Finishing rewrites on Bitter Confessions

“Before I found out what made him tick, I thought Lyle had a thing for you.”

She jolted back. “What?”

“The frequent calls and monthly visits to spend time with you… He was too attentive.”

“He’s my brother!”

“Not by blood.”

“He’s my sister’s husband,” she said, voice thick with disgust.

“That doesn’t matter to some people.”

“It matters to me!”

“I realized that, but there was still a chance that it wasn’t just brotherly affection he felt toward you.” The chill in his eyes warmed fractionally as she gawked at him in revolted horror. “But once I learned his secret, it all made sense.”

Bitter Confessions Excerpt

© 2024 Mia Knight. All Rights Reserved.

I’m finishing rewrites on the last chapters! The end of the book is a massive, ongoing scene, which is kicking my butt, but… I’m almost there!! I’m running on fumes at the moment, but I’m hoping I catch a second wind to get through this last chunk!

After I finish rewrites, I’m going to do a final pass/read through and then ship it off to the editor! With something of this size, it’ll take my editor around four weeks (possibly a little longer) since I’m past my due date. She’s fitting me in between other projects, so we'll have to play it by ear. I may set a pre-order for the end of September to be on the safe side, but I’m hoping it’ll release the month before, at the end of August.

Bitter Confessions is currently around 129k words. Bitter Secrets was 135k, so this book is a comparable beast. The first draft of Bitter Confessions was 116k words, which goes to show how much I fleshed out during rewrites.

This book has been incredibly challenging. The characters are constantly shoving me out of my comfort zone. I’ve never experienced so much pushback with a story. It’s like I have to coax the characters to tell me anything. I’ve spent a ludicrous amount of time sorting through their emotions and looking at what they’re dealing with from every angle imaginable. You’d think I’m writing a freaking mystery/thriller with all the notes I have. Hopefully, this will make the reading experience that much more visceral!

In the rough draft, I avoided a lot of sensitive topics. I wasn’t sure I wanted to go there, but in rewrites, I decided to lean into the discomfort. This led to so many revelations that caught me off guard and gave the characters so much more depth and expanded my understanding of them.

This book covers 33 days out of the year they’re supposed to spend together. Bitter Secrets covered 22 days. I’m hoping I can complete the rest of their year in 2 more books and a final conclusion, which would make their series 6 installments without Roth’s POV book (his would be an extra one and not necessary for closure of this series).

People have asked why I keep adding books, and it’s because of the story, not out of a need to have a long ass, never-ending series. I personally wish it was a trilogy or a standalone. But, the story is vast and if I just ended the series for the sake of it with a, “And they lived happily ever after,” without tying up all these loose ends, everyone would be pissed, myself included. I wanted to explore in depth what a marriage of convenience/fake relationship would look like over the span of a year. How sometimes the lines blur and then solidify and blur again… To see if they can keep their promises to one another over weeks and months and also how they handle everything that crops up throughout the year like invitations for future events, birthdays, holidays, etc. It’s so delightfully awkward. LOL.

I would call this series a slow burn relationship??? Even though they fuck—that’s not what the slow burn is. The slow burn is the development of their relationship, which has been sorely tested not just by them, but outside forces. I personally fell so hard for Roth in this book. I think he goes through the biggest character development in this installment.

I don’t know if it’s because it’s the story I’m working on, but this is my favorite book I’ve ever written. This book has taught me so much about myself, writing, and the types of stories I enjoy. I hope you all enjoy Bitter Confessions as much as I have!

On Patreon, more than half of the raw draft has been posted! 1k word snippets will continue to post four times a week until the release! Patrons who are subscribed the month of release will get the ebook before it’s publicly available and get behind the scenes sneak peeks!

I’m so close to the end. I’m mentally drained, but pushing through. I am going to weep with relief once it’s shipped off to the editor. Pray for me. 😭 Thank you all for your patience and support. We’re almost there!