You ever hear the phrase: “it’s a thin line between love and hate”? I’m pretty sure it comes from a song (at least that’s what’s in my head now) but it’s something that I see often in one of my favorite book tropes, enemies-to more (aka enemies-to-lovers). I like to find out why two people […]
Widows and Widowers in CCR
I’ve been doing a lot of work on a side project lately that has involved examining some of the common characters in romance (cowboys, billionaires, athletes, law enforcement, etc). One of the characters that I have been spending some time studying recently is Widows and Widowers. I love these stories, but I only recently understood […]
The Fourth Annual Inspy Valentine’s Awards
If you’re here, I know two things about you: 1) you love to read, and 2) you love love. And when you put those two things together, you get the Fourth Annual Inspy Valentine’s Awards. I founded (read: made up) these awards a few years ago as a way to share some fun glimpses into […]
A Study in Contrast (plus #FreeBook)
Do you like to read stories with contrasting characters? I love writing such novels. Night and day. Hot and cold. Dark and light. Up and down. Positive and negative. Rich and poor. I find it fascinating that opposites do sometimes attract, when clearly the two people just couldn’t possibly get along. Or could they? Love […]
The Secret Trope
I know we’ve talked about tropes together before. There are many tropes romance writers use-and the fun part is if you give twenty romance writers one trope you’ll end up with twenty very different stories. I’ve been doing a lot of reading (and writing) lately and have come upon a portion of a trope […]
But Who Said No?
Romance tropes are something we all love to hate, right? On the one hand, if someone tells you the story they just read is a fake relationship romance, you know what to expect. If you love that angst, you’ll probably be intrigued and want to know more. But, if you find fake relationships too weird […]
It’s a Reader Thing
When I first started writing, I had never really considered words like tropes or story arc. As a reader, I read what I enjoyed and didn’t consider the structure behind the story. That all changed when I began bringing my own stories to life and I learned–boy did I learn–that there was so much involved […]
Why I Wrote a Pregnant Heroine
For next year’s Christmas novella, I wrote a pregnant heroine. I didn’t know if this would be allowed at first, so I asked my editor. Me: Can I have a pregnant heroine? Her: How did she get pregnant? Me: Yada, yada, yada… She clarified that she knew HOW my character got pregnant, but she needed […]
Modern Biblical Retellings
Do you have a favorite story in the Bible? How about a favorite fictional retelling of that Bible story? Retellings are a pretty popular trope, although you’ll usually see them as fairy tale retellings. However, within Christian fiction, we have some books that are Bible story retellings. More so in a historical setting (I’m sure […]
Runaway Brides or Jilted Brides?
Which do you prefer to read about, brides with cold feet? Or their grooms standing them up? As I was planning out my Cavanagh Cowboys Romance series, I knew the fifth novel would be either a runaway or jilted bride… but it took me a while to decide which! Noah Cavanagh had previously been cast […]