A Moment With… Fiona Embers About Loving Love

I’m pleased to be welcoming Fiona Embers to Novel Kicks and the blog tour for her book, Soft Rebound

The first hookup after a long relationship is always meaningless. Right?

Still reeling from his divorce two years ago, Joe Larson sleepwalks through life until a chance encounter with Liz Jensen jolts him awake. Their sexual chemistry is undeniable, but Liz is fresh off a broken engagement and has no intention of letting anyone get close. Joe must overcome his fear of being hurt again if he is to convince Liz that love does not mean being powerless and that their rebound fling is actually their happily ever after.

To chat about Loving Love, it’s over to Fiona Embers. 

Loving Love: Romance Author Fiona Embers Shares Her Favorites

Romance is a bestselling genre with many subgenres and flavors. Whether you like your heroes to be “cinnamon rolls” (sweet and supportive of their love interest) or ruthless mafiosos or billionaires or perhaps monsters or aliens, whether you like your romance with a lot of “spice”  (on-page intimacy) or prefer fade to black, whether you want your romance set on Earth in modern times or in the past or perhaps on another planet, whether want your romance tightly focused on the main pair or prefer it blended with mystery or thriller or urban fantasy, there is something out there for the enjoyment of every reader.

You will sometimes hear discussions about tropes, which are recognizable story elements that readers often rely on to decide whether they might find a story enjoyable. Think of tropes as strong spices in cooking. Some people love cinnamon in anything, be it sweet or savory (it’s me; I am those people), while others prefer to avoid it altogether, but in any case cinnamon is far from the whole dish. Tropes are a little like that.

Favorite tropes: Friends to lovers—there is so much tension and delicious pining! But I also love enemies to lovers, with all the snippy banter and sexual tension. I enjoy anything involving forced proximity, and I include in this most fake-dating stories, because the pair end up spending a lot of time together to feed the pretense, and it’s this togetherness that leads to their falling in love. I like grumpy characters with a heart of gold, so I like black cat/golden retriever and grumpy/grumpy pairings.

Least favorite tropes: I don’t like anything with a power imbalance, such as single dad/nanny, boss/employee, professor/student, and most age-gap stories (unless it’s written by Noelle Adams/Claire Kent; she can do no wrong). I also don’t read anything with very young characters (such as college aged) because I’m ancient and it just seems weird to read about characters my kids’ age getting it on.

Favorite subgenres: Contemporary (not romcoms, though; I like my romance angsty and my characters properly emotionally tormented), historical, as well as dystopian and sci-fi romance.

Favorite authors: Bar none, Noelle Adams/Claire Kent (they are the same person). I devour anything written by her.

• Contemporary romance: Noelle Adams, Roxie Noir, Melanie Harlow, Kayley Loring
• Historical romance: Elizabeth Hoyt, Lydia Lloyd, Sylvie Sinclair, Valerie Bowman, Lizzie Koz
• Sci-fi romance: Claire Kent, Ruby Dixon, Jessie Mihalik

Favorite romance books:

• Contemporary romance: Second Best by Noelle Adams (probably read it twenty times); No Regrets by Claire Kent (ditto); Come Back to Bed by Kayley Loring
• Historical romance: The Finest Print by Erin Langston; When the Marquess Needed Me by Lydia Lloyd; Enemies with an Earl by Lizzie Koz. Elizabeth Hoyt’s Maiden Lane series and Lisa Kleypas’s Hathaways series
• Sci-fi and dystopian romance: Last Light and the entire Kindled series by Claire Kent. Hold by Claire Kent. The entire opus of Claire Kent, really. Ice Planet Barbarians by Ruby Dixon. Hunt the Stars by Jessie Mihalik

Something that readers might find surprising:

It’s much harder to write something that’s genuinely funny or genuinely sexy than it is to write something that’s scary or sad. I have written a lot of horror and maudlin literary fiction under the pen name Maura Yzmore (check out published stories at https://maurayzmore.com/publications/) as well as two romance novels as Fiona Embers (check them out at https://goodreads.com/fiona_embers) and I promise you that penning an intimate scene that is emotionally congruent for the characters, doesn’t violate the laws of physics or biology in its choreography, and reads as genuinely hot rather than cringe-worthy is among the most difficult elements of craft.

About Fiona Embers –

Fiona Embers writes angsty, steamy romance about heroines who are too much and heroes who can’t get enough.

She lives with her family in the American Midwest and drives in the snow like a champ. Fiona also writes dark speculative fiction (horror, sci-fi, and fantasy) under the pen name Maura Yzmore.

Say hi to Fiona via this link. 

Soft Rebound is book two in the Mad City series and was released in 2025. Click here to buy. 

by

Laura

I’m Laura. I started Novel Kicks in 2009. I wanted a place to post my writing as well as give other writers like me the opportunity to do the same. There is also a monthly book club, a writing room which features writing prompts, book reviews, competitions, author interviews and guest posts.

I grew up by the sea (my favourite place in the world) and I currently live in Hampshire. I am married to Chris, have a cat named Buddy and I would love to be a writer. I’m trying to write the novel I’ve talked so much about writing if only I could stop pressing delete. I’ve loved writing since creative writing classes in primary school. I have always wanted to see my teacher Miss Sayers again and thank her for the encouragement. When not trying to write the novel or writing snippets of stories on anything I can get my hands on, I love reading, dancing like a loon and singing to myself very badly. My current obsession is Once Upon a Time and I would be happy to live with magic in the enchanted forest surrounded by all those wonderful stories provided that world also included Harry Potter. I love reading chick lit. contemporary fiction and novels with mystery.