Sam Mariano's Blog

It's finally here! ♥

"A completely unconventional, addictive, mind twisting ride that I couldn't and didn't want to put down." Erika, Book Haven Book Blog

"Dark? yes. Fun? yes. Hot? All the YES!!! Did I fall in love with them completely by the end? YES, and I still don't know how that happened." -Erika again, Book Haven Book Blog

"An absolute blast to read." -Still Erika, Book Haven Book Blog

Erika is smart. Listen to Erika. ;)


If you like your characters a little effed up and your stories sexy and unpredictable, grab my latest book and settle in! The Imperfections is a forbidden romance with darkness and banter and angst and all the fun ingredients you've come to expect from a Sam Mariano book, plus a few little pinches of things you probably aren't expecting.

I had a blast writing this book, and I hope you have a good time reading it!

For the next week it will be on sale for $3.99 while it's a new release, but after that the price will be rising a dollar. It's also available on KindleUnlimited!

Come meet Brant! 🥰

🖤 Forbidden romance
🖤 Age gap (hero is older than heroine)
🖤 Gruff, loner hero with a dark side

Amazon: https://amzn.to/2D2se7l
Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B081TWPNQZ
Amazon AU: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B081TWPNQZ
Amazon CA: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B081TWPNQZ

Are you ready to meet my latest hero and heroine? It’s nearly time! Only one more week until this dark, forbidden standalone romance is released and live on Kindles everywhere!! :)

I can’t wait for you guys to meet Brant and Alyssa. I’m finished with their story, and I’m still not over them. ♥

“I was in love with Brant at 1%…” – Melissa, Goodreads review

"I loved every minute of this epic craziness! I didn't want it to end!" -Vivian, Goodreads review

Brantley Morrison is a drinker of whiskey, a solver of problems, and a collector of mutts; the kind of loyal, hardworking guy you want on your side—and you’d best not get on the wrong side of.

Alyssa Walton never meant to find herself on Brant’s bad side—never even met the man until he showed up in her bedroom with a loaded gun and a plan to destroy her.

When Alyssa and Brant collide, his simple problem-solving mission gets a whole lot more complicated. Turns out, Alyssa is nothing like he expected, and she just might be everything he’s ever wanted. Sure, she’s a little afraid of him, but every relationship has its obstacles.

Brant’s never had anyone like Alyssa around, someone loyal and kind who smoothes over his rough edges like she was born to do it. Alyssa’s never met a man like Brant, either, and while she admires the way he looks out for those he loves, she can’t help wondering, who’s looking out for Brant?

Now, faced with wanting the girl he was never supposed to keep, Brant has to make an impossible choice. Does he give up the girl who has brought sunshine into his lonely life, or does he hold on tight, even if it might mean letting down the people he’s spent his whole life protecting?


The Imperfections is a full-length standalone forbidden romance that includes dark themes.

You can add The Imperfections to your to-read list now, and one-click or borrow your copy on KindleUnlimited on November 22, 2019!

The first book in my new Vegas Morelli trilogy is LIVE on Amazon, and available to Kindle Unlimited subscribers! It is a full-length book, but it is not a standalone; all three Vegas books revolve around the same characters.

“You like men who play by their own rules; nothing wrong with that. You’ve certainly come to the right place, kitten.”

Title: Staying in Vegas (Vegas Morellis, #1)
Author: Sam Mariano
Genre: Mafia romance
Releasing: April 4, 2018
Blurb:
When I met Rafe Morelli, he didn’t look like the biggest mistake I’d ever make; he seemed closer to the crime family version of Prince Charming. Charismatic, beautiful, and attentive—with an intoxicating air of power—Rafe was the stuff of my darkest fantasies.

What we had should have been a simple fling, no-strings-attached. My hot weekend with the sexy, dominant Vegas boss—a harmless memory to replay once I returned to my quiet, predictable life.

One tiny hitch in that plan: a panty-melting memory isn’t all he left behind. Now the stakes have changed, and I’m faced with a potentially life-altering decision. Do I stay away and enjoy my status as the only woman in known history who has played in the Morelli flames without getting burned, or do I risk everything and step back into the fire?

BOOK 1 OF 3 IN THE VEGAS MORELLI TRILOGY.



Also, if you haven't read the original Morelli family series, now would be a very good time to start! ;) Then you can binge that story and head right into Vegas! Book one in that series is Accidental Witness. (The Vegas trilogy CAN be read whether or not you read the original Morelli series, but two of the main characters from that series are introduced there, and the original series WILL be spoiled in the Vegas trilogy if you read that first.)

STAYING IN VEGAS
Amazon: http://amzn.to/2ps11o6
Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07BLXNM8G
Amazon CA: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07B07BLXNM8G
Amazon AU: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B07BLXNM8G

I'm so excited for you guys to meet my favorite character!



March 27th, Accidental Witness will be releasing on Amazon (it will also be available on Kindle Unlimited)!

Title: Accidental Witness (Morelli Family, #1)
Author: Sam Mariano
Genre: Mafia romance (here be dark triggers, mateys!)
Releasing: March 27, 2017
Blurb:
Vince Morelli.

The closest I ever wanted to get to him was several rows away in English class. We’d never spoken, but of course I heard the stories about his family. I know they’re dangerous. I know he’s dangerous. Vince never had a reason to notice me, anyway—until I inadvertently witnessed his first mob hit.

His family doesn’t believe in leaving witnesses alive, but Vince seems different. He knows the best thing he can do for me is stay away, but something keeps drawing us together. Despite knowing the risks of getting mixed up with him, I can’t resist. Only problem is, Vince is a package deal—you don’t get him without getting swept up in his family’s dark games.

Now entangled with a notorious Chicago crime family, will my life ever be mine again?



Also, if you haven't read The Complete Irreparable Boxed Set, now would be a very good time to start! ;)

FREE FOR THE FIRST (and probably only) TIME EVER!

Gearing up for the release of The Complete Irreparable Boxed Set on October 21, I've put book one of two, Irreparable Damage, FREE!
Grab this unconventional romance while you can!

http://a.co/95NRXcE

My taboo, romantic suspense books Irreparable Damage and Irreparable Lives are available on KU through October 2016! (Right now all of my books are, including my other contemporary NA romances Because of You and Beautiful Mistakes, but I want to try distributing on other platforms, so this is the last term for these two.)

As if I'm capable of brevity. LOL.

Anyway.



http://amzn.to/29D8eL8

Since Irreparable Lives is releasing next week, Irreparable Damage is on sale this week (not on co.uk, sorry; I had this sale for co.uk last week, but nobody bought any, haha)! So go on and grab a copy if you want to, this is the best time--cheap price and hardly any wait at all for the sequel.

As for the The Complete Irreparable Boxed Set... Originally my intention was to release it at the same time as the sequel. Irreparable Damage would be removed from KDP/KindleUnlimited and published on iBooks and many other retailers, as well as Irreparable Lives, and I was going to publish the boxed set as an Amazon exclusive. Best outcome for everyone.

Instead of doing that, however, I'm going to release Irreparable Lives as Amazon exclusive next week, but only for 3 months. After only one term with KDP Select (the exclusivity program that allows books to be in KU, but disallows selling them on other platforms) I'm going to pull Irreparable Lives AND Irreparable Damage from KDP and publish them on other retailers. At the same time, I'm going to release the Irreparable Boxed Set. It will be Amazon-exclusive and KU readers will be able to borrow it. It won't be available on iBooks or Kobo or any of the other platforms, but the individual books will. So everyone will be able to get their hands on the book if they so desire, one way or another.

I wanted to get this all done at the same time, but work and moving and just general life-stuff... my plate was too full. This schedule is much more realistic. (Additionally, given my non-author work schedule the rest of this year, I doubt I'm going to be able to release another book this year. When I made all of these plans, I was focused mainly on my author career, and that's no longer fiscally possible. Irreparable Lives and the boxed set has been hard enough to squeeze in. :( After You will have to be released in 2017.)

But, it's almost here! One more week!

On that note, a teaser:


Happy reading! :)

To those of you who have read my terribly taboo romance, Irreparable Damage, I apologize.

Especially if you bought it when it first came out, now over a year ago. This was never my intention. In fact, a long wait between books was the very last thing I wanted to do.

To explain: I hatched the idea for my Irreparable books the summer before last. Feverishly. I outlined each book in a notebook next to my laptop, and then I spent every night—long into the wee hours, too often, frankly—pounding away at my keyboard, beginning Ethan and Willow’s story. When I finished it, I was so proud of how quickly I’d done it. I launched into writing the next book immediately, and every night bled into morning as I would write and write, and I loved the characters, and I was so wrapped up in their story. It would be the quickest I’d ever completed a duet before (unpublished or published). I was optimistic about what it meant for future book releases.

And then, after 28,000 or so words, I got my heart broken. Blown to bits. Entire world shattered and ripped out from under me. That sort of thing. The sort of thing that doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it’s catastrophic.

Some people write through their tragedy. I’ve done that before. I couldn’t this time. I’d never been quite so decimated. Making matters worse, there are elements of this series and this story and these characters that…well, I couldn’t handle. For a long, long time, I couldn’t handle any writing at all. For a long time, I couldn’t even drag myself out of bed. I felt worthless for a while. I lost my confidence, a thing that had never actually happened in my adult life, and with it, not just my ability to write but my desire. I didn’t enjoy writing anymore. For the first time in my life, for a whole year of my life, nothing about writing interested me. The characters stopped talking. Inspiration dried up. Just looking at a word document…it felt like sitting in an algebra class (and if you knew me, you’d know that’s bad). Frankly, I began to fear I would never write again. My mindset at the time, I wasn’t even disappointed because I’m a writer, it’s part of my identity (I’d lost so many other parts of my identity, one more seemed almost inconsequential at that point), something I’d found joy in for half my life, but I was horrified at the thought of not finishing a series for the readers who had invested in my book and my characters. There are so many books out there to choose from and they chose mine, and I was letting them down. It was never an option. Even if Irreparable Lives and After You were the last things I ever wrote outside of a grocery list, I was going to finish them.

But I also didn’t want to produce inconsistent garbage just because writing it had become a chore to me. So I waited. And waited. And waited some more. My guilt grew, but you know, healing takes time.

Eventually the time came that I opened up my document and I didn’t fill up with hatred. I read what was finished, and then I wrote, just a little bit. A few hundred words. My drive wasn’t back, but it was progress.

Next time—weeks later, possibly even months—I wrote a little bit more.

Now I’m writing it regularly. One year and one month past the expected release date, I still haven’t finished the first draft.

But I’m close. Finally. I know what I still have to write—just a couple of scenes left. Finally.

Then rewrites. Because of the tumultuous journey I’ve been on while writing this book, I expect rewrites to be more extensive this time around. Given the hiatus, there’s some issue with flow at a certain part of the book, I’ll need to fix that.

But I’m finally crossing the finish line.

I was finally able to set a release date.

It’s July 19, 2016.

I’m going to release a box set (The Complete Irreparable Boxed Set), as well. Amazon exclusive, so it will be available to Kindle Unlimited readers.

I don’t anticipate anything like this happening again, but I also never anticipated it happening the first time. I’m going to attempt to change my release pattern going forward though, just in case. There are still some unstable areas in my life, and my personal circumstances have changed, drastically reducing how much writing time I have. My drive to write and my ideas are finally coming back, but we’re not all the way back to healthy yet. In the meantime, to prevent this happening again, my plan is to not release book number one until book number two has a finished first draft. It may mean I don’t release books as often as I intended to when I began my writing career. I know there are plenty of other books out there so it won’t make a difference to the world, but it does to me, and I’m sorry that I won’t be able to focus on my writing career the way I planned to. I no longer have the support system I had then, and as I’m sure you’ve gleaned, being an indie writer doesn’t rake in Taylor Swift dollars. I will still be writing and releasing books. I will not be writing and releasing 3-4 books a year, as originally intended.:\ If I get Irreparable Lives and After You both published this year, I will consider that a success at this point.

Anyway, I just thought I owed readers who have been waiting an explanation. Setting a 2015 release date and then not having the book out a year later is so not my style. Life just got in the way this time.

Thank you for reading my books! :)

-Sam Mariano

I write things.

More specifically, I write stories that I make up featuring characters I mentally spawned going on journeys I engineered myself. And more often than not, they're bad. Not the stories (I hope), but the characters, their circumstances, their choices, what have you--something is kinda bad. That's just how it tends to go.

With some stories it's harder than others. My Irreparable books, I was sitting on my couch summer before last and I had this idea of this really terrible situation I could put all of these poor characters in, and the whole aim of this series (it was originally going to be 3 installments, but it's actually only 2 now) was to decimate everything and see what was left. It was to put them through horrible scenarios and then build something with the irreparable pieces of their former lives. Not to say there's no happy ending, but given the circumstances, given what's done and what happens and just...all of the destruction, there's a limit to how tidy things can ever really be. I'm going against nature by tying these characters together, I'm tying triggers into the mix and ensuring that it's as hard as I can possibly make it to keep these characters both likeable and self-respecting.

It's hard. Ethan, I'm finding, is the hardest. Because it's a romance. Taboo, yes, but a romance. And it's not a straight dark romance, like a WIP to eventually be revealed, where I can sort of unapologetically throw heinous things out there and be like, "He's a bad guy, what do you expect?"

Ethan's not a bad guy. He's not an anti-hero. But sometimes it's hard as hell to make him a hero, too. Especially considering I don't just want him to be the good guy for one damaged young woman, I also don't want him to be a heel to a woman whose years of love and life he completely betrayed. Nothing about his character's journey is ever easy. He has a road full of difficult decisions and responses to situations he didn't mean to create in the first place. All the while, he wants to be the hero of two opposing stories.

This isn't possible. Maybe it is, but I'm probably not going to pull that off. Rather, Ethan isn't. I know this because I write him, and the more I try to make him a good guy in one respect, the less he feels like the good guy in the other. I'm pulling him in several different (untenable and a bit unnatural) directions, and it's probably pushing the release date even more (because when I finish doing the Stretch Armstrong on him, I'm gonna have some overall revisions to do), but at this point, this book isn't the "3 months of fall/winter" writing that I planned it to be, and I just really want to get the ending right. I know it won't please everyone, I know some people will struggle with his struggle/what inevitably makes him a better man than he could be, but it's just who he is. The heroine loves him for/sometimes despite it, and hopefully everyone else will, too.

I shared this Facebook post today because it's so true. Published and unpublished, I've written some crazy stuff. It's just fiction. I'm just spinning a tale, trying to weave some reality and fiction together to tell a story that might entertain you for a few hours. I'm not condoning something because I write it. Some readers have this feeling like we should be punished for writing in distasteful scenarios, but I have news for them: we are, sometimes when we're writing the story, and definitely later when it comes time to try to find reviewers!

God help anyone who reads my books looking for tips on how to navigate their own love life.

Anyway. It's 4 am and I should really go to sleep, but I just left Ethan in a really crummy situation...so maybe I should write a little bit more....

Eh, on second thought, that's Tomorrow Sam's problem. :)

Hi guys!

Okay, so we could talk about how I posted a year ago all like, “hey, my personal shitstorm is over, on with the book stuff!” But let’s not. Let’s just acknowledge that sometimes I’m super wrong about things and move on.

Anyway. I have a super secret project I’ve been working on. It has a working title, but let’s not mention it anyway just in case someone decides to release a book by that name a month before I’m ready to release or something. Super Secret Project is a long time in the making; I’ve known the characters for somewhere around a decade now, but I always said that one was only for me (mostly because it was before dark romance/dark erotica was a thing, and I was pretty sure nobody would like it). Well, not anymore. I did crop out and reign in the story and the characters quite a bit in consideration of the readers, but there are some elements I just can’t do away with without sacrificing the meat of the characters (and frankly, the plot of the story).

And that got me thinking. Why do I have to? (I mean, because I would like to actually sell some books, I guess, but…) Why is it that authors who write gruesome murder mysteries or fantasies wherein they slaughter ALL OF THE PEOPLE (you know who you are…) are cool, but you tack “romance” onto ugly things, and suddenly you’re a sadistic, twisted hater of all things sane?

It’s all fiction.

I’ve seen readers leave comments on a dark romance author’s Facebook page saying that they hoped someone kidnapped her from her home and raped her so that she could see how much fun it was–just because she wrote a captive romance. Suddenly writing a piece of fiction means you advocate everything between the pages.

NO.

Anyway, amid the murder and mayhem in Super Secret WIP, I’m writing the unthinkable: a love triangle. I know, I know. Originally when I was working out the plot, I decided to try to filter it out, rewrite the story in a different way and dilute the love triangle until Dude #2 (boy, would he loathe being called that) only toy-flirted in a couple of scenes but was largely harmless.

But you know what? It didn’t work. It didn’t work because it wasn’t true to the character, it wasn’t true to the story, and I just couldn’t do it. So I put it all back, listened to my characters, let them scorch and salt the earth beneath their feet. And now it works.

I’ve still been angsting, as these scenes pour out of my fingertips, how am I going to get people interested in this book? How will I market it? I’ve anticipated the apology/PSA I’ll have to write like I did with Irreparable Damage, I’ve wondered, could I somehow downplay this part enough that people won’t turn into the before-person in the Snickers commercial?

I realized the answer was no. I realized instead of trying to “I’m sorry don’t hate me I’m sorry you know what maybe don’t even read the book you’ll definitely hate it” the people who aren’t going to like my book, no matter how much I dress it up, because it just isn’t their kind of book, I’m going to embrace the love triangle. Target it to people who may like it. What a concept, right?

What about you? Are love triangles an automatic no for you? What are your hard limits on a book?