To my readers, Thank You. ❤️
It’s the last day of the year!
Crazy how we’re already at the end of 2025. As I finalize things for 2026, I’ve been sitting at my desk on the brink of tears because I’m so overwhelmed with gratitude. This has been one hell of a year both personally and professionally but yet I’m still grateful to both still be above ground instead of six feet under it as well as back to doing what I love most, which is writing for you.
When I returned to published in October 2024, I didn’t have many expectations. If anything, my only plan was to return with boundaries so that my mental health remained intact in order to continue writing the stories that I loved. Because I was essentially starting over, I wasn’t expecting to reach new readers or for things to unfold the way they did but man.
You guys really knew how to welcome a girl back with a bang.
I thought the success I saw was a fluke, just blaming it on people being excited that I was back and that it would die off soon enough and I’d fall back into oblivion. It was what I was used to. But then it kept going, kept growing, and now new readers have found me. Whether you loved the book so much that you couldn’t stop talking about it or hated it so much that you just have to keep bitching about it, the word spread and so did the support. What I thought was a short term thing has turned into many new readers and more attention than I know what to do with. It was low key scary at first (for someone who spends a lot of time purposely being invisible) to suddenly having people always talking about your books, whether good or bad, and having to mentally prepare for everything that comes with that.
I had allllllll these plans for all the projects I’d wanted to write this year, but unfortunately my calciphylaxis became active again. Instead of working on the books I knew you guys wanted, I was yet again fighting for my life for about nine months this year (suffering for 9 months with nothing to show for it other than scars and still being alive is low key lame but whatever) and it made it impossible to do much of anything. I really do appreciate the patience you guys have had while I took time to heal. I stressed a lot about work while trying to recover because I was afraid if I didn’t publish anything, I’d lose the momentum that I’d finally gained. But if there’s anything I’ve learned this year, it’s that readers don’t mind waiting for talent. As long as they know a good story is coming, they’re willing to wait. And I’m so grateful that you all have stuck this out with me all year.
As for the future, I have a lot of releases planned. I’m THANKFULLY not in active calciphylaxis right now, so I plan to take advantage of that and write as much as possible while I’m still feeling good. I’ll be releasing books from all 3 of my pen names (Victoria Bright, Ember Michaels, & Tori Sullivan) throughout the year and I’m pretty damn excited about it. Before, I’d mentioned that my Victoria Bright brand would be contemporary romance but after some thought, it seemed a bit odd to have something so light amongst two brands that are dark as hell. So Victoria Bright will be dark romance as well, but it will not be super dark. That way, all three are still somewhat related to where most readers can read all three brands without having a heart attack if they pick up one of the other ones LOL.
Lastly, if you missed my newsletter, then you might’ve missed that I’m making a few changes to my business. The covers for current open series (Last Bride Standing & World of Bennett) will look a bit different going forward. I’ve made the decision to part ways with my long time cover designer so new releases will look different from the old ones until I have them redone. I’d planned to just wait to release new books until I got the old covers updated, but there’s no telling how long that would take and I’m sure you all would rather have the book NOW instead of later when all the covers matched. So don’t be alarmed if the covers for new books are different than the others. It’ll all be fixed in due time but new books will still be coming.
I think that’s it for now. Thank you so much for an amazing year and I can’t wait for all that 2026 has to offer.
I hope you all have a fantastic start to the new year!
xo, Victoria
Oh, P.S. Caesar says he’ll see you guys on January 26th. 😉