, like I think we can all look back on any part of our paths and remember only like the really easy parts about it when life. [00:06:00] currently is stressful and hard or difficult or, you know, like seasons change and they come and go. And so it's always easy to put on rose colored glasses and just kind of look back and be like, Oh, back then that was so nice.

Stacey Lynn: You know, when I could put my kids to bed at seven, that was so beautiful.

Laura: So let's talk about your backlist. Like, where do readers can get started? Like, from, like, how do you get started? Like, it's, you have a backlist, you have, which is your workforce, and it's like, okay, I read the first, the currency, the current series. And now I need to know where can I go back?

Stacey Lynn: I have two main genres that I tend to write in. It's either sports romance or more small town.

Laura: Okay.

Stacey Lynn: My sports romance are a little bit faster paced or a little sexier there. They're, they have a little bit more adventure road trips and just the hockey aspect and the sports aspect and kind of all of that [00:07:00] more, you know, living in cities.

Stacey Lynn: Traveling, that kind of thing, a little bit more like fun drama, I think in most of them. My small town books tend to be more emotional, they're longer, they're a little bit more gut wrenching. There's still some that have just sweet drama to them. They're a little, some of them, they're a little less explicitly steamy.

Stacey Lynn: Like I still, you know, like there's still the romance and there's still, you know, The steam and there's still the intimacy and there's still the sex and there's still, you know, the hot stuff. It's just described, I think, a little differently when there's a heavier emotion involved in it for me anyway.

Stacey Lynn: So I think for people, they just kind of have to determine like which path they want to go down and then just jump into one of them. Because a lot of them especially my sport even in this small town one, they all slightly interconnect. With other series and like you can start anywhere, but there's [00:08:00] mentions of like in this current series, one of the brothers in this series Caleb in the first book, he's very loosely connected to my football series that I just wrote and some characters that were in that series.

Stacey Lynn: So there's like, there's a mention, but they're not like full spinoff where you have to read. Series to truly understand different series. I just like to bring in some connection to my books.

Laura: I was like, I was curious because I think I read the second book, we were series and I was like, and then the current series and I was like, oh, there's must be a different world. Like, you know, I, he said, we're Romans reader. We assume like any male or female charact love story. I'm so sorry. You know, neighbor so and so

Stacey Lynn: Right. Exactly.

Laura: own book or brother, sister, brother's best friend, like it's just them.

Stacey Lynn: Right.

Laura: And I was like, Oh, well, there's more to do, you know, a lot of

Stacey Lynn: Kelly [00:09:00] family the Kelly family has five brothers and a sister. And so the series is over each of the five brothers. But there's a tiny little novella at the very beginning called Undeniable Love that is their sister. And so their sister is best friends with Haley and they live out in Tennessee.

Stacey Lynn: And Haley is the heroine in the third book in the Nashville Steel football series. And Meredith marries a hockey player out there. There's no hockey series that takes place in Tennessee. She just happens to be the best friend of a character. And so I'm not even sure like how that connection came to my head when I was sitting down to plot my next series, but I just thought, Oh, she was such a fun character.

Stacey Lynn: And her story is kind of cute and quirky. And I thought, Oh, we'll just, you know, suddenly give her five extra brothers and a whole different part of the path.

Laura: love on the

Stacey Lynn: So, but like, but she's just in, she's just in that one book as. As a side character. So [00:10:00] there's like a loose connection, but it's just, you know, it's not a big one by any means.

Laura: I love this. Alright, so let's talk about the Pelley series. What is the Oliver Pitchfork disc specifically? And like, what the tropes are for for the first three books, or I think the

Stacey Lynn: Ah, okay. Okay. Elevator pitch is the Kelly family is five hot guys. They're five hot brothers. The Kelly Ranch is one of the top producing cattle ranches in the country. They're well known in the state. They're well known around the country. They're incredibly wealthy, and they're just it takes place in kind of the eastern plains in Colorado, close to the Kansas border east of Denver a couple hours.

Stacey Lynn: They are hardworking, they are honest, they are a small town like 2, 000 people in the town of New Haven, Colorado, which is completely a made up place. But they're just and they're hot. They're hot guys. The five, okay, there's five brothers, Dalton, Caleb, Cameron, Gavin, and Bryce. [00:11:00] And Caleb is in the first book.

Stacey Lynn: His book is Unending Love. He also happens to be a professional hockey player in Colorado. He has a twin brother, Cameron. Cameron just happens to be the quarterback of the professional football team in Colorado. So they're twin brothers. They're both these famous athletes and come from a famous Colorado ranching family.

Stacey Lynn: So I feel like in this series, you kind of get everything that I love to have in a book. There's hockey, there's football, there's small town, there's high drama, there's high steam, especially Cameron's book. So there's just, there's a lot going on that has made it so much fun to just dive into. Unending love.

Stacey Lynn: Is Caleb's book. Like I said, it's the first book. He had a one night stand way back when he was in the minor league hockey the minor league hockey And he had a one night stand with a girl who shows up at his brother's football practice [00:12:00] thinking it's him to let Cameron know that he's the father of her child.

Stacey Lynn: And Cameron kind of loses his lid and freaks out and. You know, then Caleb finds out that it's his kid. And so there's some like fun, initial drama with the twin confusion at the very beginning too. And it found family for sure. She does not come from a great family from Iowa. She's the teacher. And he just, Caleb just steps up to the plate, wants to be a dad.

Stacey Lynn: She wants him to be a dad. She wants her kid to have a family that she never had. And Caleb comes with this massive family that is just. Down to their core opening and good people who just say, all right let's just love each other. And it's just, it's fun. Unstoppable love is Cameron's story. That is, he's grumpy, he's bossy, he's kind of, he can kind of be a jerk.

Stacey Lynn: He's also been fighting an attraction to his best friend's younger sister ever since high school. So, you know, eight years now [00:13:00] or so and there's not a whole lot I can say about it except it's best.

Laura: it's the best one so far.

Stacey Lynn: and he's grumpy and we very much like his bossyness.

Laura: Yes,

Stacey Lynn: That's entertaining for everybody.

Laura: yes, . And then we have that, that this week, and it's the third book in the series. And it's also about it

Stacey Lynn: I'm so excited for this one. Gavin is, you know, he's the fifth youngest Kelly sibling. He's 23, and he's a single dad to a seven year old girl, he got a girl pregnant when he was 15 years old, that girl took off before he got his driver's license, and so he's been raising this kid on his own and just has wanted nothing to do with anything but his daughter and trying to figure out a way to provide a family.

Stacey Lynn: He started his own construction company, just kind of wanted to be his own man, not depending on his, you know, family's wealth or their help for everything. [00:14:00] He's just, he's stubborn, he's young, so he's got a lot to prove. And he's incredibly protective of Josie, which is his daughter. Her name's Josephine.

Stacey Lynn: She's a riot and a half. She, I think, might steal the book. Like, she is just the best. And midway through her school year, a new teacher comes to town and Penny Penelope, her name's Penelope, they call her Penny, is she's a girl who had maybe one of the worst moms in history that I've ever written.

Stacey Lynn: And basically was raised. Being a mom to her younger sister when her, when they were very little. So she's always taken care of herself. So she's highly independent as well. She's also incredibly nurturing because she's always been in that nurturing role and she ends up being Josie second grade teacher moving in two doors down across the street from Gavin and Josie decides from the first time she sees her, that she is going to be her new mother [00:15:00] and Josie works.

Stacey Lynn: She is little, but she is smart. And so she figures out a way to get them together as much as possible.

Laura: my gosh, she had me, you know, I mommy matchmaking, like, just matchmaking of like, you know, I need a mom. And so she's gonna be a, she's actually the right person for me. So it's like finding the right person for you. I your finding your family. So,

Stacey Lynn: Right. There's a lot of, I think there's a lot of found family in this one. And that wasn't really my intention. It's just that the Kelly's just ended up being such good people. Like they're just the people that you want. your kids to know and you want everybody to know and there's the neighborhood family that everybody goes to just because they're so good and so it just kind of made it easy to bring in these characters that just needed that family.

Laura: yeah. Oh, so good. So let's try some book recommendations. You read a little bit of everything. I mean, that's my idea. So, why don't some of you go to book recommendations? Are you like, you know, [00:16:00] these ones, these books are love, I regret, or I want to recommend to others, you know, after they go through about this and they go through.

Laura: Yeah,

Stacey Lynn: Right. I always ask like, what do they like? Because I have such huge interest. Like I, I grew up reading John Grisham, you know, courtroom things as a teenager. And like, I'm sure I just aged myself there a little bit, but you know, I've always just read anything I can get my hands on.

Stacey Lynn: And so, I think when people come to me for recs, I'm like, well, what do you like? Do you like the romantic stuff? Do you like, you know, paranormal, like urban fantasy, vampires, do you like contemporary, how steamy do you like it? Cause I'll read anything from, you know, not only a single kiss to everything else that's out there.

Stacey Lynn: But my top few are, would definitely be Kristen Ashley as my go to, just anything pick something, pick a series, start there and then just spend [00:17:00] the rest of your life on it. Bye. Reading her books and then rereading them all, all over again.

Laura: Yeah.

Stacey Lynn: I always reread her books.

Laura: And you like, she does have motorcycle. She does have, like, romance, but she also has fantasy too.

Stacey Lynn: right,

Laura: So she has a little bit of everything for you. Yeah,

Stacey Lynn: exactly. And then if my, one of my favorite books is Christina Lauren's beautiful stranger. And again, I know that's an older book of theirs. That's an older series, but the beginning of that book and that nightclub I, you just can't like, I was just hooked. Like I, I think about that scene.

Stacey Lynn: That whole just set up of that. It's just done so perfect. Like there's so, there's such talented women that it's just such a perfect book. And I love the daringness in all of it and it's just sexy and fun. And I enjoyed that one. And then if they like paranormal, I always go to Chicago and vampires.

Stacey Lynn: Which I know is not like the most [00:18:00] popular, well known series out there, but I think it fits my vampires, my werewolves, my shifters, my magic, and then it also fits my murder mystery and my crime and like it combines and the romance, like a beautiful slow burn romance in it. I think that series takes every single thing I love about every book I've ever read.

Stacey Lynn: read and then just puts it all together in one long series that takes a month to read.

Laura: I actually listened to most of the series and I still have like, a few left over because I don't want it to end and the series this series ended. So I'm like, I don't want it to end. It's just like so And it's like, it's a perfect, like, you can drop in, and you should read them in order. You should not, like, put them in the, just read in order, kind of deal.

Laura: But it's political, politically savvy. I lived in Chicago, like, one year in the pandemic. Don't

Stacey Lynn: Yep.

Laura: And so it was fun to see the setting of, like, where, and, like, what it would do, and it was, like, it's a [00:19:00] fun space. But then there's also this, like, You know, this sexy vampire, old vampire, this is so powerful, who I saw, it was like true blood, or like Alexander Saksar, like that's what, did Eric to me, I mean, I don't know, I don't even remember his last name, but his name, but I envisioned,

Stacey Lynn: what you're talking about. For sure.

Laura: I envisioned that, and so it's like, it's just fun, and then the vampire, the heroine who just turned in to be a vampire, I'm not happy about this.

Stacey Lynn: Right. I love her attitude. I mean, I love the fact that like, I love the fact that of who her family is, she's like every girl's best friend. Like she is a girl's girl and she is, but she's so intelligent and she does not back down for what she thinks is right. And she breaks the rules.

Stacey Lynn: And like, I just Merit is just like, I think Merit is too. I would like to be when I grow up, right?

Laura: and you're like all this like supernatural. Okay. Oh, so I just need to, [00:20:00] I probably just need to download and just read another one. . So awesome. So

Stacey Lynn: And then after that series, and then there's the heirs of Chicago land, which features, which I'm not even going to say, but well, the heirs kind of give it away, but kids are now involved with vampires, which is crazy, but like that series is just as good. And I know that I think the last book in that series is coming out at the end of this year and then it's all done.

Stacey Lynn: And I'm so sad about that

Laura: It's over. It's all over. It's so sad.

Stacey Lynn: because I've been reading that for like

Laura: It's been like 15 years. It's been

Stacey Lynn: I know. I mean, I think I started reading it when book five, I had the first four books.

Laura: Oh my gosh.

Stacey Lynn: And so I had to wait to see like in book four ends on a huge kill, like a huge cliffhanger, which I'm not gonna like, so I had to wait like six months for book five when I discovered the series.

Stacey Lynn: And then I've [00:21:00] been with it since. So I think that was like, I don't know, probably 10 years ago. And she only releases like two a year, but every time she has a book of that series come out, I reread the entire thing every time I can't help myself. I love it.

Laura: it's such a good series. And if you're looking for a Blackberry series in this fall season, this is a good series to go and try out. And you might be able to get the books on the, on your library. Like, cause it's not as popular as other series. You might be able to like, Follow them quickly and don't shut down.

Laura: It's so good, it's so

Stacey Lynn: you can find me on my website, Stacy Lynn books. com, Facebook, Stacy Ling books, I believe it's my author page or Stacy Lynn just added me as a friend of my profile Instagram, Stacy Lynn author, Tik TOK, Stacy Lynn books. I'm not very like, I'm not on it a lot. I'm going to be completely. When you talked earlier about like going back to like the [00:22:00] days when like you didn't have all that stuff.

Stacey Lynn: Like I've always been one to like drag my feet doing the next new thing. And so like I'm on it all, but I have a great team who helps me like manage all of it. And as much as I've tried to love tech talk I enjoy watching stuff, but I just, I'm not the person to throw myself out of it.

Laura: I understand, but I like creating long form content and the idea of short form content. It's just like, not feeling, actually don't do, I don't go on TikTok like a lot because

Stacey Lynn: Yeah.

Laura: it's such a rabbit hole, like it just sucks my time. And then I feel just like, it's. It's a whiplash. I'm like, what did I just do?

Laura: And so,

Stacey Lynn: and it's bad for my pocketbook because every time I'm on it, I end up with like 12 more books in my library, like I can't, I'm like, oh, this one, oh, like I'm just as much of a reader as I am a writer. And so like, I'm on TikTok all the time, like devouring books [00:23:00] to read. And then I'm like, oh, I have to work.

Laura: I had to make money so I couldn't buy one.

Stacey Lynn: Exactly.

Laura: cycle continues.

Stacey Lynn: Right. Exactly.

Laura: Awesome. Thank you, Stacey, for being on the show.

Stacey Lynn: Not a problem. Thanks for having me.