Where I Left Off

Romance Spotlight with Author Cindy Steel

• Kristen Bahls • Season 2 • Episode 25

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In this episode, author Cindy Steel joins me to talk about three books from her backlist, The One with the Kiss Cam, Faking Christmas, and That Fine Line. We cover her body of work, her WIP, her latest release Rebel Summer, and so much more. 

Cindy's closed door romance novels are filled with banter, fun, and will have you saying,"just one more chapter."

More about Cindy:

For links to the books discussed in this episode, click the link here to take you to the Google Doc to view the list.

For episode feedback, future reading and author recommendations, you can text the podcast by clicking the "Send us a message button" above.

For more, follow along on Instagram @whereileftoffpod.

Kristen Bahls:

elcome back. I'm kristin balls and you're listening to where I left off, a bookish podcast, and today I'm joined by author of the one with the kiss cam, the pride and prank series, the christmas escape series, falling and falling for summer series cindy steele, and today we are talking about her books and her overall body of work, which, as you can tell, is a lot. She's been at this for a second. Thank you so much for joining me, cindy.

Cindy Steel:

Oh, thanks for having me that sounded way more impressive. It's not that the series are with other people, mostly true but isn't it like eight books, that's a lot I think six my seven six comes out next or the end of the month.

Kristen Bahls:

Well, there you go. I was just rounding you up a couple more, I know. Thank you. So the first thing that I always ask anyone that comes on and of course, you might be in a different stage of writing so you may not be doing as much reading at the moment, but what are you currently reading, if anything?

Cindy Steel:

Oh, so I went through a dry spell while I was drafting Rebel Summer. But I am reading my friend Martha Keye's book Selling Out and it's super cute. She has a really cute rom-com series. It's really cute so far. Oh, I'll have to add her to my TBR. Yeah, she's great Cool. Are they also low spice? Yes, yep, oh cool.

Kristen Bahls:

Low spice. Yeah she's great Cool, are they also low spice?

Cindy Steel:

Yes.

Kristen Bahls:

Yep.

Cindy Steel:

Yep, oh, cool, low spice and yeah, and I have a bunch of friends writing. I need to read more. I just slowly, but I also. I don't know, it's hard to write, to write and read the same genre sometimes, but it's nice to have a break and be able to read some more.

Kristen Bahls:

Yay, and hopefully with summer. You can kind?

Cindy Steel:

of find a couple spots to squeeze it in, but I know that's hard with kids. Yeah, rely on some audiobooks?

Kristen Bahls:

I think definitely so. What can you tell us, if anything, about your current work in progress?

Cindy Steel:

so I'm still going to use this as my work in progress because it hasn't come out yet, but I just finished all the edits for Rebel Summer, that part of the Falling for Summer series that I'm doing with six other authors, and so we're each taking a couple on this island that we've created down by Florida. It's part of Florida but a little island, and anyway mine is going to be so fun. I think it's the town mechanic who's the boat, like motor mechanic, and then she is home just for the summer and ends up. She's always just been a super good girl, does everything. Her dad's a politician, so that nobody's making mistakes, you know. So she comes home and just gets in like accidentally, gets in some big trouble and anyway has to do community service to the the mechanic who is this tattooed rebel that she used to know in high school. They used to kind of have a fun little frictiony friendship back in the day, so anyway it's been really fun to tap into that.

Kristen Bahls:

Oh nice, I can't wait to read it. And when does it come out? July 31st, okay, wow.

Cindy Steel:

That's really soon. Yeah, it kind of snuck up on me.

Kristen Bahls:

It always seems so far away that all of a sudden, it's July already. So whenever you guys are planning something that big, do you like you have the same island, but do the characters like make cameos in each other's stories or kind of like. How does that work?

Cindy Steel:

This time we did and it's been a. Really it's been a lot of fun and a lot of crazy stress a little bit just to coordinate because we're, um, like my good friend, like my character's good friends are some of the other characters in the other books, and that they're all happening everybody's books happening the same summer kind of simultaneously, and so there's just a lot of a little bit of weaving in and out and stuff and um, anyways, it's just a lot of a little bit of weaving in and out and stuff, and anyway, it's been a lot of fun to just try this project.

Kristen Bahls:

I've never, never, like, dived into anything of this magnitude ever, but I was going to say that sounds like a really fun challenge, but really difficult trying to match everything to each other.

Cindy Steel:

Yeah, yeah, it's been. Yeah, we got pretty organized with it. You know, we had like spreadsheets and google docs everyone's kind of like adding and we everyone got to read everybody's book that had their character, parts of the book that had their characters, to make sure that they were being represented. You know how we would like and stuff oh, that's really smart really fun yeah, really fun group of authors.

Cindy Steel:

It's been a blast. How did you meet them? So most of them I met doing our other, the Christmas Escape series that we did two years ago, and then we had so much fun we were always kind of planning to do another series and we finally finally got a chance to everyone's schedules aligned to do it. I'm sure that's difficult to try to get everyone on the same page and I just had a baby last year, so that kind of pushed me out for a while Very fair, yeah, but yeah, it's been really fun, I loved it.

Kristen Bahls:

So you may or may not be able to tell me, but at the end and this is not a spoiler but at the end of the pride and prank series so far. So there's one little part that alludes to possibly jake and his girlfriend that he's with. They're not maybe getting along. Is he going to possibly eventually have his own story?

Cindy Steel:

yes, jake is getting his story for sure. He's the next on my list to write. After this book I'm hoping to get I'm about halfway done with it, hoping to finish it out the rest of this year.

Kristen Bahls:

Try to get it out in the next you know, I don't know, I can't even get a date, yeah, but yeah, the next little while so, yeah, he's definitely getting his happily ever after.

Cindy Steel:

Okay, he's been a fun fan favorite. Everybody's worried about Jakeake, so I need to need to get him. Get him as happily ever after.

Kristen Bahls:

When I read that, at first I was like no, he's a girlfriend. And then, whenever that little comment was in there, I was like okay, okay, there's still hope that you know there's very much hope, don't worry okay oh my gosh, I I love that series. That's the one that I've read um the most recently, and it's it's just so cute. Oh, I'm so glad, thank you. Do you plan on it being a three book series or never, say never so I'm done with jig.

Cindy Steel:

I think I'm ready to I I yeah. I just want to end on a high note, and there's actually, it's actually um five, it'll be five books total, because a christmas spark is kind of the first one. Okay, there are two novellas in there too, and then stranded ranch is dusty story, one of the cowboys, and so they're just little novellas. I didn't really need a full length books for those, but so they're kind of attached to it, but not as heavy.

Kristen Bahls:

They're not as heavy hitters as the makes sense, because those two are both on my tbr, so they haven't gotten to them yet.

Cindy Steel:

Yeah, yeah yeah, no, um a christmas spark, super minimal related like, but it still kind of it still counts, it's still, it's still in there.

Kristen Bahls:

Yay, yeah, still count. So but yeah good, he's coming well, I mean, those are two books um in the future. So that's. You know that's a little ways away, but overall, are there any tropes that you really want to explore in future novels that maybe you haven't done so far?

Cindy Steel:

yeah, um, I've been wanting to do like a bodyguard trope. I think that would be really fun. Um, I don't quite know how I would twist it quite yet, but um, that might be fun down the line somewhere. Um, I, for some reason I would love to do like a widower thing. That seems it's not like the fun popular answer, but, um, to dive into more of that, like on a side yeah, it'd be kind of interesting and then, um, I'm always down for like a cowboy romance.

Kristen Bahls:

I love doing that.

Cindy Steel:

That just speaks to my soul. So it'd be fun to do like kind of you know, sweet cowboy saga. Probably not a saga, just like a romance. Yeah, okay, put all of those ideas on your list they're going on the idea list, don't worry, I love them all oh my gosh, good I.

Kristen Bahls:

the bodyguard by Catherine Sinter is like one of my all-time favorites. Yes, I'm looking forward to it now. Your books they are low spice but they do have a lot of romance and banter interwoven constantly throughout the book. What is one of the most romantic gestures that you've ever written in your life? One of your books?

Cindy Steel:

that was such a good question because it was fun to go back and think thank you. And I think there's some in every book and honestly, my new one coming out, rebel summer, has a lot of sweet gestures in it. That would surprise me, but I don't want to give any of those away.

Cindy Steel:

But I will say I love the moment in devil or nothing when logan makes her the table and it makes more sense if you've read it. But I loved how he approached it. He was so like mad at himself for liking her. He didn't want to like her and he just how, but he was still gonna do it. He just you know, I don't know, I just loved his like juxtaposition. That whole scene was really fun, that really fun dynamic.

Kristen Bahls:

So that was that one stands out to me I was gonna say, and his reasoning um, whenever he was telling her like why he made it for her, but also just a special, because you know sometimes like they'll do something really nice, but then they just can't. You know, like can't communicate, yeah, like all the reasons why they made it for her, and there's a very specific thing that it's helping her with because you love you yeah exactly, exactly, but yeah yeah, it was.

Cindy Steel:

That one was really fun though.

Kristen Bahls:

I loved that whole scene. That was one that was good, and then I also I liked Kiss Cam too.

Cindy Steel:

There were some fun little like pop notes, especially the very first one that he gave her. I think that was my favorite moment, just that setting that tone of he just cared, you know, cared about her.

Kristen Bahls:

They're just the best. They were fun and their fight over the armrest. That was cute too.

Cindy Steel:

Yeah, that was fun to write. They were just. Yeah, some of those scenes just came together really easily. They just seemed to the characters just kind of seemed to just jump out in my head.

Kristen Bahls:

So it's fun to write it out. I can tell, like you can just tell, from the flow. So how do you stay motivated and inspired to write it out? Oh good, I can tell, like you can just tell, from the flow. So how, how do you stay motivated and inspired to write new stories? Because all, all of your books are really different from each other. I mean, of course, there are some that are in the same series, but like they just seem so completely different the settings, the places, the plots, like how, how do you even do that?

Cindy Steel:

Oh, I will thank you for I love that you said that, because I sometimes I feel like it's hard to be different in this genre, um, but I really I really want to write character-driven romances and those just take me different places.

Cindy Steel:

Like I would never for a thousand years thought I would write a beach romance but, like with this falling for summer series, it put me on a beach and so I really kind of stretched me a little bit because I, I, I, I go to beaches every once in a while, you know, but it's just not my life and I don't under, you know, that's just never been anything that I, you know, thought about. But it's been really fun to kind of tap into that more of that mindset, um, but I don't really have a problem being motivated or inspired, cause I feel like I've got a whole list of ideas in my notes app on my phone that just I've got the ideas. I just need the time and that's kind of where, with my stage of life right now, little small kids at home I just don't have. You know, it kind of stretches me a lot to get one book out a year, so like, but, um, yeah, if I had more time, I I would love to dive into doing more cricket.

Kristen Bahls:

I I love having one book a year, because sometimes when you have too many books at once and, like I, can't keep up with everyone's new releases anyway. So I think that your pacing is um is perfect, so it works. How do you develop the chemistry between your characters, kind of in the way that feels authentic and engaging, just kind of flowed? Is there like a headspace that you kind of put yourself in like do you daydream about them or how does that work?

Cindy Steel:

so it's kind of I feel like dialogue is super important, um, for the chemistry of it, at least for me. I probably every author will tell you a different answer, but I feel like really understanding the ebb and flow of conversation and understand like a natural conversation you're talking, that people are flirting, just that back and forth, that give and take, I think it really like it like opens up the chemistry, you know, it gives you, I don't know, just a good fun. Good fun dialogue is huge for me. I also think that if you have a plot, that warrants good dialogue too. Like sometimes you know you have to have something at stake or something's going on or something you know to warrant like a good back and forth. And sometimes you know, sometimes I've been writing a scene I'm just like their dialogue is so boring, like what do I got to do to spice this up, you know, and then you have to just you have to add something else in or put it in a different setting or change it up somehow to kind of get that flow kicking.

Kristen Bahls:

So for me it's dialogue that definitely makes sense, and especially with the kiss cam, again, try not to spoil it. Um, they start in one location and you think the book's going be one thing, and then halfway through you get a second location and you get a whole different thing.

Cindy Steel:

so it's almost like you get two stories in one yeah, that one was fun because I liked you almost get. You get two, you get another, meet cute, which is always fun. You know what I mean. Like I don't know, that's what I. I've read a few stories where there's a little bit of a time jump and they're like, oh, like, just get another meet cute, that's fun you know, yeah, they didn't expect to run into each other in that particular way.

Kristen Bahls:

Yeah, so do you feel that there are? I mean there are, but do you feel that there are any miscommunications about closed door romance in general that you wanted to kind of talk about a little bit?

Cindy Steel:

um, I think there's like a stigma with closed door, where you think there's not gonna be any chemistry or yeah, like the chemistry is gonna be not there or there's not gonna be enough like butterflies to get you through. You know, and I just think for me personally, and everybody's so different, so I'm not I. You know everyone's fine to read whatever they want to read, yeah, but like sometimes, if I'm reading more of a spicier book and you get to that point and you're like it fizzles, the tension fizzles for me, like I love there's something about the slow build and burn and whatever you're building to you know it. Just I don't know. There's just something about that tension that just keeps you turning the pages and sometimes it just fizzles for me.

Cindy Steel:

I don't know if that's the same for you, but no, I agree, I agree, yep, and so there's just something about a closed door where and it's like I feel I'm personally relate more to closed door, just because you know I'm not going to go do these like wild and crazy, like tropes that we all love, that are fun to read, but it's like fun to kind of like be in a you know something a little bit more relatable, like you're building towards something and it's cute and fun and anyway. So I don't know, I do think that people think that they're not going to be rewarded at the end or whatever, but I do think, if there's good tension and chemistry, that you can have that at the end. It's just a different type, you know and.

Cindy Steel:

I actually get a lot of spice readers reading my books and and saying that they didn't even miss the spice because there's so much tension there and like a fun back and forth. That feels like something that your best friend could have or you could go through.

Kristen Bahls:

You know, it's kind of relatable in a way, and a lot of just small romantic gestures as well that are different than just like spice, spice, spice, spice.

Cindy Steel:

Yes, yeah, exactly.

Kristen Bahls:

I agree, so going into a little bit of Faking Christmas, which so far is my favorite one, oh. I love them all, but Faking Christmas, wow, yeah. Favorite one um, I love them all, but Faking Christmas, wow, yeah. Um, so this book, like you said, it's a part of a series with the other authors. This was the first time that you kind of all got together. So, um, how did the seven of you decide, okay, we need to write a book together?

Cindy Steel:

yeah. So back then I didn't know. I only knew a couple of them, you know fairly well, but not great either, and they were the ones in my genre. There's two other rom-com authors like primarily rom-com Anyway. So the four other girls were more. Some of them had written like rom-com and some were writing Regency, but most of them were kind of more of like the historical authors. But they wanted to kind of break into this rom-com market and so I think they they got a few of us involved. I was the last one to join. They were just like we were looking for one more member and so someone put my name in there. So anyway, it was really fun that they wanted me to do it with them. I just had a blast, um, and so it was just kind of started out just to be kind of a coming together, just use each other's strength to help each other market this fun series Nice.

Kristen Bahls:

I saw on your Instagram that you were kind of. You posted a video of like how you guys do it and you do a combo of like Marco poloing and you have a spreadsheet with all the characters and how. How long does that process take to set up? Or, now that you kind of have it, it's a lot easier.

Cindy Steel:

For the Christmas Escape series we weren't interconnected like this. So it was like our theme. We had the idea of like everybody in their books were escaping Christmas in some way, and so nobody's characters interlapped. So we didn't really have any issues. We just kind of each wrote our book and then we were done. But this second, this song for summer, is when we're then had to be so organized. We had Marco Polo's, like kind of everyone explaining their plot and what they were thinking with their characters, and then like yeah, we have a bunch of spreadsheets and stuff we all could get on and add things to or change, and this is what our characters look like, this is what they, you know, this is the stuff you can bring up in your book. Don't bring up this stuff, you know. Just things like that. That kind of helps give everyone kind of a good idea. While you're writing, you know if you're going to use some of these characters.

Kristen Bahls:

So was the hardest part trying to write someone else's characters that they came up with in their head and make it sound like it was the same.

Cindy Steel:

Sometimes it was, sometimes it was easier and I I only say this because it worked out but I had so much of my friend Martha Key's character. Her character was a cop and I need the cop in my book, this Rebel Summer book. I need him in there quite a bit. And so I was just she hadn't even started her book and I had a whole scenes with her character and then I was just like I really hope that we're on the right track, but anyway, we ended up doing pretty well, so you know just things like that was kind of trippy like writing somebody else's character, so much I'm sure um and baking christmas.

Kristen Bahls:

Did you incorporate any personal holiday experiences into the story, because there are a lot of family traditions in this book and things that they kind of do together yeah, so I like I, I wish I could say yes, but we, um, we watched.

Cindy Steel:

I usually watch Home Alone every year. Now I watch it with my kids. It's like the classic. So I love that.

Cindy Steel:

Um, but honestly, the thing that was, I don't, we never went like we never went and chopped down our own tree or anything like that. But, um, honestly, one of the things was I grew up on a dairy farm and so in the morning when we got a little bit older, us, me and my siblings we would go outside Christmas morning and help my dad finish milking cows, before we looked at the tree or anything. It was just so we could kind of like include him in the Christmas morning. So I remember doing that a lot. We'd go in the morning and milk cows and help him finish like feeding all the cows. So we could, we could all come in and do christmas. So the milking cows part was just tiny in this video, in this movie, but the book sorry, yep, um, tiny in the book, but it should be a movie. I know it'd be so fun, um, but so those little things like that were kind of meaningful. But I didn't really have too many other things since.

Kristen Bahls:

You got to create them through the book.

Cindy Steel:

Yeah, yeah, gave those memories to them.

Kristen Bahls:

Talking a little bit about the one with the kiss cam. So are there any secondary characters in this book that you just completely fell in love with? Because there are a decent amount of secondary characters.

Cindy Steel:

There were, and I was surprised when I sat down to think through all that, because I usually try to put as few characters as possible in my books. Okay, so I loved Bart and Bertie. They were obviously I think they've been crowd favorites Really fun. I just love using grandparents in in books. Anyways, it was really fun just having them be so sweet and almost something that you could see. You know, duke and Nora acting like as they uh, get older. You know what I mean. It's that cute way that he takes care of her and, and mark, you know, they just kind of both take care of each other. I just really like that sweetness um, that nor was able to see um, and I really like his friends. I thought they were great like hype, hype buddies, you know, like they had a fun relationship and they were always like helping, you know, nor feel comfortable, and like um. And I also love Sean yes.

Kristen Bahls:

Do you think that eventually and again, you know this may be more down the road do you think any of those characters like Duke for Duke's friends at the office, or Sean, would possibly maybe get their own story of any kind, and it might be a series?

Cindy Steel:

no, I think it's okay. I was specifically wrote everybody married except for sean and I've had people say like is sean gonna get a book?

Kristen Bahls:

I was like no could be a uh marriage, or, oh my gosh, not help um were there marriage and crisis. Oh, that's true yep, or if they had a family, like their journey of having a family, yep, but yes, no, I get it.

Cindy Steel:

It was a stand. This was coming off of all the uh, pride and pranks series and I was just so I loved, but I loved doing that series. But it is hard to finish out a series and to finish it strong and like, have like the character, like Jake, who's so important in the series. I wanted I just, you know, I just wanted to write a standalone book but I did leave somebody unattached, so that was my problem. But as of right now I don't have any plans to do that. But I do want to continue the series but just have a completely different standalone book and it's kind of all involved around, you know, a new meet, cute, like a fun meet, cute, so anyway. So hopefully it'll be fun to go back one day and finish, you know, writing another book in that season yes, bart and Bertie.

Kristen Bahls:

Oh my gosh, whenever Nora picked Dukes. Never mind, I'm not gonna spoil that, I almost spoiled it it's really hard not to talk, like to talk about it and not spoil it. Um, I know, oh man, um. Did any of the characters in the one with the kiss cam really surprise you with their development as you were writing the story?

Cindy Steel:

yes, so Nora was actually the hardest one for me to write, and it was more just the fact that she has a lot of like hard things going on in her life and I'm writing a rom-com, and so it's hard like I wanted to give weight to those hard things, but not so much that it would bog the story down, and so that's always like a hard thing to navigate but, I, and so I had to go back through.

Cindy Steel:

It took several revisions writing that with her like to go back through and like she sounds super grumpy, like, take that out, you know. Just like, refine it, add a, add more of a sense of humor for her.

Cindy Steel:

So even though she's going through hard things, she still, you know, can joke and tease and you know what I mean she still has a good sense of humor and like just adding things that lighten it but same time, you know, give weight to the situation but um, so that took a lot of um, a lot of process there to get through but everyone I don't remember too much trouble with anyone else.

Kristen Bahls:

I feel like it was mostly Nora in that book that I had the hardest time to feel back that that makes sense because she does have those walls up, but of course you know she still has to be likable yeah and Duke sees something in her hair, and you know. Then he goes on a little bit on that fine line. So how do the pranks and the contest throughout the series really shape the relationship of the couples?

Cindy Steel:

yeah. So I think that, like humor and having fun in simple moments, like it's such a great beginning to any relationship and I think, like you're gaining a friendship and a fun you know you're interacting with fun personalities and they're bringing out a fun side and I think it's such a great segue to be able to build something to where you can open your heart and open your walls. You know, push your, pull your walls down a bit and, like you have these deeper conversations and more meaningful relationships. I think so I they were key for me is to building a friendship to where, when, when that friendship turns and changes to something more like it's believable, like so it was really fun. I loved that whole series was just so such like a love letter to my childhood to write. It's been so fun and it'll be kind of bittersweet to end out that series because it was so personal to me. But yeah, I'm excited.

Kristen Bahls:

I'm excited to get back into Jake's, into Jake's world, oh yeah he's helped everyone else, so I can't wait to see how you know how they kind of help him find his. I've been sitting on a cover.

Cindy Steel:

I need to do a cover reveal. I just wanted to get Rebel Summer out so I can concentrate on it and not stress myself out too much, but yeah, he's coming.

Kristen Bahls:

That makes sense. It's so hard, I'm sure, with all the timing trying hard, I'm sure, with all the timing trying to, you know, hype up one book when that's not necessarily the book that you're like, immersed in and that yeah, because you're done with the book and then you have to still mark it and then you know but yeah, it's been.

Cindy Steel:

Yeah, it's always interesting to figure out the best process for everything, at least for me is there a character in that fine line that you relate to the most? I would say Kelsey is a lot like me. Um, I, it's just. That was my first book. I wrote really Um the second published, but the first one I'd written so much on, and I think just that coming home.

Cindy Steel:

I mean we're different, like our experiences were different, but just her whole experience on the ranch and the farm life and the tractors, and just her whole experience, that was my, that was my home like, and so even writing, like how everything's situated on the farm and like it's like that's my house, you know.

Cindy Steel:

So it's just very personal to me like that and so her, the way she relates to the world and to the way she relates to people and her family. It was very, very close to me and personal that way. So I think she was. It was an interesting experience writing that. It was my first book, so I didn't know what I was doing, but just kind of writing what you know and oh, I mean, I could see it as one of my favorites on in that series, for sure oh yeah yeah, kate was fun too, true, I was gonna say, and I got to listen to it on audiobook, which I think just made their banter like even better back and forth, like with the pacing, for sure.

Kristen Bahls:

Oh good, yeah, she did a great job with that one. Definitely Do you get to pick your audiobook narrators.

Cindy Steel:

I have a say in it, my contract I can. You know I can throw out ideas and give them ideas and I usually give my, my company, like my, top two or three choices and then you know whoever they are able to. Sometimes it just depends on who has the time in their schedule to do it too. So, yeah, I've been really happy with those.

Kristen Bahls:

Will that rebel summer be coming out in audiobook?

Cindy Steel:

yes, it'll be quicker than any of my other books that ever come out. So I think it's. I think they're planning to have it out in mid-August, so really just a few weeks after it releases. Yeah, they're trying to get all of us out early. We're all doing the same audiobook company.

Kristen Bahls:

Oh, nice. Well, thank you so much for talking to me today, and that's it for today. Thanks for listening to when I Left Off a bookish podcast. You can visit Cindy's site. You can visit Cindy's site. You can follow her on social media and you can, of course, purchase all her novels through the link in the show notes, or you can always find them on Kindle Unlimited.