NEW SERIES! Capital City MMA

Today I’m officially announcing a new romance series: Capital City MMA.

As the series title suggests, this is an MMA (mixed martial arts) fighter series, centered on the (fictional, of course) Capital City Fight Center in (totally not fictional) Sacramento, California.

Though my husband and youngest son are pretty serious fans of several sports (especially baseball–the STL Cardinals, hockey–the STL Blues, and basketball–the Sacramento Kings), MMA is the only sport I personally follow. I love the sport for a whole lot of reasons—the incredible toughness and versatility of the fighters, the diversity of the sport, and most especially, the way women are included on the same cards with men.

As you might know, though I’m a native Midwesterner, I’ve lived in California for the past 11+ years—specifically in the Sacramento area. So, at least in terms of setting, I am taking the “write what you know” advice to heart in this series.

With the first book, I am definitely writing what I know. That book is absolutely the most personal story I’ve ever written, or likely will ever write. I’ll talk a little bit more about it next week, for its reveal—and I will probably talk a lot more about it after its release. But for now, I’ll simply say I tore myself wide open for Book One.

It’s my intention to write about many/most/possibly all? of the fighters on the Cap City team and use the story of the gym and the team as the guiding arc for the series, but have each book stand alone as much as possible. I have no idea how long the series will ultimately be, but I’ve got notes for at least five books. Book titles will be their fight names.

At this point, the team members are:

• Thorin “Thunder” Vaduva, light heavyweight*
• Camila “Crazy Cat” Castro, flyweight
• Rafael “Wild Child” Rodriguez, middleweight
• Niko “The Kyiv Cossack” Kuznetsov, light heavyweight
• Shani “Warrior” Jones, strawweight
• Jake “Earthquake” Andreas, heavyweight
• Jaden Lee, featherweight (haven’t figured out his fight name yet)
• Bobby Macias, owner of Cap City and head coach. Retired welterweight.

*Thor is the male lead of Book 1. More about him next week.

I’ve got a public Pinterest board set up if you want to see some of my visual inspirations for characters, etc.

More about Book One next Saturday!