#9 - if you saw something, no you didn't

Love at First Sighting Cover Reveal

The day is finally here!

I get to unveil the cover of my second book Love at First Sighting! Without further ado:

Vikki Chu and the team at Berkley really outdid themselves with this cover and I am so happy I finally get to talk about this book. Love at First Sighting comes out August 12, 2025 and is available for preorder NOW. Here’s what this weird book is about:

A chance at love might not be out of this world in the next romantic comedy from USA Today bestselling author Mallory Marlowe.
 
Los Angeles social media influencer El Martin seems to live the perfect aesthetic life. But what El wants more than anything is to find something real to make her heart race in a way it hasn’t in years. She doesn’t expect that feeling to come from capturing footage of an unidentified flying . . . thing, much less from the charming Man in Black who keeps following her around.
 
Agent Carter Brody is trying his best to keep the Private Intelligence Sector afloat by dragging their hopelessly out-of-date office into this century, even though what he really wants to do is follow in his father’s footsteps identifying and hiding extraterrestrial sightings. He gets his chance after being assigned to El’s case and is stopped in his tracks not only by her ingenuity and confidence, but also by the unnerving coincidence of how her sighting looks eerily like what he saw right before a family tragedy.
 
The deeper El and Carter fall into the mystery, the harder it is for them to ignore their growing chemistry, as their own alien feelings become dangerously terrestrial.

This book was some of the most fun I’ve ever had writing. The concept for it came as I was doing research for Love and Other Conspiracies. I was listening to the podcast Supernatural with Ashely Flowers, which I have actually just learned has now rebranded and continued as So Supernatural with new episodes (so goodbye, I’m off to go listen to the new ones). There was an episode on the Men in Black that triggered the idea of “what about a romance between a girl who sees a UFO and the hot Man in Black sent to follow her around”.

jotted down on my whiteboard for another day

I sat on it because I realized that it was going to require some kind of mystery/government conspiracy element that I didn’t think I’d be good enough to pull off. I’d never really written anything like that before. I’ve dabbled in other genres and written more speculative stuff, but the mystery elements were flimsy (mostly on account of being like 17). But the pieces kept falling into place and I knew I had to write it.

Thanks to my wonderful CPs who pushed me to at the very least try, I crafted a book with an noir mystery vibe, two clever and lovable protagonists, and lots and lots of chaos. It also allowed me to really lean into one of my favorite time periods/paranormal subjects: the Men in Black¹

The actual Men in Black predate the Will Smith film series by several decades. After WWII and the dropping of the atomic bombs, the Cold War began and it was an era of paranoia and anxiety. Because of this, and the threat of atomic bombs and Russian spy planes coming from the sky, people were paying attention to what they saw in the sky far more. The crash at Roswell also didn’t help.

It was in 1947 that UFO sightings got big, and it seemed like the government had some secrets they needed to protect. Harold Dahl spotted a UFO over Maury Island, WA in 1947, and was allegedly approached by a man in a dark suit threatening him to not speak about the incident. In the mid 1950s, Albert K. Bender was approached by the same kind of suited men in an attempt to get him to stop researching UFOs. Countless other sightings came throughout the following decades but some things remained the same:

1. The men were clad in black suits, often with black top-hats, sometimes sunglasses.

2. They wanted people to stop talking about UFOs.

These dark figures were shrouded in mystery, and our FMC, El, wastes no time interrogating Carter about what the hell their deal is:

El is doing her research!

I both love and fear this idea of a secretive band of government agents who are sent to scare and intimidate people into silence. Particularly when it comes to aliens, because why send creepy guys if you have nothing to hide? Why? Seems like a bit much for no secrets, guys.

Can I interest you boys in an Anastasia brow pencil???

So, when it came time to write Love at First Sighting (though, the original title was Closest Encounters), I got to give this secretive agency and their employees a personality… without ending up on a watch list.

The Private Intelligence Sector (PIS, and you say the letters, not piss, but who is going to do that?) is a shambling, out of date government department full of Men and Women in Black who still wear suits, suspenders, Trilby top hats, and drive old Crown Vics and run on Windows 98. They’re stuck in the stone age and struggling to keep up with the internet age where everyone and anyone can put their UFO sightings online, so they’re spread damn thin and have to pick and choose what jobs are really sensitive and suspicious.

from Buffalo, 2008

Which is where we meet El and Carter. El has a mysterious sighting, and Carter is the lackey who trains new hires and scours the internet for the hoaxes of the week — and something about El’s sighting reminds him of his own sighting as a child that came just before a family tragedy. They are linked together by this shared mystery for different reasons — for El, to prove she’s right and be taken seriously for the first time in her life, and for Carter, to get justice for the family he lost.

But El is a social media influencer who is financially fueled by protein shakes and yoga pants and bombarded by facades left and right. And Carter is a baby-faced Gen Z-er, who tries his damn hardest, but was never going to be Man in Black of the year, that’s for sure.

Their adventures to get to the bottom of these sightings take them through late night adventures around Los Angeles, sneaking into secret government archives, sabateuring at a magic show, and maybe even a real LA car chase? I love the two of them because they are unlikely heroes who are often underestimated by the people around them, but have so much love to give and I really am obsessed with their love story.

So, if all this sounds like your cup of tea, please do preorder Love at First Sighting and tell your friends. And keep your eyes peeled for new mission briefs as they come leading up to August 12th.

So long for now, agents!

1. I am now realizing that there is a chance LAFS might end up on the Men in Black Wikipedia page omg