What with Valentine’s Day being the past week, love seems to be on everyone’s mind. And as a romance author, love is on my mind all year round. For those of you with sweethearts, do you do anything special for Valentine’s Day? My father always gets my mom a special card and her favorite box […]
A Different Date
Just over twenty-four years ago, I was a freshman in college. I had taken my huge art project (because I started as an art major) out to the dorm lobby for company and because I could spread out on one of the tables. It was shortly before Christmas and we were all ready for finals […]
Real Life Tropes
It’s the love month and my romance loving heart is full. I love seeing people talk about love, how couples met, and of course reading about love. Today I thought I’d merge the talk of real-life love with books I’ve written, but trope style. You see when the huge craze on Insta was going around […]
How “real life” can influence a story
Do you ever wonder where authors get their ideas? Whether it is my own life, the lives of those around me, or other forms of story, art, and musice — we find inspiration in lots of places! For my recent CCR release The One Who Promised Forever, it was really heavily inspired by real life […]
So I Married a Romance Author
For the last few years, I have become passionate about not only writing about romance, but also making sure people realize it exists outside of books and movies too. Including in marriages. Maybe that’s why BOTH of my stories releasing this year are about a couple on the brink of divorce having to remember why […]
Story Inspiration: The real rodeo cowboy who inspired the book
In the summer of 2022, I created a side character… (in the book Blind Date with a Hero), Jason Keen was Jared’s wayward brother, a rough-and-tumble rodeo cowboy living in Western Colorado. I named him Jason in honor of my own cousin, Jason — the toughest cowboy I know. He’s fifteen or so years older […]
Nerds and the Creatives They Love
It’s my 17th wedding anniversary tomorrow, which of course is making me think about my own personal love story. 🥰 I’ve enjoyed seeing some of my favorite romance writers put together graphics about their real-life romance tropes, so I put one together for you! When I did it, though, I realized that my story isn’t […]
Love in Fiction
I’m sure we’ve all seen the memes about how certain movies or stories gave us unrealistic expectations for love. I laugh at them and can sometimes agree. Some things are unrealistic. But then this year my parents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary and I heard from so many others who are about to hit 60 […]
Better For It
I was thinking this week about memories – specifically relationship memories. When my son turned one, and I realized I was expected to buy him birthday gifts a mere two weeks after his grandparents and great-grandparents (and, yeah, maybe his parents, too) had spoiled him at Christmas, I realized I needed a plan. So we […]
Love in the Everyday Moments
My husband and I celebrated our 23rd wedding anniversary a couple of weeks ago. And to mark the occasion we…spent the day at home with our kids. Which, on the surface, might seem like a pretty boring way for a romance writer to spend her anniversary. But I would argue that it’s not! Because as […]