wattpad | Amy Reece

Have you checked out my new series on wattpad yet? Why not? Free reads, people!

Melanie Blythe is perfectly happy staying home and focusing on her graphic design clients. She knows her limits and has been burned before. She certainly never intended to become involved with the gorgeous cop down the street.

Finn DeLuca has more than enough on his hands recovering from a hit-and-run accident that has left him temporarily in a wheelchair. He’s on the rebound and has no intention of getting romantic with the cute girl two doors down.

But they didn’t count on his five brothers and sisters sticking their noses in Finn and Mel’s business. They are a force to be reckoned with in the first installment of this family’s story.

The DeLucas are back in this second installment of the family saga.

Hugh DeLuca knows what he wants from life: marriage, family, contentment. He’s had it with women more interested in their careers than anything or anyone else. The last one broke his heart and nearly broke his spirit. So why can’t he get his brother’s partner out of his mind and his dreams? She’s exactly the sort of woman he’s trying to avoid, but they keep getting thrown together and he can’t seem to forget her.

Chris Hart was the youngest person ever to make detective in her precinct and she’s proud of the career she’s built. She loves her partner, but wishes she could forget about his gorgeous older brother. He makes her nervous and she’s developed a ridiculous school-girl crush that he seems completely oblivious to. She’s much too old for this sort of thing! But Finn’s wedding keeps her in all-too frequent contact with Hugh. How is she supposed to forget him when she has to see him nearly every day?

When six bodies are discovered on Hugh’s new job site, it shuts down construction and he turns to Chris for help. Will they be able to solve the mystery before one of them gets killed? Will they be able to overcome their preconceived ideas of what the other is looking for in a relationship and find the love that is waiting for them?

COMING SOON:

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I am excited to announce that I just got a story featured on Wattpad! I hope you’ll take a moment to swing by and add it to your reading list and maybe let me know what you think.

This story is near and dear to my heart because it is a modern retelling of one of my all-time favorite Shakespeare plays, Much Ado About Nothing. Most of you probably don’t know that my day job is as a high school English teacher (shocker, I know!) and a few years ago I had my seniors study this play. A random comment by one of them is what started it all: “Ms. Reece, this play is just like high school with all the drama and gossip!” I totally agreed so we created a modern adaptation and filmed it. It was one of the most difficult projects I’ve ever done, but the result was a fully edited 56 minute film that we showed to the entire school. It was a lot of fun! But I will never do it again.

I couldn’t completely forget about Much Ado, however, and decided to write Like Wildfire for this year’s NaNoWriMo project. I had so much fun writing it! I set it in a fictional town in West Texas called Messina, which I plopped on the map near Sweetwater. I have lived in Abilene, El Paso, and Marfa, so I thought it would be amusing to set a story in the general vicinity. I usually set my stories here in Albuquerque, New Mexico, so it was refreshing to try something new.

I soon found out that writing a novel based on a play can be challenging! My biggest challenge was point of view: in a play you can see what everyone is doing, but in a novel you need to get inside the characters’ heads. But which characters? I chose to stick with the Beatrice, Benedick, and Don John characters (ooh, creating my villain was AMAZEBALLS!), but I did a few scenes from other POVs. I don’t know if those work and would LOVE some input!

The best part, to me, is that my oldest daughter (also a writer and English teacher) got interested in the project and is now working on revisions of Like Wildfire. We have great plans for it to be the first book in the Shakespeare High (or something like that) series. She’ll begin work on Love’s Labours Lost soon and I’ll pick up with revisions for her.

I’m also working with a group of high school graphic designers for a new cover, so stay tuned!