From Newsletter to Novel: Liquids Is Finally Here
The wait is over. Liquids, the new small-town romance, is officially out now!
After sharing Carly and Rig’s story chapter by chapter through my newsletter, I can finally stop keeping secrets and say it: the book is officially yours.
If you’ve been following along, you already know these two are a complete disaster.
Carly is drowning her grief in vodka, trying to keep her head above water and dreaming of escaping the small Illinois town she’s stuck in. Rig is a huge, tattooed, grubby fighter with a questionable reputation and absolutely no business getting involved in Carly’s life. Naturally, he does.
What follows is a gritty, emotional, high-heat small-town romance about two very complicated people who never expected to find each other. There’s grief, attraction, underground fighting, bad decisions, and plenty of trouble along the way.
Don’t Just Take My Word For It…
The early reviews are in, and Carly and Rig seem to have made quite an impression. Here’s what some of the first readers are saying about Liquids:
"This book wrecked me in the best possible way. Liquids is just so powerful. So full of life and loss. I could not put it down.” - @bookworm_lizcat ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
"Once I started reading this book, nothing else existed until I finished it!” - @mandee.andherbooks ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
“This book was beautifully written and I devoured it!” - @ej_andherbooks ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
"It was deep, kept you all in the feels and very well written. A book boyfriend I have now added to my list of favorites.” - @ive_lived_a_thousand_lives88 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
A Romance That Started With You
Liquids began as a story I was sending to my newsletter one chapter at a time. I had no idea when I started writing it that Carly and Rig would eventually become a full-length romance novel.
But somewhere along the way, they took on a life of their own.
And you came along for the ride.
I’ve loved reading your reactions as the story unfolded, especially when you had absolutely no idea what was coming next. Now that Liquids is finally available, I’m so excited for anyone who hasn’t met Carly and Rig yet to discover their story.
SNEAK PEEK
Here’s a little taste of where their story begins...
"I hear you like playing with liquids.”
His hand stops, the brown bottle halfway to his lips. His arms are thick, corded. Nails cut short and squat, but a mess: chips, dirt, and hangnails marring his long fingers. His eyes rest somewhere around my chin, and I duck down to try and meet them. He shifts and swallows, cradling the bottle in his forearm.
“In a way.”
He’s a beautiful mess, slightly grubby at the edges, with scuffed boots, jeans a decade or more old, and a T-shirt so faded the logos have all but disappeared.
I gesture with my hand for him to say more, but he shakes his head and brings the bottle to his lips again, tipping it back as his throat contracts and the beer foams and fizzes. He’s a rigger: ocean-wide shoulders and smooth muscles that shift and pop.
I give up trying to make conversation, and my gaze wanders around the run-down bar, full of the usual misfits. It’s as beat up as the rest of this town, a forgotten place hanging onto civilization by its fingertips. My friend Marni has long since disappeared, and I slip into the voices and the music; a beer and some contemplation is a good night for me. The wall of the booth is hard and unyielding against my back, so I move my legs and stretch along the seat. My eyes drift closed, and I sink into the low hum of evening drinkers and the jukebox: my damp hand on a cold bottle.
The table shudders with a rustle of movement, and I tip my head forward to find him leaning over the table, long fingers wrapped around his beer, muscled arms resting on the battered wood. He’s picking at the label, nails digging into the edge of the paper. He raises his eyes, meeting mine before wandering down to my lips, scanning my body like he can’t decide who I am. I’m never sure about that myself.
“You interested?”
I shrug. There’s no spark in his gaze, no real appreciation.
He grins. Two dimples dent his cheeks, and crinkles appear at the corners his eyes. “You’re curious, though.”
My head falls back against the wall with a thunk. “You have a reputation.”
No response. My eyes slide shut, only to pop open when something wet lands on my hand. He’s tipped the bottle and is dripping sour brown sweetness onto my fingers one drop at a time. I stare at his bent head, his eyes narrowed on the beer so it flows at the speed he wants. A long finger reaches out and rubs the liquid up the back of my hand to my wrist, catching on my knuckle. The touch is rhythmic, like the ebb and flow of a tide. More drips. More rubbing. I close my eyes again.
Contact. Comfort. Forgetting.
“Perfect,” he says, and I’m not sure whether he means me, the beer, or something else.
I lift my hand to my mouth, lick my wet finger, take the whole end in and suck on the nail, my saliva pooling around it. Slowly, I clean it—the side, the back—letting the taste and something indeterminate from my skin linger on my tongue.
When I open my eyes, his are dark on mine, and he stands, curling thick fingers in my direction. I flatten his outstretched palm, examine the callouses, and trail my hand from his wrist to the tip of his index finger. They’re rough all right, but as I wrap my fingers around his, he pulls me forward and out of the booth. I let him lead me across the sticky floor and out the battered doors to a truck that looks like him: disheveled, dirty, at the end of a long road. He nods at the passenger door.
The inside of his truck is like him, too: the seats ripped and the front dash missing so you can see straight through to the engine. It roars to life when he turns the key, and he fishtails out of the lot, leaving me to scrabble for the door handle so I don’t slip into the footwell.
“Was that a test?” My voice sounds thin and weedy over the vibrations in the cab.
A half smile curves over his lips, but he makes no other response so I stare out of the dirty windows as the tires thrum over the black asphalt. Drops of rain start to land on the windshield in thick, fat splatters. We pull up to a set of red lights. They’re red all the way down the street, like rubies on a string, no other cars in sight.
“Long and drawn out,” he says as though his thoughts have just reached his mouth.
It’s not an answer: He’s telling me what I’d like. I lick my lips, staring at the unshaven jaw, the too-long lashes, and the dark hair. What he doesn’t realize is there’s nothing in my head; no idea of what I’d like, but I think I’ll like it with him.
Ready to read more?
Thank you to everyone who has followed Liquids from those very first newsletter chapters. And if you’re discovering Eve M. Riley and Carly and Rig for the first time, welcome.
You’re in for a ride.
Good luck. They’re a lot.
Eve x
P.S. Not ready to say goodbye to Eve M. Riley yet?
If you’ve discovered me through Liquids, there’s plenty more where that came from. My award-winning Techboys Series follows seven interconnected romances packed with billionaire heroes, bad boys, secrets, second chances, danger, spice and plenty of fictional red flags. With over 150 award shortlistings across the series, there’s a lot to dive into.
Start with The Refusal, meet Janus and Jo, and then work your way through the rest of the Techboys.
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