Games We Play
Series 3
I'm excited to announce that I'm working on several new stories in the Games We Play series. And, of course, they'll all be set in my favorite fictional New Jersey small town: beautiful Atlas Beach.
Atlas Beach: Come for the fun and games, stay for the love, the laughter, the family complications, and, oh, yeah: the occasional ghost!
Available Now
Put a Ring Around the Rosie
February 14th is just another day...until it's not.
They say timing is everything, and that certainly has always been the case where Alex and I are concerned. We met nearly two years ago when he was hired to work at Cup of Joe, the coffee shop where I was already an old timer. It was lust at first sight, at least on my part, but I had a boyfriend then, and so did he. By the time we were both single and I’d worked out that he was bi, things between us had become complicated in so many other ways that it seemed much simpler and safer to just stay friends.
We were work spouses for a while, and then we weren’t. And when we reconnected with each other last month it was after a prolonged period of hurt feelings and miscommunication during which we barely spoke to each other at all.
Now, even though our friendship’s caught fire, so to speak, I feel like we’re both still recovering from that last, disconnected phase. Heaping a bunch of unrealistic expectations, or a need for chocolate hearts, plush toys, or rose colored anything on top of that seems like a little too much added pressure.
Read an excerpt HERE
Now Available at Amazon and in KU
Releasing in 2025
Giada Mazzi is Living her Best Life
life is more than just the lies we try and tell ourselves about what we’ve done and who we are.
I guess the truth is that I never stopped loving Ben. And I never stopped imagining how different my life might have been if he were only the person I needed him to be, instead of the person that he is. Which is silly, right? I mean, truly; it’s laughable. Because if he were someone else, he wouldn’t be him. And the world is already full of people like that. What good is one more gonna do me?
Besides, if I’m honest, Ben wasn’t ever the problem. That was me. I was never the person he believed me to be. Oh, I thought I was, in the beginning. I tried hard to be, and that worked for a while. Sort of. But eventually I reached the point where I had to make a choice between living life for myself, or for everyone else.
And when it came right down to that…how could I not choose me?
Previously released in the Love and Espresso anthology.
The White Elephant Gift Exchange
A Games We Play/Ugly Christmas Sweater Story
It was not a pretty sweater.
I had tried my hardest, but perhaps a sweater was not the smartest project for a beginning knitter to attempt. I always feel like I can do just about anything I set my mind to, and that confidence usually serves me well. But this time, even I have to admit that’s not the case.
I had just wanted Jackson to know how much I’d thought about him while he was gone. I’d wanted him to take this sweater back with him to college, and to wear it every day…or at least until the weather broke. I’d hoped he’d be reminded of me every time he put it on. And that that connection—that sense of his being literally, physically, virtually, and in every-other-which-way wrapped in my love—would help us both feel closer to each other. And maybe a little less lonely.
That didn't work out either.
More information coming soon.