Planted and Plowed: Steamy Romantic Comedy Special Edition

Who's This For?

This series is ripe for readers who:

🌱 Feel like everyone else got a garden map and you're just seeds on the wind
🧠 Are neurodivergent or love seeing neurodivergent characters written authentically 
🚿 Are ready to watch prickly women learn that letting someone water your garden doesn't make you weak—it helps you grow
🪏 Know found family is about who shows up with a shovel when you're stuck in the mud
💫 Believe in second chances, but also in setting boundaries

If that's you, hop on board this Pittsburgh garden tour. We're going over a bridge, into the neighborhoods, with Eila, Eden, Eliza, and Eva Storm as our guides.

An Exclusive Hardback

The Planted and Plowed hardcover special edition is a beautiful, 600-page shelf trophy with printed edges, pink endpapers, and gold foil on the front, spine, and back cover. The interior blooms with color illustrations throughout. Four complete stories, an entire series of happily ever afters, all in one beautiful package.

This hardback book will never be on retailers. The special edition will be unique to Kickstarter and I will sell campaign extras only on my shop.

The Cast

The people of Planted and Plowed are not polished or refined. The Storm sisters raised themselves, and now they're raising goats, bees, and hops in vacant lots throughout Pittsburgh. These stories wind through the back alleys and pedestrian stairways of the Steel City and spit you out in the Catskills when one of the Storm sisters inherits a maple grove in the fictional town of Fork Lick, just south of Climax.

The heroines are barely making ends meet, and the men around town fall for them anyway.

These books embrace the mess: the chaotic family fiascos, the ugly dogs, the donkeys with opinions, the businesses held together with duct tape and spite. 

The Books

Against the Grain (Eila & Ben)
Eila grows hops and doesn't do feelings. Ben's an autistic city inspector who should shut her down, but cannot bring himself to walk away. This book stars a three-legged dog, a rabies vaccine, and a whole lot of beer. And of course, the Storm sisters. And their opinions.

Click here to read the first chapter of Against the Grain. This sample opens right in your browser--no need for an app or download.

The Burgh and the Bees (Eden & Nate)
Eden is a bee whisperer, called to rescue her ex, Nate, from a swarm at his construction site. She's been let down her whole life. He's about to prove everyone else was doing it wrong. Come for the outdoor concerts, stay for the sticky situations and family fights.

Yule Be Sorry (Eliza & Reed)
Eliza runs a business sending goats to eat invasive vines throughout the city. Instead, they eat Reed's batch of hydroponic fir trees. Reed is not amused by this turn of events, and Eliza tries to make it up to him. Get snowed in with this pair, and a guard donkey. Join in when the Storm family fights over gingerbread structures.

Sappy Go Lucky (Eva & Asher)
Eva's a relentlessly sunny influencer who inherits a maple grove she never knew existed. Her new neighbor Asher is a grumpy hermit web developer who hasn't seen sunlight in years. Ten-year age gap. Peak grumpy/sunshine energy. Take a tumble through the fictional town of Fork Lick and stay for awhile. The Storm sisters and their partners certainly do!

Reward Tiers

Whether you're looking for an e-read, a paperback for your vacation, or a gorgeous box of goodies to go with your hardback, we've got something ready to harvest.

Stretch goal upgrades (if unlocked) will be added automatically to eligible tiers, so once you've backed, you're set. Shipping is charged when you pledge. See FAQ for specifics.

Planted and Plowed eBook $24 

DRM-free, delivered via BookFunnel, so you can read the whole series on any device. 

Mass Market Paperback $40

Missing mass market paperbacks? I got you, boo! This omnibus paperback is 4.25" x 7"  just like those romance novels you'd find on the wire racks at the grocery store. 

But this one is printed full-color with forced edges and a duplex cover highlighting the bright florals that are planted and plowed throughout the series.

This tier comes with the eBook omnibus included.

Storm Chasers eBooks $45

DRM-free digital versions of Planted and Plowed as well as the Bridges and Bitters series, where we first meet the oldest Storm sister, Esther. 

Hardback special edition $70

One gorgeous special edition hardback for your shelf, with an eBook included if you want to switch between formats.

Paper Storm $90

This tier includes the mass market paperback edition of Planted and Plowed as well as 5x8 standard paperbacks for the Bridges and Bitters books where we first meet the oldest Storm sister, Esther. Included titles are: Fireball, Liquid Courage, Speed Rail, Last Call, and Planted and Plowed. DRM-free eBooks included.

Print books shipped to the United States will come signed by me. International books will be shipped directly from the printer and I will mail a signed bookplate under separate cover.

Hardback Option: $175; Paperback Option: $145

An immersive, artisan experience, this custom collectible box comes with a special edition book, and a selection of hand crafted items to complement the text. This is the perfect gift for a reader, yarn lover, or anyone who appreciates a good pun.

The floral and honeycomb box is a sturdy 9.5"x7.5"x4" so the book fits inside snugly with companion items that were planted and plowed right here in Pittsburgh by my talented maker friends.

In Sappy Go Lucky, Eva Storm meets her match in a rogue sheep named Baabara Streisand Bedd. The menace merino causes chaos, but also produces some beautiful fictional wool.

Pittsburgh maker Chronicles of Cheryl created a custom yarn for my book series from wool that could be from Baabara. It's called Winterberry and is hand-dyed in small batches right in Cheryl's basement. Your box comes with 2 skeins.

Yarn Specs:

• DK Weight
• 100% Fine Superwash Merino Wool 
• 4 ply
• 246 yards / 225 meters
• 100 grams 

Neighborhood soapmaker Casey with Pittsburgh Worsh Company has been a long-time partner, creating beautiful soaps and skincare items to pair with my books. She came through again with some blue-ribbon-worthy goodies.

We've got a beer soap in homage to Eila's hops, a beeswax salve that Eden would be proud of, a maple lip balm right from Eva's grove and a maple/coffee lip scrub she absolutely did not steal from Asher.

Add-Ons

New! Signed and Personalized Ebooks

Thanks to a brand-new feature from Bookfunnel (the company I use to deliver digital books), I can now directly sign, personalize, and date your ebook of Planted and Plowed! I can write on the file of YOUR ebook with your name and a message and a live signature. A very cool feature to add on for only $10!

New! More Neurodiverse Characters to Celebrate

A lot of you are here today because you crave stories where autistic and neurodiverse characters are portrayed authentically and get happily ever afters. Welcome! My Brady family books are full of such characters, both diagnosed and not. I added the eBook and audiobook omnibus for this series in the add-ons for you!

So many of you enjoy having a little something tangible to go with your books. I started something new in 2026: Swoon Mail. Over in the add-ons, you can grab a 3-month membership to my Swoony Steamy Society for just $20. 

Each month, I'll send a little something special to your mailbox, wherever you live. It could be a sticker, bookmark, coaster, or something I haven't yet thought of. Then, you also get all the eBooks I write one month prior to retail release. Swoon Mail members will get my book Playing with Trouble on June 16 while everyone else has to wait until July...

The town of Fork Lick, where Sappy Go Lucky is set, was born from a collaboration with my author friends Liz Alden, Karen Grey, Erin Mallon, and Ember Leigh for our shared series Farm 2 Forking. Backers can snag the Bedd Family books as add-ons if they want to get properly forked. 

If you dig nerdy, grumpy heroes who don't know how to people, you will love my Oak Creek series of geeky small-town rom-coms. The Crawford family is brilliant in business, but lousy at love. 

Stretch Goals

I sure hope this campaign grows like a weed. I have some ideas for how to juice up the tiers if it does!

We have already unlocked custom endpapers for the hardback and die-cut Eden and Nate bookmarks AND Vellum inserts sized for the hardback for all backers of any physical tier. (Including the cheeky sticker folks)Woo hoo!

Here is the artwork for the Vellum, drawn by @its_layla970:

If the campaign gets to $9,000, I will commission Layla for two more art pieces for a total of four--one per book in the omnibus! So if you want to see Eliza and Reed and Eva and Asher, make sure to tell a friend about the campaign :)

Who Am I?

I believe EVERY body deserves a happily ever after, so my books feature characters who don't often get to shine in romance. My characters are disabled, flawed, body diverse ... they are sometimes postmenopausal, divorced, and in need of redemption. I hope you'll find characters who make you feel seen!

My catalogue includes 35 titles, and the add-ons for this campaign include digital versions of my other rom-coms to complement the Planted and Plowed series.

Get it Before it Bolts

These special edition books are like lilacs: they will not be around for long! If you crave anything you see above, you're gonna want to pick it now because once the campaign ends, I will place the order with the printer. 

Make sure there's something in your garden basket by scrolling back up to the top of the page, choosing the tier you love the most, and locking in your reward.

One more thing before you go: These books were born of raunchy plant puns. If you're rooting for this campaign to thrive, dig up your best garden euphemism and drop it in the comments. I can't wait to see who else has manure on their mind!