Kyra opened the fridge, got a beer, and popped the top, unthinkingly taking a deep drink while she pondered her neighbor. Really, had she thanked him enough for the new hinge? Sure, she’d said thanks, but she really ought to thank him. Okay, she was not going to do that—she was not going to find an excuse to go over there and bother that man. Or was she? Because it wasn’t the worst thing to be neighborly and say thank you. Enough. She’d already sort of said thank you, and to say thank you now would be . . . flirty. Yep, flirty. And she was not the flirty type, even though Deenie had urged her to be more flirty. “You have to at least try,” she’d said one afternoon at the bistro when an older guy who smelled like cigars and sweat was hitting on Kyra. “You’ll make better tips. And are you really going to wait until you’re, like, forty before you date again? Because that’s too late. You’re practically done by then.” Forty did sound a little too late to reenter the dating scene. Ruby would be eighteen when Kyra was forty. Kyra could well imagine…

Everyone loves a great second-chance romance, right? Two lovers finding each other again. The idea that love conquers all. The romance of never getting over The One and having a chance to make it all right again. But there are challenges to writing these stories too and that made After You one of the harder Sapphire Falls books to write. Here are some reasons why J Someone was probably a jerk. Sometimes break-ups are amicable and people just grow apart and both admit it. But not usually. Usually someone does something that hurts or upsets the other. Which is real life. We all screw up and make mistakes. But when it’s characters in a book, the writer has to be careful so that readers don’t hate the character from the very beginning. They have to have understandable, and forgivable, reasons for the break-up.   They’re not always going to be happy to see one another. Obviously, in a romance, the characters have to spend time together in order to work through everything and figure out how they feel about one another. But they’re probably not going to be that happy to see each other at first. It’s a tough balance…

We all know the trends in romance fiction wax and wane, seemingly without logic or pattern. One day it’s all about the sexy vampires and military men, the next it’s motorcycle clubs, mixed martial artists, and bear shifters. It’s a tough genre to keep up with, given that it’s rich in tropes and archetypes, many of which fall in and out of favor at the apparent blink of an eye. For those of us who write romance, it can be a tough decision to make—what to write next? Will my fans support a switch of sub-genres? A new series? Do they want more of the same, since they’re invested in my existing characters and plots already? I tend to stick with subgenres, settings, and plot turns that I enjoy reading. I have been advised time and again NOT to do this. I should “follow the market” and write whatever it is people are paying money to read “these days.” The way I see it though, the “these days” trends change so fast, given how easy it is for anyone to write and toss a book up onto a retailer’s platform, then spend as much money as they have at their…

My favorite books of all time are the Betsy-Tacy series by Maud Hart Lovelace. They follow three young girls, who become friends at about six-years-old, through high school and into adulthood. They’re set in a small town in Minnesota—hi, just like ARTIFICIAL SWEETHEARTS!—and take place at the turn of the twentieth century—not like ARTIFICIAL SWEETHEARTS. There are ten main Betsy-Tacy books, in which Betsy Ray is the central character, but then there are three satellite books, one-off stories that follow some of the more peripheral characters in the world of Deep Valley. One of these books is Carney’s House Party. Now, I didn’t read Carney’s House Party back when I was a kid. I read the book probably about fifteen years ago, and I LOVED it. Most of all, I loved Sam, the guy who falls for Carney. I fell for Sam. Hard. He was smart, funny, and easy-going, the perfect foil for rigid Carney, who was dead-set on staying with her high school boyfriend. Oh, honey. My kernel of inspiration for ARTIFICIAL SWEETHEARTS came from that book, hence Sam and hence Tinka, whose nickname comes from her family, just like Carney’s. The spark of an idea went like this:…

As a bridesmaid, there are potentially thousands of things the bride could ask a person to do, but one reigns supreme: Make sure the bride makes it down the aisle. So what happens if she doesn’t? It’s a question asked in FINDING LOVE AT THE OREGON COAST. Christina is preparing on the morning of her wedding with her bridesmaids (Liz, Anabeth, and Kadence) when she realizes some differences are too much to overcome in a relationship. No I do. No happy celebration afterwards. Instead, there are mounds of presents to return, a party with no bride and groom, and four young women left a little more disillusioned than they had been hours before. Oh, and one honeymoon trip that winds up being a solo venture. Thank goodness I haven’t shared Oregon Coast Christina’s plotline in my own life. I’ve had the pleasure of being a bridesmaid twice. The first time was for my lifelong bestie Tammy, who I’ve known since we were toddling around before kindergarten. The second time was for another lifelong bestie, Cindy (she had no choice, being my kid sister and all). Somewhere in between, they both were bridesmaids at my wedding. Everyone made it down the…