I’m excited to be part of a blog tour for the release of Love at First Sighting! My review is here, but keep reading for an excerpt from the book, too!

El is a social media influencer looking for a different kind of spotlight. But she absolutely did not want the chaos dropped into the lap of someone who claimed to see a UFO! The digital world gives El’s video capturing her scary sighting a deluge of thumbs-downs, and the paparazzi hound her every step in the hopes of capturing another “crazy moment.”

In among the crowd is a new–and very handsome–face.

Carter is a federal agent, just not for any federal agency you’ve ever heard of. And not really much of a field agent, at least not very often. He’s more the keep-this-shady-underfunded-relic-running-for-another-day agent. But El’s video immediately pushes Carter out of his office chair and into the streets of LA, trying to track down the beautiful influencer who may be the only other living person to have seen a very specific unidentified flying object.

Once El stops trying to evade her very own secret agent, she decides to help him decipher some very strange events and uncover potentially deadly secrets.

I really liked Mallory Marlowe‘s debut novel, Love and Other Conspiracies, but, if possible, I enjoyed Love at First Sighting even more! It has humor, adventure, intrigue, romance, and startling secrets that will change absolutely everything.

From now on, I will be automatically adding everything by this outstanding author to my to-read list!

Enjoy an excerpt from Love at First Sighting here:

El

I peer over my shoulder and catch sight of a faint shimmer over the deep blues and sandy browns of the mountainside. I blink and wonder if it’s a trick of the light, but it can’t be. There’s something there. The backdrop ripples around it like a fun-house mirror as it inches closer to me.

I pick up my pace and begin to move quicker through the ravine to reach my car. I’m a sitting duck out here, and the inevitable murder podcast plays in my head.

Because it took so long to find Ms. Martin, her body had fully decomposed and a small family of rabbits had made a home in the tented sanctuary of her blue yoga pants.

I don’t get far before a blinding white light floods behind me. I panic for a split second before I run. Whatever this thing is, it might be after me.

It whirs faster as I dash away, stumbling over rocks and downed bramble as I try to remember my path back to the car. I pass the same No ass sign and trip over a shrub. A scrape bleeds through my poor Spinx yoga pants.

“Fuck,” I mutter, rubbing at the wound. I use my tripod to climb back to my feet, but my stalker is still breathing down my neck with its floodlights.

This is far from the fake problems I solve with my sponsorships, like greasy hair or a wine-stained shirt emergency. This is real. I mentally run down my contacts list, follower lists. Since I’m really in danger, who would come? Certainly not my roommates. Not Alaka-Sam. Maybe my random fans who’d ask me for an autograph midmurder. Then they’d claim I was rude for not paying enough attention to them as I bled out.

I genuinely don’t know if anyone would try to help me.

What I do know is that if these are my last moments, I’m sure as hell not going to go quietly.
I pull out my phone, flip the camera on myself, and go live.

“Hi, guys,” I start, squinting and still trying to focus on fleeing. “So, I was out shooting some really great Spinx content that should be coming in a few days, and I’m on my way back to the car, but there is something following me. I can’t see what it is, but it looks like a ship or something. I don’t know, but look, it’s just behind me.”

That makes it mad. The lights flash from white to red to blue and it picks up speed. So do I. Then a horrible thought crosses my mind: Am I getting abducted by aliens?

Like actual, for real aliens?

Aliens are so not my brand. I believe they’re real because the universe is too big for us to be the smartest things out there, but I did not expect them to come to Earth. I did not expect them to follow me home from my photo shoot. I know I’m hot and might be hearty stock for their intergalactic babies, but I didn’t think they’d pick me. My brain plays an Instagram carousel of photos of what’s to come—little green men standing over my bed, probing, way too much chrome.

I have a meal delivery service and a snail face mask to promote by the end of the week.

I do not have time to get abducted by aliens right now.

“Holy shit,” I gasp as I stumble again. Dirt and rock shards dig into my palms. I scramble for the phone, the tripod, and the water bottle I’ve dropped. As I grasp the bottle and the craft nears, I get an idea. I hurl the aluminum water bottle into the air at full speed and hope my one season of softball in fifth grade prepared me for this. It clangs hard against the metal, and I anticipate that maybe a laser beam will sear me in half, but instead, the craft wobbles.

Then it spins.

Then it crashes.

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Excerpted from Love at First Sighting by Mallory Marlowe Copyright © 2025 by Mallory Marlowe. Excerpted by permission of Berkley. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.