A Very Merry Bromance Book Launch Party

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Last week, I attended the book launch party of A Very Merry Bromance, the newest book by Lyssa Kay Adams!

Lyssa lives in the Lansing area, so her book launch party was hosted at Schuler Books, a local bookstore chain. The Okemos store is about an hour and a half away from me, but I made the 3-hour round-trip trek out to celebrate the fifth book in one of my favorite book series!

The Bromance Book Club series is about a group of alpha-male types who live in Nashville and read romance novels together to become better people and better partners.

I first discovered the series in early 2020, and read the first book in the series at the start of the pandemic. It was such a comfort read during a tumultuous time. I ended up purchasing all of the books for my Kindle and zipped through them as soon as they came out.

When Angela and I visited Randi in Flagstaff last year, I saw a paperback set of the four books that were out at the time, and I wanted them so badly. I unfortunately didn’t have enough room in my suitcase, and I couldn’t justify the cost, so I passed on them, but I never stopped dreaming about having my own set.

In October, I found out Lyssa would be hosting a book launch party in Okemos on November 1, when the fifth book came out, and I couldn’t sign up fast enough.

Leading up to the event, I was nervous to show up on my own—would it be weird? who would I sit with or talk to? I was anxious all day, but refused to let it deter me!

I got to the bookstore about 15 minutes before the event started, and signed in at the café. Since I got there early, I was in the first group for the book signings, and I had plenty of time to purchase all five paperback books before the event began!

There ended up being about 50 people there, and one of the first things Lyssa said was how surprised she was at the turnout—she assumed it would just be her friends and family humoring her again. 😭

A bulk of the event was a Q&A between Lyssa and another local romance author, Kelly Ohlert, who has her debut book coming out in December!

She talked quite a bit about her writing process, which is uniquely sporadic thanks to her ADHD (much to the chagrin of her editors 😂). She also talked about her love of Christmas, and how excited she was to be able to write a Bromance book set during the holidays.

One of the things I love about the series is that she doesn’t sugarcoat things; she talks about real-life issues like sexual assault, attacks on the media, and immigration issues. She originally wrote the series during the height of the Me Too movement, because she needed an outlet where she could think about men actively working to be better partners, so it’s critical to her to include important issues in each of her books.

Once the Q&A was over, there was some time for audience questions. She touched on the Netflix deal (which is still in process, but has been delayed because of COVID), her next book (Courting the Countess, which is the book the boys read through in the first book in the series!), and how much reader mail she gets from men.

Plus, her whole family was there, which was so delightful. At one point, her dad’s cell phone rang, and he answered it. During his daughter’s book launch Q&A. 😂

Once the event was over, I lined up to have her sign my books. I luckily ended up second in line, which was good, because I had an hour-and-a-half-long drive ahead of me.

When it was my turn, I told her how much the books mean to me, and then asked my most important question about the series—is Vlad, a Russian NHL player, based on any specific NHL players? And she gave me the best answer ever: he’s basically an amalgamation of the Russian Five, an outstanding group of Red Wings players in the 90s. 🙌🏻

Once I got my picture with her, I bagged my books back up and headed home!

I’m so glad I didn’t let the distance or my anxiety prevent me from attending this event. It wasn’t awkward at all showing up on my own—in fact, quite a few people showed up alone! I will definitely be looking for more events like this in the future. (But maybe I’ll start with places a little closer to home…)