Melissa Foster
Melissa Foster
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About
A New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today bestselling author, Melissa Foster has written more than 100 novels and sold millions of copies worldwide.
She is best known for Love in Bloom, a sprawling contemporary romance universe built from interconnected sub-series (the Snow Sisters, the Bradens, the Remingtons, the Ryders, the Seaside and Bayside Summers casts, and the biker-family Whiskeys and Wickeds among them) in which characters reappear across one another's stories.
Her romances pair fiercely loyal heroes with smart, sassy heroines and close-knit families, and each is written to stand alone with no cliffhangers.
Foster grew up in Maryland and writes well beyond romance, into women's fiction, romantic suspense, thrillers, and historical fiction; her debut, Megan's Way (2009), and early titles such as Chasing Amanda and Have No Shame predate the romances that made her name. She also writes sweet, clean-language versions of her stories under the pen name Addison Cole.
Away from her own books, Foster founded the Women's Nest community and the World Literary Café and mentors other writers through her Fostering Success programs. She hosts an annual Aspiring Authors contest for children and has painted and donated murals to a children's hospital in Washington, DC.
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Contemporary Romance Romance Small-Town Romance Fiction Women's Fiction
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Frequently asked questions
Her debut was Megan's Way (2009), a work of women's fiction about a single mother facing an impossible choice for her daughter. Foster has said the story poured out of her while one of her sons napped, and that it grew from a deeply personal event involving her own mother, years before she turned to the romance she is now known for.
She started in literary fiction, mystery, thriller, and historical fiction before moving into romance, and she treats romance as a way to fold all of that in: in her words, it lets her wrap her love of other genres into her books. Alongside the Love in Bloom romances she has written suspense (Chasing Amanda, Come Back to Me), historical fiction (Have No Shame), and a psychological thriller (Traces of Kara).
Love in Bloom is one big interconnected universe rather than a single linear series. Each sub-series follows a different family (the Snow Sisters, the Bradens, the Remingtons, the Ryders, the Seaside and Bayside Summers crews, the Whiskeys, and more), and characters carry forward as cameos and updates in later books. Every title is still written to stand alone, with no cliffhangers.
Addison Cole is Foster's own pen name for sweet, clean-language romance: the same kinds of characters and settings with the explicit content and strong language removed. Several Love in Bloom books have sweet counterparts published under the Cole name in the Sweet with Heat line.
Because every book stands alone, you can begin almost anywhere, but the chronological entry point is Sisters in Love, the first Snow Sisters book, which introduces characters whose families anchor the later sub-series. Foster also publishes a free reading-order guide for readers who want to follow the full family timeline.
Yes. Underneath the romance, her books deliberately include differently-abled characters and tackle subjects such as cancer, blindness, amputation, PTSD, substance abuse, and elder care. Foster has said she wants those characters to have a real voice rather than be used as a plot device.
Foster built her career as an independent author, joining Barnes & Noble's self-publishing platform when it launched and going on to write more than 100 novels as a New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today bestseller. She also gives back to the writing community, founding the Women's Nest and the World Literary Cafe and mentoring other authors through her Fostering Success programs.