These were some of the things I “overheard” on blog comments and book groups. “I was prepared to hate the author, but she surprised me!” “I’m so mad at this author, but I couldn’t put it down.” “You’ll never look at Chicken Soup the same way again.” They didn’t know who they could tell that might also love it and not judge them. They didn’t know who they could trust to tell that they read this book and that they loved it.

And that’s saying something since people were so ashamed to be “caught” having read it. People were whispering about it, spreading it quietly among themselves. This became “THE” guilty secret book in many of the dark corners of the romance-reading internet. So I sent Comfort Food to some of these people (yes, even with the AWFUL cover I started with.) And they were gracious enough to give it a chance. You could get a ton of sales and sometimes the comments section had hundreds of comments. Back then romance book blogging was a big thing. Why else publish it? So I started reaching out to book bloggers. But thankfully I finally told my cover artist about it and she helped me!īut anyway… once I put the book out there… I did want people to read it. Look at that font! “Oh honey, no.” And the soup? Ugh too on the nose. What on earth would people think of me? I was in deep undercover hiding. (And I’m a total cover snob, so it’s saying something that I was willing to let my words go into the world with a bad cover!) I didn’t even want my cover artist to know I’d written this book. So I published it secretly, so secretly that I made an AWFUL handmade cover.

There is definitely some overlap but not a lot.) They’re just two very different reader groups. (much like my mythology based Valkyrie doesn’t fly with a dark audience. I thought most people would hate it, but I just couldn’t leave this story inside me.Īt the time I was writing paranormal romance under a different name, and I knew definitely a book like this wasn’t going to fly with a PNR audience. At the same time I surely didn’t write it because I thought it was going to have some big impact on people. It was just a book of my heart I had to write. I didn’t write it to piss people off or be controversial or upset anyone. No such thing as “dark romance.” No market.

Comfort Food by Kitty Thomas