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 […]
Baby Love
A couple of years ago I wrote a series of books (starting with six and ending with nine) set in fictional Serendipity, Texas called Cowboy Country. The series premise was all about cowboys and babies—lots of babies. So, when I went to plan out my next six-book series, I shied away from babies, at least […]
Leaving the Friendzone
My next book, The Billionaire’s Best Friend, will release on June 17th. Last time I blogged, I mentioned some of the more challenging (at least to me) parts of the friends-to-more or friends-to-love trope. This time, I thought it would be fun to visit some of my favorite CCR that has the friends-to-more trope. Because […]
Weddings, Weddings, Weddings
It’s the month of June and officially wedding season. Don’t believe me, just look and see how many of your Facebook friends start posting their wedding (or anniversary) photos, informing people how many years they’ve been married. In fact, my anniversary was on the 3rd (celebrated 17!). So I thought it would be fun to talk […]