I’ve been sharing how I developed the ideas for my books, because readers often ask: “Where do you get all the ideas for stories?” Today, I’ll be talking a little about The Time of My Life, my next gay romance that will be released soon.

I actually wrote The Time of my Life before I wrote No Filter, the first book in the No Shame Series. It’s been sitting for a while on my Mac, patiently awaiting me being ready to edit it. Somehow, it didn’t feel like the right time yet. I wanted to do the No Shame series first, knowing I could release these quickly and not make readers wait too long. But now the time had come to finish this story and share Denver and Judah, the two main characters, with the world.

The Time of My Life started when I started watching The Voice. I love the audition phase especially. Once they start the live shows, I’m pretty much done, but the auditions, the battle rounds, and the knock out rounds are great entertainment to me. I love getting to know the candidates, but also the judges. The banter between Blake Shelton and Adam Levine is hilarious—if somewhat predictable at times.

Anyway, one day I was watching The Voice and it hit me: what if two guys met and fell in love during this process? That’s how the first concept was born. I started doing some research into the whole audition process to make it look as authentic as possible, while still allowing enough artistic freedom to make it my own…and make it fit my needs for an emotional gay romance.

Denver was my first character for this story, and he came easy to me. I wanted someone happy and bubbly, someone ridiculously talented…but also someone who’d survived hell. That’s where his asshole ex comes in, a guy who won’t take no for an answer and keeps fucking Denver’s life up.

Denver also needed someone by his side. Someone sweet and caring, someone who would never hurt him and who was the opposite of his ex. That’s how I came up with the idea of Judah, another competitor on the show. Denver is extremely talented and experienced with his degree in music, but Judah has the raw talent and is a born entertainer.

However, Judah is also hiding some pretty big skeletons in his closet, including himself. He keeps pushing Denver away, because he’s so scared of the consequences of falling for him, right until the point where he cannot deny who he is anymore.

I loved how these two kept coming back to each other, even if it looked like they’d never work things out a few times. I hope you’ll end up loving these two as much as I did.