Spotlight & Giveaway: Love at First Sighting by Mallory Marlowe

Today, HJ is pleased to share with you Mallory Marlowe’s new release: Love at First Sighting

A chance at love might not be out of this world in the next romantic comedy from USA Today bestselling author Mallory Marlowe.

Los Angles 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Agent Carter Brody is trying his best to keep the Private Intelligence Sector afloat by dragging their hopelessly out-of-date office into this century, even though what he really wants to do is follow in his father’s footsteps by identifying and hiding extraterrestrial sightings. He gets his chance after being assigned to El’s case, where he is stopped in his tracks 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 the chemistry growing between them as their own alien feelings start to feel dangerously terrestrial.

Enjoy an exclusive excerpt from Love at First Sighting 

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.”
hat 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.

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.
 
 

Giveaway: 1 finished copy of LOVE AT FIRST SIGHTING (u.s. only, 18+)

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and post a comment to this Q: What did you think of the excerpt spotlighted here? Leave a comment with your thoughts on the book…

 
a Rafflecopter giveaway

 
 

Meet the Author:

Mallory Marlowe is an author and video game writer living in Los Angeles, California. Seriously right-brained since childhood, her love of telling stories began with highly elaborate plots for her Barbie dolls and taking elementary school writing projects too seriously. She studied Writing for Film and TV at Emerson College. When she isn’t writing, she’s likely reading, stuck in LA traffic, or has fallen down a weird internet rabbit hole.

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/734865/love-at-first-sighting-by-mallory-marlowe/