Friday I’m In Love is out now

I’m so excited to release this surprise novelette at the end of the year, like a mini Christmas present for readers! Friday I’m In Love: A Sweet and Saucy Novelette is a super cute and funny short read, which I first published in the Hot In The City collection in June 2022. I thought some readers would prefer a short stand-alone ebook, so here it is!

It’s only 99c from major ebook sites so grab it now…all links on my Books page.

Friday I'm In Love book cover by Cassandra O'Leary. Features an illustration of a young couple with dark hair dancing, with a heart as a background image.

Blurb

A girl couldn’t help spying sometimes. Surely if she ever met him, he’d understand…

Megan Macauley looks forward to her private rendezvous with her ridiculously hot, across-the-road-from-work neighbour. Every Friday morning, Megan and her inappropriate older colleague Jean, stop work on the company website to stare goggle-eyed at the vision of manly beauty in the apartment across the street. When he returns from his gym sessions and strips off his shirt, Megan can barely keep her tongue in her mouth.

Megan didn’t mean to become a voyeur. It was an accident! She’s always had a feeling the situation might rear up and bite her. One Friday, fate proves her right. The hottie from across the road shows up at her office as the new auditor, in other words, the man with the power of hiring and firing.

Cruz Ono is even more smouldering hot up close. A prime example of Japanese-Australian beefcake and smart as a whip. When he invites her to a private meeting, Megan nearly faints. He could either fire her or let her keep her annoying, underpaid job. Which would it be?

When Cruz reveals he knows Megan has been watching him, she knows it could be the end of her career. But the way he smiles and flirts with her says it could be the start of something else…

Note: Friday I’m In Love is a short read or novelette of approximately 10,000 words. It’s also available in Hot In the City: A Romantic Comedy Story Collection in both ebook and paperback formats.

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More news coming soon…

Hot in the City release day!

Hot In The City: A Romantic Comedy Story Collection releases today, 30 June, as an ebook!

Description

Hot In The City is a collection of short romantic comedy stories and novellas from award-winning author, Cassandra O’Leary. Perfect for reading on your lunch break, on the go or anytime really!

Hot In The City by Cassandra O'Leary, ebook cover design. Features an illustration with a city skyline and a couple sitting on the floor in an apartment.

Never before published in one book, this collection includes:

– Chocolate Truffle Kiss: A Romantic Comedy Novelette – An older woman meets a younger man in a story full of pining. A lonely writer, a hot rockstar barista, a cafe setting with stolen moments, poetry and chocolate. . .

– Tree Love: A Romantic Short Story – A short story with a sweet second chance romance, an urban lumberjack and emails to trees!

– Girl Under The Christmas Tree: A Steamy Holiday Romance Novella – A prequel to the novel Girl on a Plane, featuring Yuki, a hotel staffer looking for adventure, and Declan, an Irish IT CEO with a broken heart. They come together right before Christmas for just one night. . .

– Friday I’m In Love: A Short and Sweet Story – A brand new story set in a pyjama company in the middle of the city. Featuring a Japanese-Australian beefcake, a wacky computer nerd, workplace romance, spying and wardrobe malfunctions.

. . . and a new novelette. . . Girl On A Babymoon! Sinead and Gabriel from Girl on a Plane return, five years later. It’s their anniversary, and Sinead has a big surprise for Gabriel. A romantic getaway and steamy role-playing feature in this laugh-out-loud story of a marriage in trouble, or maybe, a marriage that will be stronger than ever!

Each story is set in the author’s home city of Melbourne, Australia, with a cameo or two from other fabulous destinations around the world. Whether the setting in a central city cafe with a smoking hot barista, or a Santa-packed hotel in the lead-up to Christmas, these stories will introduce you to a world of steamy kisses, swoony couples and funny love stories each with their own a happy ever after (or happy for now) ending.

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Universal ebook link!

Girl on a Babymoon excerpt

Read on for a short excerpt of Girl on a Babymoon, the new novelette in Hot in the City!

Melbourne, Australia

Sinead had no hope of containing her giggles as she stared at her phone’s screen, but she slapped a hand over her mouth anyway. She half snorted, half coughed into her palm before shaking her head to get herself under control. The Uber driver would think she’d lost her mind, but who cared about that? Not today, she didn’t.

She clicked out of the amazing image on her phone screen and stared out the car’s passenger side window instead, watching the streetscape whiz by in a blur of colours, sky blue, white and grey. The warm fuzzies in her belly settled, fluttered and subsided.

Gabriel was going to absolutely love her anniversary surprise. Love. Adore. Worship at her feet and hopefully worship every last nook and curve of her whole body in minute, sensual detail. Several times. Oh, yes. This anniversary trip had been an excellent idea. How could they have been married for five years already?

She didn’t know how her news would go down with Gabriel. Hopefully, he’d be on board. All she had to do was let him know what she wanted and fill him in on the plan. She sighed, exhausted suddenly. He would be pleased, wouldn’t he? Happy? It was a lot to take in. She’d had a minor freak out already.

He’d be okay, she was almost positive. He’d research this like he would with a business deal or an investment. He was good at details, her Gabriel. The best at everything he did. Having a man like him, so focused and determined in everything, work and play, had turned out very nicely in their relationship so far, especially in the bedroom. The only problem was, sometimes he was a wee bit put off by spontaneous changes of plan.

He’d love her surprise. And if he didn’t bloody love it, she was possibly going to have him killed. Or at least torture him in a sexy way until he admitted he loved her and her surprise, and then he could do the minute detail worshipping of her body.

Yes, that was a plan. She grinned and rubbed her hands together with pure, undiluted, only slightly evil glee.

She gave a nod and word of thanks to the Uber driver, a very sweet man named Aziz who often drove her home from work at the luxury travel agency she ran at Gabriel’s office building in the city. She straightened out her shirt and threw her phone in her bag. The car rolled to a stop.

In one mostly elegant motion, she launched herself and her handbag out of the car and onto the footpath, then she was clacking along in her electric blue high heels. Her phone was in her hand, tapping on her husband’s name and he answered the call before she’d even taken five steps towards the front door of their beachfront townhouse.

“Hello, Irish.” His voice was gravelly and rumbly, pinging her pleasure centre and tugging at something in her abdomen. She bit her lower lip and almost tripped over the spiky plant near her front steps.

Sinead pressed her lips together before the exciting words exploded out of her in a great rush.

Control. Plan the announcement. Don’t freak him out.

Sinead nearly peed herself from the effort of keeping it inside. She released her lower lip and took a shuddery breath. “Ah, it’s the man himself. Are you looking especially handsome on this fine day? I’ll bet you are.”

“I was just thinking about you.”

She grinned so hard her cheeks ached. “All good thoughts, I hope. Maybe naked thoughts?”

He chuckled, deep and low in her ear. “Always good, and many naked thoughts of you, my love.”

What happens next? Read Hot in the City to find out…

P.S. Don’t forget to follow me on social media for more updates. I’m now on TikTok too for bookish content and a laugh!

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Hot In The City!

Hot In The City preorder header graphic

I’m so excited to announce that I have a new story collection coming out on 30 June 2022. Hot In The City: A Romantic Comedy Story Collection is a new book collating some of my previously published short stories and novellas, and featuring a brand spanking new novelette! Preorder the ebook now!

This collection will also be available in a print edition, so keep your eyes peeled for more news coming soon.

Description

Hot In The City is a collection of short romantic comedy stories and novellas from award-winning author, Cassandra O’Leary. Perfect for reading on your lunch break, on the go or anytime really!

Never before published in one book, this collection includes:

– Tree Love: A Romantic Short Story
– Chocolate Truffle Kiss: A Romantic Comedy Novelette
– Girl Under The Christmas Tree: A Steamy Holiday Romance Novella
. . . and a new novelette. . . Girl On A Babymoon!

Hot In The City by Cassandra O'Leary, ebook cover design. Features an illustration with a city skyline and a couple sitting on the floor in an apartment.

Preorder Ebook

P.S. Don’t forget to follow me on social media for more updates. I’m also on TikTok now, just for fun!

Heart Note paperback out for Christmas!

I’m very excited to announce that I’ve published a paperback edition of my book, Heart Note: A Christmas Romcom Novella, just in time for the holidays! This is a favourite work of mine, based on my experience working as a perfume counter sales assistant many years ago. Set in the hustle and bustle in one of Australia’s largest department stores in the lead up to Christmas, Heart Note is both funny and heartfelt, with a little romance and mystery thrown in.

It took me a little while to learn the whole self publishing process including paperback print production, but I’m glad I’ve got the print edition of this book out into the world. The ebook was published in late 2017, but I always wanted to see this one in paperback too. Thanks to the cover designer, Lana P., who did a sensational job and my writer friend PJ Vye who helped with the book layout. This book looks absolutely gorgeous and so festive in real life.

I hope some of my readers will order the paperback version now. It would also make a fabulous Christmas gift!

Blurb – Heart Note: A Christmas Romcom Novella

A Christmas romcom with heart.

When a curvy redhead meets a possible Greek god, it’s like all Lily’s workplace dreams have come true…except she has to wear a ridiculous Santa dress and stop a department store heist! This Christmas, will Lily find love under her tree or just a box full of heartbreak?

The first time I met Christos, I fell into his arms. I didn’t know what to do with myself when the department store security guard and chief hottie, volunteered to catch me as I fell off the stage at the staff training day. My heart thundered inside my (ample) chest, my knees turned to liquid but I managed not to swoon or have a heart attack. It was a close thing.

Workplace relationships are fraught with danger, I know this. I’m the perfume counter manager at one of Australia’s biggest department stores and I need this job, need to get my life and my sister’s on the right track. I don’t need a distraction in the form of a brooding, overprotective but undeniably sexy man. Or do I? Christos is a mystery box I’d love to unwrap…and the tall, dark and impossibly handsome thing is working for me, big time.

All I want for Christmas is the perfect perfume, a chance to kiss Christos, to help him catch a band of thieves running amok in the department store, and to live happily ever after. Is that too much to wish for?

Buy now from major print book retailers:

Universal link for ebooks

More news is coming soon, but until then, happy holidays and Merry Christmas!

Note: I am a member of the Amazon Affiliate program and I earn a small amount if you click and buy from one of the Amazon links on my website.

Girl Under The Christmas Tree – new release out now!

I’m so excited to share my new release with all of my readers. Girl Under The Christmas Tree is a steamy holiday romance novella, guaranteed to add a smile to your face. This novella was a joy to write, and I hope my you all find it just as much fun to read.

Blurb

A hilarious holiday romance on the steamy side, featuring a girl who won’t say no to a fling, a guy who needs some holiday fun, one naughty night in a hotel suite… and a conga line of Santas!

Yuki Yamimoto isn’t the kind of girl to say no to opportunity, especially when it comes swaggering into the five-star hotel where she works, dressed in a three-piece suit. The handsome wavy haired man with a movie star smile and charming Irish accent is almost irresistible… If only he wasn’t a hotel guest!

Declan Moriarty can’t keep his eyes off the gorgeous girl at hotel Reception. Her wide eyes and flirting have him wondering, should he dare ask her out? When his whole life has fallen into the cosmic toilet the past year, it seems too much to ask for a dream girl like Yuki for Christmas. But maybe just this once, luck might be on his side.

A steamy Christmas Eve date has them both wanting more, but Yuki isn’t supposed to fraternize with hotel guests. Not even a cheeky, handsome guest who also happens to be one of the youngest tech CEOs in Ireland. She definitely isn’t supposed to stay in his hotel suite, even if it is just a fling for one night only. What if she loses her Christmas bonus or gets fired?

Declan wants nothing more than to keep Yuki, the girl under his Christmas tree. But he only has days in Melbourne, Australia before he has to fly back to Ireland for Christmas, then back to work. Is it foolish to risk putting his heart on the line again, when it was recently battered and bruised by his cheating ex-fiancée?

Yuki’s about to embark on a life full of adventure…but will she get to keep Declan as part of the package deal? She hopes so. It’s her number one Christmas wish.

Note: Girl Under The Christmas Tree is a holiday romance novella of approximately 18,000 words, written as a prequel or companion story to Cassandra O’Leary’s novel, Girl on a Plane. This novella has a Happy For Now (HFN) ending, leaving Yuki’s future wide open.

Buy Now!

Universal link – books2read.com/GirlXmasTree

Available at the introductory price of 99c / 99p on all major ebook sites.

—

I’ve had a bit of a break from writing, not only because of the super long and hard lockdown where I live in Melbourne, Australia (but it was super long, and hard), but because of some ongoing health issues. Anyway, it seems my brain is back in action for now, so I’ll look forward to working on some more new releases for 2021. Here’s hoping the new year will be a new beginning, in lots of ways.

Happy reading!

Tree Love Is In The Air. . .

Last week I made an executive decision as captain of my own writing ship. I decided to indie publish a romantic short story of mine, Tree Love. This story was previously published a year ago in the Taste of Romance anthology along with other stories from authors in my writing group, the Melbourne Romance Writers Guild.

Tree Love is a short and sweet story about first loves reunited, emails to trees, art, nature and taking chances. It’s now up for pre-order, ready for release on 13 February, just in time for Valentine’s Day.

Tree Love: A Romantic Short Story by Cassandra O'Leary, cover design

Here’s the cover for Tree Love. I designed it myself with a gorgeous stock illustration (copyright warawiri) sourced from 123rf.com. Isn’t it pretty? Well, I think so.

Tree Love story inspiration

I was actually inspired to write this story after reading a wacky newspaper article about something that happened in my home city of Melbourne, Australia.

Under a new environmental plan, the city assigned email addresses to trees. And people started emailing, not just to report on the condition of the trees as had been expected, but they wrote to the trees. Letters, poems, confessions. This was pretty hilarious to me, but also sweet. So a story idea was born!

The original article is on the News.com.au website — People around the world have been emailing trees in Melbourne to confess their love.

In Tree Love, I imagined my heroine, Natalia, was the admin person working for the Parks and Gardens department tasked with answering the Tree-mails. It’s entertaining but also baffling at times.

Blurb

If your first love fell out of a tree. . . would you catch him?

Natalia Bianchi is a botanical artist, who finds herself accidentally working for the city’s Parks Department in admin and also accidentally engaged to her boss. It’s not what she had planned.

One day she checks on ‘her’ tree in the botanical gardens, and her first love, Dan “The Man” Mancini falls at her feet. Literally. Almost like it was meant to be. But that’s what she thought ten years ago when they were friends at university.

Should Natalia shake up her entire safe, convenient life to climb Dan like a tree? Could this be her second chance at love that could last forever?

Buy links

You can pre-order Tree Love now from Amazon, iBooks, Kobo, Barnes & Noble and Google Play Books. It’s only 99 cents or 99p.

Universal link:

books2read.com/TreeLove

Inspiration pics

Stock photo of tree from Pixabay

Check out my Tree Love Pinterest board for some great pics of the Royal Botanical Gardens in Melbourne, and some character inspiration too.

P.S. join my newsletter list if you’d like to know more about my writing and receive a free novelette, Chocolate Truffle Kiss!

Love Gone Wild!

This past weekend I was lucky enough to attend the Love Gone Wild conference run by Romance Writers of Australia in Brisbane. I don’t think I’d be underestimating if I said the effect of the weather on my mood was magical. Goodbye, frosty Melbourne! Hello, sunny Brisbane!

As soon as I arrived on Friday afternoon, I shucked off the multiple layers of Melbourne clothes and enjoyed the sunshine and 28 degree C temperature. And the super swish room at the luxury Pullman Hotel and my two fun room mates didn’t hurt either.

Love Gone Wild cocktail party

Then it was a chance to get ready for the Love Gone Wild cocktail party, a costume or fancy dress event that’s always a hoot! It was amazing to see some of the wild animals let loose on the dance floor. I especially loved the flamingos and a certain ninja turtle who I didn’t even recognise under her body paint! Check out the pictures below, I’m sure you’ll see what I mean!

Business Hub

Over the next two days I set about learning lots of new information from the fantastic guest speakers in the new Business Hub stream. The content from Google, Draft2Digital and iBooks left my head spinning…but in a good way. I came away with heaps of things to research and study. I’m looking forward to implementing some digital marketing and promotional ideas over the next few months.

Awards Dinner and Butterfly Ball

The Awards Dinner and Butterfly Ball on Saturday night was a great chance to shake our tail feathers, too. And so many writers that I know and admire were up for the big awards. Special super-dooper congratulations to my fellow Melbourne Romance Writers Guild members, Miranda Morgan and Janis Linford, who were both contest finalists. Correction, Miranda also won the Ripping Start contest!

Of course mega-awesome authors Avril Tremayne and Amy Andrews are two of my absolute favourite Aussie authors, so it was wonderful to see them pick-up the big gongs. Congratulations to both of you. Mwah!

Networking like a #LoveArmy

But most of all, the conference was a chance to network with like-minded romanciers, the fabulous (mostly) women writers who focus on the positive, the good, the love in the world. Something we all need right now. Someone on Facebook mentioned that RWA is like an army of love. I totally agree and propose we all need #LoveArmy buttons.

Anyway, without further ado, please enjoy this Storify round-up of some of the social media around conference including lots of photos.

P.S. I’ll also be writing something else about the conference soon for the Romancing the Genres blog! Yes, I’m going to be a Genre-ista! How exciting. 🙂

Best New Author nomination in AusRomToday Awards!

Best New Author nomination – Vote for me in the AusRomToday Reader’s Choice awards now

Earlier this week I was excited to learn that I’ve been nominated in the Best New Author category of the AusRomToday Reader’s Choice Awards, celebrating excellence in Australian romance fiction.

This is such exciting news I could barely breathe when I saw the email come through…actually, I’ve had a bad headcold so I could hardly breathe anyway, but that’s not the point! It’s such an honour to be nominated alongside a bunch of super talented authors who I admire.

What an amazing year 2016 has been for me so far. I’ve gone from publishing one short story last year to winning the We Heart New Talent contest and having my first romantic comedy novel, Girl on a Plane, published by the wonderful team at Avon Books/HarperCollins UK. And I’ve seen that book fly high in the Amazon and iBooks charts.

I also quit my day job in corporate communications in June to focus on my writing. That was something of a leap of faith, and so far it’s been a good decision (although I’m not raking in the millions yet, and Hollywood hasn’t come knocking to buy any movie rights…come on Hollywood!) as it’s allowed me time to write and focus on promoting my book properly.

Now, with a nomination for a major national award, I’m almost dumbfounded at how much can happen in a year. It makes me wonder what 2017 will bring!

Hopefully, I’ll soon finish editing my next romantic comedy novel, then I’m working on another manuscript that’s at around 30K words. And there’s another anthology of short stories coming soon from my writing group, the Melbourne Romance Writers Guild, which I’m pleased to be a part of again.

Action stations everyone – 2017 looks set to be huge! I’d better buy some more champagne…

Ain’t Love Grand – Romance Australia 2016 conference highlights

For the last four days, I was lucky enough to attend the Romance Australia 2016 conference, Ain’t Love Grand. It was my third conference and probably the most fun!

Below is a Storify wrap-up of my Twitter feed from the weekend, filled with notable quotes, and as someone else told me, lots of impressive cleavage! My writing group pals in the Melbourne Romance Writers Guild (MRWG) were all brilliant as usual, and also looking particularly fabulous…

View the story “Rocking the Romance Writers of Australia 2016 conference #RWAus16” on Storify

Super-dooper highlights

On Friday, the Michael Hague Story Mastery workshop was gold, right from the start. Michael is a Hollywood screenwriting consultant, having worked with the likes of Will Smith on finessing a script. His focus on romantic comedies was right up my alley, and I think I’ll gain a lot of inspiration from that session into the future.

Friday night was the cabaret-themed cocktail party. It was a hoot, and of course it was special to me, as I received my First Sale ribbon, acknowledging that 2016 was the year my first novel was published. My debut novel, Girl on a Plane, was only released about a month ago by Avon Maze/HarperCollins UK, so it’s still exciting and new to be an official author. I found time to chat with other authors and fangirl like a boss!

The morning after the night before was all a bit hard…but once I found real coffee and got going, I enjoyed some fab workshops and also brainstormed some new story ideas with some friends.

Then Saturday night was the big gala awards dinner in the Stamford Grand ballroom. I still can’t quite express how excited I was for my writing group friends who were up for big awards. Samara Parish and Jess Devine were Highly Commended in the Valerie Parv Award, and Chris Weston from the MRWG won! Also Stefanie London was Skyping from Canada, watching the announcement of the short, sexy romance category in which she was a finalist. Well done to all!

The biggest news from the awards was the WIN by MRWG’s own Michelle Somers, in the RuBY Award (Romantic Book of the Year) for her romantic suspense novel, Lethal In Love. Our table erupted into hooting and hollering, even from the ladies phoning it in via Skype. Super-dooper mega congratulations Michelle!

Later we danced the night away, busting out some 80s moves and even a shimmy-shake like my own flight attendant heroine, Sinead. This was on special request from Vanessa Carnevale, otherwise I wouldn’t have done it, because I’m such a shrinking violet on the dance floor… 😉

Sunday was more relaxed, but I have to mention the fantasticly funny and inspirational keynote speech from Fiona McIntosh. She challenged us all to work hard, write like it’s a job (it is), bum in seat and come and get her on the bestseller lists. It’s on!

Now the Ain’t Love Grand conference is over, I feel inspired to finish my manuscript (dubbed the Neverending Story) and get onto something new and fresh. Happy writing everyone!

Romance reading binge: it’s not fattening

I can feel myself falling into the abyss again. No, no need for alarm, it’s not an emergency (although I do have a penchant for emergency services type uniforms on tall, dark and handsome young men). I have just fallen into a romance reading binge once again. As per the title, it’s not fattening, so why not?

I started the year by reading Easy by Tammara Webber. This was a touching, young adult read about a college student and the dating scene that can sometimes be fraught with danger. The college student world that the author depicted was quite realistic, down to the detail of kegger parties and consuming copious amounts of coffee to stay awake for early lectures. But without revealing a spoiler, the heroine learns a few tough lessons about trusting so-called friends and falling into relationships based on what is easy, rather than right. Highly recommended reading.

I’ve also been reading a couple of Australian women authors, in preparation for the 2014 Australian Women Writers challenge. I’ll work on writing a couple of reviews in the next few weeks.

Then on a visit to Big W today I decided to buy myself a little present. The romance shelf was calling me with her siren song…buy me, buy me. I can’t wait to get started soon. Harlequin Mills & Boon, what fun. Ally Blake is a great Aussie author too.