Sweeney’s debut romance novel brings humor, heat, heart

Melanie Sweeney ’12 writes contemporary romance, an interest that was supported by NMSU women’s studies courses, a department now called Gender and Sexuality Studies. 

Sweeney’s debut novel, “Take Me Home,” published in 2024, is a USA Today bestselling book. Her second novel, “Where You’re Planted,” will be released in July 2025.

“I took almost all of my non-English classes in that department when I was there,” she says. “It had a really heavy influence on the kinds of stories I was reading and the kinds of more innovative ways I was approaching stories at the time.”

Sweeney and her husband both attended NMSU and earned their Masters of Fine Arts in creative writing with a focus in fiction. The couple lives in the Houston area with their three children and too many cats.

“What I really loved about Las Cruces is it’s a smaller town,” Sweeney says. “I didn’t really want to live in a big sort of metropolis. I wanted somewhere that was walkable. It has that kind of small town feel and just a tight-knit community. It was so lovely.”

Her first attempt to write a novel was not a romance. She was struggling while writing a serious novel focused on family drama when she ended up on a different path.

“What I kept gravitating towards were these joyful, hopeful, romantic stories,” Sweeney says. “I didn’t really decide to write a romance until I wrote ‘Take Me Home,’ which is my debut novel.”

Getting that first book published took a lot of work. Sweeney first found an agent. They submitted her book to about 15 editors of imprints for the big five publishers. The highest bidder was Putnam, which published “Take Me Home” and will publish her next novel.

Sweeney has advice for budding NMSU writers. 

“Read a lot, especially in the genre that you want to be writing. And when you get frustrated, just keep pushing through – it’s so important not to turn back. You’ll figure it out, and it’s going to be fine.”