Alison Bliss Books in Order

Alison Bliss grew up on a small island off the Texas Gulf Coast, where childhood trips often meant camping or hunting with family. She was the youngest of five girls, a position that seems to have prepared her well for a life of sibling challenges, strong opinions, and never backing down from a dare.

Writing was not always part of the plan.

As a ninth grader, Bliss disliked journalism class so much that she asked to be taken out of it. Years later, she realized the problem was not writing itself. She just did not enjoy being told exactly what to write. That difference turned out to matter.

Bliss had long been a devoted romance reader when an unsatisfying ending to a book series set her off. After hearing complaints for a week, one of her sisters dared her to write a better ending. Bliss did not rewrite the book. Instead, in January 2010, she began writing a romance of her own.

The dare stuck.

Her path to publication included an online writing contest called Pitch Wars. After becoming a finalist, she received three offers of representation, including one from an agent who had passed on her work only months earlier. It is a useful bit of publishing history, and it suits an author whose career began with the refusal to quit when a challenge appeared.

Her first published novel, Rules of Protection, arrived in 2014. It introduced the Tangled in Texas books, which mix Texas settings, danger, sharp banter, and romances complicated by real threats. In that opening story, a witness to a mob hit is hidden in the backwoods with the agent assigned to protect her. The later books, Playing With Fire and Law of Attraction, keep the Texas backdrop while following new couples and their own problems.

Bliss also writes the A Perfect Fit series, a set of small-town romantic comedies centered on plus-size heroines with very different lives and outlooks. Size Matters pairs a bakery owner with a contractor after a fake engagement gets out of hand. On the Plus Side follows a woman who takes a job at the bar owned by her longtime crush. In More to Love, a food-truck chef clashes with the man posing as Granite's health inspector, while Out of the Blue follows Preslee Owens as a gym visit, an accidental vlog, and a fake relationship change her plans.

Her books make room for messy families, self-doubt, unexpected attraction, and characters who have to decide what they want instead of accepting other people's rules. There is usually a Texas connection, a stubborn couple, and plenty of humor along the way.

Bliss lives in the Midwest with her husband and two sons. She has described fitting writing around the ordinary work of family life, from appointments and meals to pets and household jobs. She also enjoys animals, video games, canoeing, and romance novels, which makes her own blend of warmth, heat, and jokes feel like a natural fit.