In my Romance Author Era
Hi, my name is Charlotte and I write steamy, emotional, feel-good, contemporary romance.
A little about me.
Since, I’m a lifelong New Yorker, most of my books take place here. There’s nothing like the energy of NYC, nothing like the sense of enormous possibility born of living life in the greatest city in the world.
When I’m not writing, I’m reading and when I’m not reading, I’m walking the chaotically beautiful streets of the city. I’m a history nerd and a classic rock fan and a huge believer that we all deserve a happily ever after.
As a child, I was a regular at our local library. My favorite pastime/escape was scribbling stories about what I saw in the world around me. And what a world! I grew up in the Chelsea neighborhood which is flanked on the south side by Greenwich Village and on the north by Hell’s Kitchen.
But my defining trait as the middle child of seven—where we all depended on jobs and scholarships to pay for our higher education—was my clear-eyed practicality. Although I took a couple of journalism courses in college, what I really wanted was to write fiction and such a career seemed fraught with uncertainty. My head told my heart it was better to get a graduate degree than to try to support myself as a writer.
So I spent my early work life as a lawyer and, you guessed it, the best part of being a bookish, introverted lawyer was doing anything that involved writing. When I had any downtime from work and mothering our four children, I couldn’t wait to get lost in a good book—usually a romance, because there’s nothing more satisfying than a guaranteed happily ever after.
The world of books, whether fiction or non-fiction, dominated my life via long-term membership in a neighborhood book group and as one of the founders of a local children’s library.
I believe wholeheartedly in the George R.R. Martin quote: “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.”
Flash forward to a life threatening diagnosis. With the clarity of vision that only cancer brings, I had an epiphany. The time was now if I was ever going to achieve my lifelong dream of being an author. Part of me wishes I’d started sooner but there’s something positive about the deeper emotion baked into stories written from the hard earned perspective I’ve gained.
My goal as a romance author is to give my readers the same feeling I experience when I get lost within the pages of a great book. Escape from whatever troubles they’re experiencing in real life while reinforcing the knowledge that we’re all alike. We all need love—in all its forms: romantic, familial, and in our life’s work. We all crave acceptance.
Read on if you want a peek at my current writing obsession project—The Fortunato family series.
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Title MY ONLY ONE
Author Charlotte O’Shay
Genre: Romantic Suspense
Book Blurb
My Only One, Book One of the Fortunato Family series, is a friends to lovers, romantic suspense that’s chock full of feels.
Esme:
We grew up in side-by-side New York City tenements. Shane was my first friend, my first crush, and when he enlisted, my unforgettable heartbreak. When fate brings us back together after ten years, I’m in a world of danger. But I’m not a kid anymore and I know what I want. Shane and I have a second chance at forever and there’s no way I’ll lose him again.
Shane:
Brilliant, beautiful, bound for success, Esme was the girl next door and a temptation I had to resist. I was too old for her, but I couldn’t forget her. When we meet again after ten long years, she’s caught in the crosshairs of a deadly drug kingpin. But I wear a badge now. Nothing will stop me from protecting the woman who claimed me—heart and soul—so long ago. I’ll keep Esme safe or die trying.
Time’s running out for Esme to pay her father’s debt to the cartel.
Excerpt
Audentis Fortuna Iuvat
Fortune Favors the Brave
Don’t stop running… Don’t stop running…
My blood pounded with the chant, the words keeping time with my heartbeat, my ragged breaths and my footfalls on the pavement. Yes, footfalls. I was running on filthy New York City concrete on bare feet. But my dirty, cut up feet were the least of my troubles.
Don’t stop till you get home.
First thing I’d do when I got home was give Papá a giant piece of my mind for everything he hadn’t told me about tonight. For blindsiding me with his deception. I’d gone to that hotel tonight ready to do the unthinkable. I’d steeled myself to meet his friend because our backs were against the wall. Our money was gone. But my father deliberately left out vital information and now that I’d run, we could both get killed.
When I got home, I’d keep a rein on my temper and ignore the hurt. I had to. Giving in to anger, wallowing in the painful knowledge of my father’s deceit, would only cloud my thinking the way my naivety had blinded me tonight. No matter how much I deserved to, I couldn’t waste time with what-the-hell-were-you-thinkings when we had to get out—fast.
Packing our clothes would be simple because we didn’t own a single thing of value anymore. We’d sold our only keepsake of Mama, her piano, after she passed. It was too painful for us to hear the silence every day. Besides we finally had no choice but to let it go. Every time we’d moved and we’d moved a lot during the last ten years, we spent money we didn’t have transporting the piano to wherever our latest apartment was, which allowed Mama the comfort of playing till her last days.
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Author Biography
There's only one thing best-selling, award-winning NYC author Charlotte O'Shay loves more than reading steamy, page-turning, contemporary romance.
Writing them.
Her writing has been called "intoxicating, emotional and irresistible." N.N.Light's Book Heaven
Whether they're blue-collar or billionaires, Charlotte writes protective heroes who fall hard for the independent women who challenge them on every level.
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Title SAY YOU’RE MINE
Author Charlotte O’Shay
Genre Contemporary Romance
Book Blurb
SAY YOU'RE MINE, Book 2 in the Fortunato Family series, is a steamy, opposites attract romance set in NYC.
Did ShySky aka Skylar Bishop just kiss a random guy in a bar?
Skylar:
I don't know what came over me but when my boyfriend stood me up...again, and I saw this guy—the one with tormented eyes and a shiner on his sculpted cheekbone—mangle his words in a crowded bar, I couldn't help myself. Now he figures I’ll tumble into his bed—because I kissed him without knowing his name.
But one kiss is all I'll take because he’d never go the distance for a woman with my issues.
Women love Fighting Finnegan Fortunato's body and he’s not complaining.
Finn:
Actions speak louder than words and I’ve learned to let my fists do my talking. Women want my tatted boxer’s body more than romantic words I can never give them and that's the way I've always liked it. But when a sleek uptown woman knocks me out with a fiery kiss, everything changes.
Now I have to find the words to make her mine.
When serendipity brings them together, will they fight for their forever?
Excerpt
Tonight will be different.
Tonight I’d finally kick my fears to the curb and become the Skylar I was always supposed to be. Confident. Fearless. Strong. The me I’ve always been deep inside.
Tonight was my new beginning. I repeated the mantra with each slow breath I took, standing perfectly still, keeping my eyes closed so Sage could work her magic. Tonight Shy Sky would disappear—never to be seen again.
Ugh. Really? Shy Sky? Thanks, subconscious, for dragging up that decades old nickname now when I hadn’t thought about it at all since elementary school days. Okay, maybe I had thought about it once or twice since then. Because I could still hear the chants. Why don’t you say hi, Shy Sky. Or the ever-popular Shy Sky, Shy Sky, she won’t say boo to a fly. Yeah.
Sing song nonsense, totally lacking in originality but you had to hand it to eight year-olds. They might not be known for the sophistication of their insults but when had that mattered? Their teasing arrows had met the mark just the same and the painfully shy girl I’d been back then suffered the unforgettable sting of their accuracy.
But that was a long time ago. These days I was not shy— in most settings. At work I was not silent. At the institute I discussed, I directed, I weighed in, I opined. These days I slayed. Armed with two advanced degrees, I was a respected member of my profession, skilled enough to work in the center of the universe, aka New York City.
Like Sinatra sang, if I could make it here, I could make it anywhere. In my professional life, I’d done it. No one knew a Shy Sky at work. At work, I had all the answers and if I didn’t, I knew where and how to find them.
But my personal life was another thing entirely. What you might call a disaster. When it came to the opposite sex, I was the queen of second guesses and fumbles. In my dating life, Shy Sky had morphed into insecure Skylar.
But not anymore. That was then. Tonight I was breaking out of my introspective shell. Tonight I would shine.
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Title SNOWFIRE
Author Charlotte O’Shay
Genre Contemporary Romance
Book Blurb
Snowfire is a steamy, holiday romance in the Fortunato world
Ballet dancer Natalya Nieves sacrificed everything, including a social life, to become a world-class performer. But when she meets Luca, her focus shifts -—to a man who could fulfill her every fantasy.
When Luca Fiero escaped his routine life in his family’s Hell’s Kitchen bakery, the cost was life-altering. These days, ex-con Luca values work and family and he knows all too well what he can never have.
But Christmas magic doesn’t care if straight arrow Natalya and fallen angel Luca never should’ve met. With holiday cookies sweetening the deal, will Natalya and Luca be granted a future they don’t believe they deserve?
Excerpt
Breathe, Natalya. You were born for this. Focus. This is it. This is all you’ve ever wanted.
Silence reigned backstage precisely as Madame Babchenko decreed it must from our first rehearsal. In the wings, the comforting cloud of baby powder, TigerBalm and sweat surrounded us.
I closed my eyes for a beat to school my racing pulse. Inhale. Exhale. Using my go-to image, I took in a measured breath, visualizing light, luxuriant snowflakes—swirling, flowing, glittering—part of the whole and yet unique, each more relaxed than the last.
Slow breath in. Full breath out. Again. And again.
This was it and I was ready. More than ready. Every measure of my performance from the opening pas de chat was ingrained in muscle memory. I listened for my musical cue, silently counting off the time.
Now.
The orchestra surged its welcome and the corps de ballet, a graceful blur of lavender and white bell tutus, flowed onstage. I wasn’t Natalya anymore. For these perfect hours, I was a faerie, floating with a flurry of fellow faeries, come to celebrate the birth of Princess Aurora. And it was utter bliss.
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