Autistic characters have become more common in recent years as the condition has risen to the forefront of national discussions, with depictions ranging from strikingly accurate to unfortunately reductive. Romance author Kari Lynn Dell’s new book, Tougher in Texas, became a space to exorcise her very personal fears about perceptions of autism.

In many ways the hero of my new book, Tougher in Texas, is my worst nightmare.

Cole Jacobs is high-functioning autistic, in the range of the spectrum labeled as Asperger’s. So is my son. They share a lot of character traits, the most pronounced being difficulty interacting with other humans. In other words, they suck at small talk.

The difference between them is timing.

Logan’s kindergarten teacher immediately recognized that he was not neurotypical, which triggered a series of observations and screenings. All aspects of his school experience have been guided by an Individual Education Plan, right down to aides that observe and guide him on the playground. Legally speaking, if there’s a problem, the school is obligated to adapt to him, not vice versa.

Cole wasn’t so lucky. He wasn’t diagnosed until the age of thirty and suffered through thirteen years of education as that weird kid who doesn’t listen.

When I sat down to write Cole, I imagined what might have happened if my son had been born a decade or two sooner, before his condition would have been identified. But I also projected my fears for a critical point in Logan’s life—when he suddenly grasps that he’s not like other kids.

Psychologists have warned us that this is most likely to coincide with his first crush. Our job is be sure he doesn’t get crushed, at least not permanently like in Cole’s case. As an adult, Cole is the epitome of the strong silent type, but he confesses it hasn’t always been the case:

He ran his thumb back and forth along the edge of the table, the repetitive, tactile sensation grounding him. “People assume because I don’t say much, I don’t want anyone else to talk. But I like to listen.”

“As long as you don’t have to answer?”

“Depends. Ask me about feed supplements, I can go on all day.”

She laughed in patent disbelief. “That I would have to hear.”

“I used to talk a lot.” He pressed the pad of his thumb harder into the edge of the table.

Shawnee turned, a plate in each hand. “And then?”

“I got old enough to figure out I was doing it wrong.”

Right now, we are focusing on Logan’s autistic gifts. Because yes, along with the negatives we hear so much about, being on the spectrum can endow amazing benefits. My son is the happiest kid I know. Luckily, he suffers from little of the anxiety that can be debilitating for many with autism. He loves hugs. He can memorize reams of cartoon dialogue, poems and songs and play them back, mimicking any accent spot on.

Best of all—he could truly care less if anyone thinks he’s cool. In the toxic world of adolescence, that is a superpower. If only it would last through high school. Or ever better, adulthood.

And as the psychologist pointed out, what is a detriment in the education system often becomes an advantage later in life. Cole’s autism makes him compulsive about schedules and routines, which can be annoying, but also helps his rodeos tick along like clockwork. His obsession with every tiny detail pertaining to the care and management of his bucking horses and bulls ensures their safety and optimum performance. When he’s forced to also look after the human herd that makes up the Jacobs Livestock crew he tends to them in the same way.

Is it his fault that some people—yeah, we’re looking at you, Shawnee—don’t respond well to being micro-managed?

My son has also given me the gift of understanding—and forgiveness. I can now look at my dad’s side of the family and see that several people, including myself, exist either in or just outside of that same range of the spectrum. (Yes, in our case autism is at least partially inherited. In general, autism has been proven over and over again to be genetic in nature and unrelated to childhood vaccinations). I get why my grandmother gave every one of us a copy of Miss Manners’ Guide to Excruciatingly Good Behavior for Christmas (which is actually a very entertaining read, by the way, with the author often digressing into expertly applied snark). For a woman whose routines were so ingrained she was upset for days after I parked on the wrong side of her bank and forced her to walk in the opposite door from her usual, etiquette was a predictable set of rules to guide my grandmother through otherwise painful social interactions—her version of Cole’s precious schedules.

Discovering all of this has helped me accept what I have always considered to be personal shortcomings. Turns out I just wasn’t designed to be that woman who still has deep connections to her high school girlfriends. I don’t bond easily and maintaining relationships will always be a low priority—not because I’m cold or self-centered, as I assumed—but because I am neurologically wired in a way that I don’t crave those connections beyond a select few, mostly family.

I’m pretty good with casual friendships, I’m your girl if you need someone to jump in and impose order during a crisis, but I barely even remember my own anniversary, let alone your birthday. I can, however, keep most of a four-hundred-page book organized inside my head.

And you know what? That’s a trade-off I’m more than happy to make, and I pray that eventually my son will find his special niche, too.

Kari Lynn Dell is a third generation cowgirl, horse trainer and rodeo competitor as well as the 2013 Canadian Senior Pro Rodeo Association Breakaway Roping Champion. She is also a humor columnist for several regional newspapers and a national agricultural publication. You can follow her on Twitter @kidell or visit her website at www.karilynndell.com.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our review of Tougher in Texas.

Helen Hoang’s The Kiss Quotient is one of the most buzzed-about romances of the summer. “A unicorn . . . magical and one of a kind,” according to our reviewer, Hoang’s debut follows an autistic woman named Stella as she attempts to learn about love and dating by hiring a male escort. Through her research, Hoang discovered that not only were autistic women frequently undiagnosed, but that she was herself one of them.

Many months before I even conceptualized The Kiss Quotient, I had this feeling that I needed to try something new with my writing. I needed a change. But I didn’t know what that change was. I thought I might try writing in a new romance subgenre. (I’d been writing mainly fantasy romance.) Sci-fi maybe. Or historical in an uncommon locale and timeframe. Something new. Something wild. Maybe something taboo.

At my friend’s recommendation, I read an anthropological piece called Nightwork on hostess clubs in Tokyo and, as my friend expected, was fascinated. It made me want to write about a character in a similar profession, which naturally brought to mind Pretty Woman. The idea of flipping the genders of the characters captivated me, but I couldn’t figure out why a beautiful, successful woman would hire a male escort. The question lingered in the back of my mind as I went on with my life.

When my daughter’s preschool teacher suggested she was on the spectrum, I was completely shocked. She’s a handful, but she didn’t fit my preconceptions of autism. I did some research, and my findings weren’t in line with my girl’s traits. To be thorough, I asked my family and her pediatrician for their opinions, and their unanimous response was no, she wasn’t autistic. They had to be right, and I let it go. Mostly.

One trait from my cursory research lingered in my mind: trouble with social skills. That was something I could empathize with—and a compelling reason to hire an escort. (Yes, everything revolves around writing/stories for me.) What if the heroine in my gender-swapped Pretty Woman was autistic like my daughter wasn’t?

I began to research in earnest and found myself reading Rudy Simone’s Aspergirls, where I stumbled upon an interesting finding: There’s a major difference in the way autism is perceived between men and women. What I’d previously read described autistic men, but many autistic women, for a variety of reasons, mask their awkwardness and hide their autistic traits so they don’t draw notice. Even our obsessions/interests are generally tailored to be socially acceptable. Because of this, women often go undiagnosed or are diagnosed late in life, frequently after their own children receive diagnoses. Women with Asperger’s exist in what people call “the invisible part of the spectrum.”

As I read Aspergirls, I looked back at my own past and recalled so many things: difficulty with relationships and intimacy, all-consuming interests, social awkwardness, routines, repetitive motions, etc. What started as mere research for a book became a journey of self-realization. The woman I was reading about was me. And possibly my daughter. She was also Stella, The Kiss Quotient’s autistic heroine.

Through Stella and this book, I explored and embraced parts of myself that I’d never understood and always tried to hide, and this freedom translated into better writing. I stopped emulating other writers and found my own unique writer’s voice. Not only that, but the book became a therapy of sorts. I gave Stella my fears and insecurities, and she confronted them for me. Her “fresh and fabulous” regimen is basically how I lived my life prior to diagnosis (which I obtained while I wrote this book), and having her see the foolishness of her ways and accept herself was self-affirming for me. In early drafts of the book, Stella "came out" as autistic to the book’s hero, Michael, at the end. Even as I wrote those lines of dialogue, I knew I was practicing what I'd say to my own loved ones, and it gave me courage.

The inspiration for Michael came from my family. Well, and pictures of beautiful Daniel Henney. But mostly my family, and that made him deeply personal to me as well. I gave him my culture and mixed heritage, and his family members are close depictions of mine, particularly his grandma and mom. His struggle to balance his own desires with the needs of his loved ones is something I know intimately, though I’m not as heroic as I think he is.

By the time I finished writing this book, I felt like Stella, Michael and I had all grown together. The main conflict—a woman falling for her escort—isn’t something I’ve experienced, but the inspirations for the characters’ individual growth arcs were close and personal. If The Kiss Quotient resonates with readers, I think this is why.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our review of The Kiss Quotient.

Author photo by Eric Kieu.

Rochelle Alers has been a mainstay of the romance genre for decades. But unlike many of her fellow authors, Alers’ books consistently feature characters that are older than your average 20-something hero and heroine. The youngest couple in her latest series is in their mid-30s, which is still on the older end of the spectrum when it comes to romance (yes, really). Alers’ new book, Room Service, follows interior designer Jasmine Washington and banker Cameron Singleton as they connect in New Orleans at a luxury inn owned by Jasmine’s friend. Both are in their 40s, both are successful in their careers and both are set in their ways. Here, Alers tells us why that’s a perfect formula for a romance.

I began reading romances more than four decades ago, and now that I am celebrating 30 years as a published author, I want to interact with characters that reflect who I am and my outlook on life. And there are also many readers who agree with me because whenever I am invited to speak at book clubs, the majority of the members are over 40 and complain as to the dearth of characters representing their ages.

Other than completing a manuscript, my utmost excitement comes from developing a mature heroine who will find love for the first time, or one that is divorced and although she is not looking to marry again, she is unable to resist the man offering her more than she could have ever imagined. And then there is the widow or empty-nester who is planning the next phase of her life and isn’t looking for love but is pleasantly surprised when that man she never would’ve expected comes along to change not only her but also her future.

Given their life experience, they are more mature, secure and not apt to play head games. They may have experienced sadness or disappointment—some are even unwilling to entertain the possibility of a commitment. This doesn’t mean they don’t love each other, but it attests to their experience. Been there, done that.

As a Baby Boomer and someone who has been given a second chance at love after more than 20 years of marriage, I know firsthand how important it is to celebrate mature characters of a certain age who are able to have their happily ever after. Love isn’t an emotion designated to a particular age group, but to anyone open to accepting it. I don’t believe there is an ideal age in which to fall in love, and because of this belief, I use this theme in the Innkeepers series. In The Inheritance the couple is in their late-50s, 50s in Breakfast in Bed, 40s in Room Service and mid-30s in the upcoming The Bridal Suite. The heroines in this series are also independent, financially solvent and after undergoing some or many unforeseen occurrences they not only survive but also thrive.

Today’s modern woman is afforded more choices and opportunities than from those in past generations, and readers want to read about older heroines whose lives closely resemble theirs. Perhaps it is because I am a mature woman and writer that it is easier for me to depict them in my novels than instead of writing about 20 and 30-somethings. Although I do write about younger heroines in my category romances, I plan to continue to feature older heroines in my women’s fiction for the duration of my writing career.

When people find out that I wrote a book that takes place in the world of the NFL, the first thing they always ask is, “So this is about your life, right?” To which I answer with a strong and emphatic, “No, no, not even remotely close at all.” So I figure, since I’m here, I should take this opportunity to clear up any questions on what’s real and what is totally “The Hills”-level exaggerated.

Honestly, when I sat down at my computer and decided to give writing a go, I very vividly remember thinking there was no way I would ever write a sports romance. Don’t get me wrong, I loved reading them, but the books I read about football were missing a lot of the things I was actually experiencing as an athlete’s wife. The NFL sounds pretty glamorous without the players getting cut and concussions. But I guess, in the words of the great Justin Bieber (with a cameo by the equally great Jayden Smith), “Never say never.”

When I started writing Intercepted, I knew there were certain experiences that had to be told. I knew if I went ahead and wrote the sports romance I wanted to write, there would be elements of truth alongside all of the drama I had a blast creating. Lucky for me, my husband played in the NFL for eight years, so I had a lot of inspiration to draw on.

First things first, the women I met while my husband was playing in the NFL are nothing like the “wicked wives” from my book. I was 19 when I moved to Baltimore with my now husband. I was not a wife—I wasn’t even a fiancée. I mean, I couldn’t even drink yet! But unlike the women in my book, the women I met in real life were nothing short of amazing. They took me in like I was their little sister, inviting me to dinners and movies, to their houses to watch the games when the guys were away. They showed me the kind of woman I wanted to become. Their loyalty knew no bounds, and their kindness wasn’t something they ever hesitated in showing.

I still remember the time right after my husband was traded from Baltimore to Green Bay. I was 37 weeks pregnant, and we had an 18-month-old as well. Some of the other wives and I all had babies right around the same time, and we signed up for the same mommy-and-me class. My husband was gone, and when I mentioned I needed to go grocery shopping, my friend, who is still one of my close friends today, met me at my elevator-free apartment and carried all of my groceries up four flights of stairs for me.

Those are the NFL wives that I know.

There really was a wives’ group. We met up and discussed community outreach we wanted to participate in. Sadly, though, there were no margaritas or glitter gavels involved. We did, however, have matching vests, and I still have mine tucked away in my closet.

Also in my book, the players all live in the same community of mansions. This is true. Except instead of mansions, the majority of the team lived in the same neighborhood of moderately priced homes and apartment complexes. Have you ever heard the saying that NFL stands for Not For Long? Well, that saying is accurate AF. And the vast majority of the team aren’t making millions of dollars and won’t invest in a house that they might not last a year—or even a month—in.

The one part of Intercepted I really tried to keep as close to reality as I could were the injuries. I met my husband in high school. I watched him play high school, college and professional football, and I can tell you that watching him get hit never got easier. Hearing the crack of helmets—even above the voracious roar of the crowd—would make my stomach turn. There’s a helplessness and a loneliness that can’t properly be described. You watch the person you love get hit repeatedly with so much force it can be compared to getting in multiple car accidents. There would be times when I would meet some of my friends to watch the games together, and their husband would get injured. The deafening silence that would take over the room as we’d crowd her, turning up the TV and waiting for the announcer to give us news or, even worse, see him give a thumbs-up from a stretcher carting him off of the field. Knowing that your significant other’s safety and your financial stability could end with one hit made the games more of a chore than anything else at times.

Sorry.

That got a little dark, didn’t it?

Don’t worry, I know how to lighten it up. . . . Crystals!

There are a lot of references to glitter, crystals and margaritas in my book. Part of this is because that is exactly what I imagine my fantasy life to solely consist of, and the other part is because crystals are one of my favorite WAGS (wives and girlfriends) memories. The first time I saw an altered jersey was when my friend wore one to the game. She cut out lace to go over the numbers and adhered it with a hot glue gun and a buttload (technical measurement) of crystals. It was glorious. It was the kind of DIY I knew I was always destined for, but didn’t even know existed. And once my eyes were open to this fabulous, over-the-top way to show support, I couldn’t look away. That’s how I found Leah Miller, aka the Diamond Duchess. I wish the descriptions I have in my book did even a fraction of justice to the masterpieces she creates, but if you have time and you need a rabbit hole to fall down during your next venture on the internet, I highly suggest you look her up.

Being an NFL wife was a wild journey for me. I’d be lying if I told you it was all roses or that I haven’t had moments where I resented all it stood for. But at the end of the day, I don’t regret a single second of it. I have met wonderful women, traveled the country and watched my husband live out his dream. I know how lucky I am to have the perspective I have been given. I just hope that now I can pass it along and give readers a new and exciting way to experience the crazy world of sports.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our review of Intercepted.

Every romance reader’s fantasy comes to life in Jenn McKinlay’s The Good Ones, and no, we’re not talking about the very handsome cowboy on the cover. Heroine Maisy Kelly has inherited a gorgeous old Victorian home, which she intends to convert into a romance-only bookstore. Aforementioned handsome cowboy is Ryder Copeland, the architect Maisy hires to help her achieve her dream. The adorable, smart and refreshingly lighthearted romance that follows is as much a love story to the characters as it is an ode to the genre itself. Here, McKinlay shares how she crafted her clever new romance.

Have you ever held up a mirror to a mirror and seen the infinite scroll of images of yourself holding a mirror reflected within? Yeah, I love that. It totally bends my brain in a different direction, sort of like when I try to grasp quantum physics. I get it for like a nanosecond and then it’s gone, but that nanosecond is super cool. Writing The Good Ones was a bit like holding up that mirror.

The opening scene of the book finds our heroine, Maisy Kelly, reading one of her favorite romances. A knock on the door interrupts her binge read, and she is understandably disgruntled to leave Jake Sinclair, her fictional boyfriend, to go answer the door. After all, the book cover shows Jake in jeans, a white t-shirt and a cowboy hat, sitting on a picnic table in the middle of a field. What woman would want to leave that to answer her door? But Maisy does answer and standing there is a man in jeans, a white T-shirt and, you guessed it, a cowboy hat. It’s Ryder Copeland, the restoration architect she’s hired to refurbish the house she’s inherited into a romance bookstore. Maisy is undone by the coincidence. Now take a peek at the cover of The Good Ones. Yep, just like holding a mirror up to a mirror, it goes on and on and on.

Needless to say, I had great fun with all of the meta aspects of writing The Good Ones. And unexpectedly, the process of writing the book gave me the opportunity to think about the genre I love from a completely different perspective. As I began thinking about all of the authors and the books that had shaped my love of romance over the years, I found the book becoming even bigger than I had anticipated. The Good Ones became, as a reviewer from Booklist stated, “A beautifully written love letter to the romance genre from someone who understands just how important these books are to their readers.” Until I wrote about Maisy and Ryder, I don’t think I appreciated how much romance novels had shaped my life.

It also gave me the opportunity to give a nod to a lot of my favorite authors, starting with Jane Austen. The recovering librarian in me truly enjoyed that. Because my personal life does pop up in my books in one way or another, I had to include a subplot about the days-old kitten, King George, that my family rescued while I was writing the first draft of the book. And, naturally, having written the Bluff Point romance series previously, that had to be slipped in as an Easter egg, too, by having Ryder mention the hero of one of those books as his friend but also having Maisy recommend the books to a customer in her romance bookshop. Truly, there were so many elements to play with while writing The Good Ones—it was an embarrassment of riches.

Of course, when you read fiction, you’re required to suspend your disbelief. It’s on the writer to make you do so. I knew while I was writing The Good Ones that many of the meta elements I had included, such as the guy on the cover of the book Maisy is reading looking just like the cover of the actual book, would either pull my readers out or tuck them more deeply into the story. It is my hope that these references were another level of entertainment, like being taught a secret handshake, and that they acted like markers on a trail to help the reader find their way back out once the story was done. The Good Ones was a hoot to write and I’m happy to say that the fun continues at the Happily Ever After bookstore in The Christmas Keeper, coming October 2019!

Even nonromance readers could probably define the term “alpha male.” The much-debated, much-loved character archetype is precisely what it sounds like it is—a man among men, in control and in charge. But in the charming new romance Puppy Love, author Lucy Gilmore deconstructs the archetype almost immediately, starting when her intimidating, taciturn firefighter Harrison Parks is given his new diabetic service dog: a tiny, adorable Pomeranian named Bubbles. Gilmore explains how she found the gooey center of her supposedly tough-guy hero.

In romance novels, the alpha male is king. Literally.

Granted, there aren’t too many novels out there that deal directly with the royal succession, but alpha heroes have always been and always will be the leaders of their particular fields. They’re top lawyers and powerful CEOs. They run motorcycle gangs and head up mafias. They’re the warriors who win the most battles and the shapeshifters who lead the pack.

There’s a lot to be said in favor of this type of hero. A man who takes command—in his profession, in his personal life and, yes, in the bedroom—appeals to the modern reader on many levels. Others have delved into the study of this far better and more thoroughly than I can, but suffice it to say that there’s a reason why we turn, time and time again, to the Lothaires and lotharios of the world.

In Puppy Love, Harrison Parks fits almost all the characteristics of the alpha male hero. He’s excellent at his job as a wildland firefighter, where he leads teams of people and puts himself at extreme risk to save lives. He’s uncompromising when it comes to his personal life, particularly regarding who he allows to be a part of it. And in the opening scene, he’s standing in the middle of a dog kennel, determined to go home with the biggest, baddest Great Dane puppy he can find.

That’s where all resemblances to the traditional alpha male end. One of my favorite things as an author is to take a beloved romance stereotype and give it a twist. It would have been very easy for Harrison to do all those things that the setup warrants: to demonstrate his intelligence and bravery in the field, to participate in a social life where he’s in control and to adopt a 150-pound canine companion. However, none of this happens in the book. In fact, he’s faced with the exact opposite. He’s forced to take a sabbatical from work until he gets a diabetic service dog. He’s overwhelmingly out of his depth when it comes to both romantic and familial relationships. And instead of the Great Dane of his dreams, he’s given a tiny, skittish Pomeranian puppy named Bubbles. (Who, by the way, he’s terrified of accidentally squishing.)

This is the kind of book I love to write. I took a traditional alpha hero and stripped him of all the things that make him top dog. The result is a soft, gooey mess of a man who has no idea what he’s doing—but whose innate drive and strength of character make him determined to figure it out.

To be fair, Harrison didn’t start out like this. The writing process for this series has very much been a collaborative one with my editors at Sourcebooks. (In fact, they chose the puppy for this book long before I started writing it.) I’ve been really fortunate in working with a team who understands what I’m trying to do with this series.

In the case of Puppy Love, the goal was simple: to create a hero who looks like an alpha and talks like an alpha—but who, deep down, is just a tiny and skittish puppy in need of a good home.

The two authors behind the pen name Liza Kendall have been friends for years. But writing a book together is a wholly different endeavor. In this piece, the two women behind Liza Kendall share how they teamed up to write their first romance together, Walk Me Home.

How did two veteran authors used to controlling their own fictional worlds end up writing together?

We had been friends for years and used to go on dog-sitting and writing retreats together, especially since we discovered that we actually wrote—instead of talking, watching movies, shopping or getting up to no good.

Kendall had taken a break from the crazy business of publishing, but was working on a few ideas of her own when she happened to be on a trip to San Francisco, where Liza used to live. Comically, we almost managed to meet in the airport as Kendall was leaving and Liza was returning. The result was a phone call.

Liza had come up with the idea for Silverlake Ranch and the five Braddock siblings. Kendall loved the idea, so we started brainstorming the plots of the first couple of books and developing the characters. We both got excited, and decided to form a partnership so that we could produce the stories more quickly and have fun while doing so.

Then came the first hurdle.

Liza yelled, “Let’s start writing!”

Kendall said, “Not without ten plot points in a three-act structure.”

Liza said, “But you’re supposed to be the wacky creative who studied art. Not an anal-retentive structure nut!”

Kendall said, “Yeah, but I have to rein in my free spirit or it runs around with its hair on fire, doing whatever it wants.”

Liza said, “Okaaay. But why 10 plot points?”

Kendall said, “Dunno. I guess we could have either nine or 12.”

Liza: “But not 11?”

Kendall: “No. Definitely not 11.”

Then came the second hurdle.

For efficiency’s sake, we write in Google Docs, so that we can each see the ongoing draft of the book. At first it was very intimidating to expose our raw work processes to each other. It’s sort of like running around in your underwear with your hair uncombed and only one sock on. But eventually it became amusing to see each other’s cursors on the same page.

Kendall: “Hey, Liza! Had a lot of coffee this morning, huh?”

Liza: “Yeah . . . why?”

Kendall: “Your pink cursor is skipping around like a kid at a birthday party.”

Liza: “Yours is sitting in front of the word ‘the’ as if it’s in jail.”

Kendall: “Yeah. I’m searching my neural networks for a noun.”

Liza: “Good luck with that.”

Then came the third hurdle.

Liza (the one with the business background) paradoxically writes like a free spirit, hopping around in the book, depending on which scene she feels like working on. Kendall (the one with the art background) writes like a buttoned-down business person: chronologically, line editing as she goes. Both were taken aback at the other’s work process. Interesting conversations ensued.

Liza: “Dude, why do you bother line editing before the final draft?”

Kendall: “Because I’m a professor’s kid. The grammar goblins will get me if I don’t. The typo trolls will eat me alive. The comma kamikazes will blow me up.”

Liza: “You realize how demented you sound, right?”

Kendall: “Yes. That doesn’t bother me.”

It can be a little dicey at times as we dance through each other’s scenes to edit and improve them, but we sit on our egos and it usually works out well. Fortunately, any issues that ensue are usually resolved by an official Author Therapy Phone Call. During an ATPC, both Liza and Kendall talk through any writing, plot or characterization problems, air any friendly grievances and sometimes simply agree to disagree and let our editor make a call.

We made a serious pact before starting to write together: The friendship is more important than the business arrangement. We still feel that way . . . and after writing three books so far, we are still fast friends.

We’ve each learned quite a bit from the other. Liza approaches a book with more of a director’s eye and a wide-angle lens. She enjoys building strong emotional arcs and delving into emotional nuance for both individual books and the series as a whole. She also loves writing family and ensemble scenes. Her process is to put the “bones” of a scene on the page and then keep building it.

Kendall has more of an interest in deep psychology and characterization. She’s a more formal writer and approaches a novel intending to explore what exactly makes each character “tick,” what his/her wounds are and how to heal them. Often, she focuses more on the romance than the family. Her process is to dive deep into a scene and produce it more or less completely all at once.

Both of us love humor, banter and dialogue. We’ve enjoyed creating our small town of Silverlake, its unique businesses and the friends who make it home. We can’t wait to introduce readers to the Braddock siblings and their complicated, colorful worlds. Welcome to Silverlake Ranch!

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our review of Walk Me Home.

Sonali Dev’s Recipe for Persuasion updates Jane Austen’s beloved final novel, Persuasion, to the present day, setting the classic second-chance romance amid the high-pressure world San Francisco food scene. Fans of Persuasion almost universally agree that a certain letter by main character Captain Wentworth is among the high points of the novel (if not of Jane Austen’s entire body of work). In this essay, Dev explores how the famous letter gave her hope as a young girl, helping her believe in the power of second chances.

You know that moment when you read something and you know your life is never going to be the same again? Well, imagine a 13-year-old girl reading Jane Austen’s Persuasion and encountering Captain Wentworth’s letter. I’m not sure if I grasped then the full impact it would have on me, but I remember losing sleep, I remember feeling restless, I remember being altered. The way sci-fi films show creatures mutating from one being to another with all the requisite agony. In retrospect, I was obviously experiencing my first book crush, but it was more than that. It was my adolescent self being given permission to believe that making mistakes was not absolute, that letting something you cherish slip from your hands didn’t mean that it was gone forever. The resulting relief and freedom were transformative.

It was my adolescent self being given permission to believe that making mistakes was not absolute, that letting something you cherish slip from your hands didn’t mean that it was gone forever. 

As a young girl growing up in India, I often had this sense that how I felt about things didn’t match the messages the world was giving me. So much of what I was being told came from a place of fear. Risk-aversion, it seemed, was the overriding principle of childrearing. Everything was a zero-sum game. If you didn’t do well at school, didn’t get into the right professional college at 18, then you’d never have another chance at a “valid” career. If you got yourself mixed up with “the wrong kind of boy,” your reputation would be unsalvageable and your marriageability permanently compromised. Essentially, you got one chance at a career and at marriage, and those were the two wheels upon which your life’s cart rolled. It wasn’t entirely unwise, and it was incredibly socially convenient. It was also stunningly restrictive and just plain untrue.

If I didn’t have Captain Wentworth’s letter, I might have found other ways to believe that hope doesn’t end no matter how big your mistakes. I might have found other sources that reinforced my natural faith in the fact that there’s always another shot if you have the courage to take it. Fortunately, I did have the letter, and it taught me that we humans are essentially a bumbling lot who need to make often arduous, misstep-ridden journeys to self-awareness, and that without self-awareness we may never be ready for happiness. It also spurred my lifelong obsession with stories that explore hope and second chances. I might have set out to write Recipe for Persuasion as an homage to Anne Elliot and Fredrick Wentworth’s second chance, but really, it ended up being my homage to that letter. The one Captain Wentworth writes to Anne at the very end, after they’ve both come face-to-face with the strength of their feelings but before they know how to cross the chasm their past has put between them. That letter is what gives them their second chance.

In Recipe for Persuasion, I wasn’t interested in replicating Anne and Wentworth’s journey by way of scenes and plot—Austen did a spectacular job of that already. What I was interested in was taking the raw regret and hope in that letter and exploring it in a contemporary story. I wanted to place Ashna and Rico at that point of youthful weakness where they made mistakes that cost them their happiness, because who hasn’t made mistakes that did that? More importantly, though, I wanted them to make the journey from there to a place of strength where those mistakes could no longer hold them back.

“I am half agony, half hope,” is generally acknowledged as the highlight of the letter, and those words are beautiful. Even more beautiful to me is the part where Wentworth finds the courage to yet again give in to the feelings that once took so much from him, and to own his mistake in running from them. “I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant.” Without this self-awareness, there is no way to let go of the past. And letting go of the past and forgiving yourself for it is the only path to a second chance.

Growing up, when everything was telling me to be perfect from the get-go or lose, these were words that told me that courage, love and constancy won out over bad judgment and that there would always be another chance. Exploring that truth through Ashna and Rico’s story was something I had to do for the 13-year old girl who had felt such hope from reading that letter.

In Farrah Rochon’s new contemporary romance, The Boyfriend Project, three women find out via social media that they’ve all been dating the same man. And while Rochon’s book primarily follows one of them, Samiah, as her pact with the other women to not date for six months is challenged by her incredibly appealing co-worker, Daniel, it also celebrates the friendship between the three women as it blossoms into a powerful and positive bond. In this essay, Rochon explores fictional friendships between women and asks why they don’t play a more central role in romance novels today.

The Joy Luck Club. Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. The Outsiders.

Our collective bookshelves are filled with enduring stories that explore the beauty, refuge and even the heartbreak found in deep, meaningful friendships. These treasured tales remind us that sometimes our strongest ties go beyond blood relatives, and that these bonds can be for life. I can remember as a preteen envying the friendship between Kristy, Claudia, Stacey and the rest of the gang in The Babysitters Club. However, when my reading tastes eventually graduated to more mature books, it became harder to find stories that celebrated close friendships.

I didn’t realize just how much I craved such relationships in my fiction until I read Terry McMillan’s groundbreaking novel Waiting to Exhale. The breadth and richness of the close sisterhood in that book spoke to me on so many levels. Four black women sharing their successes, failures and everything in between was such a beautiful representation of the female relationships I’d witnessed in my own life and the lives of the women in my family. After nearly 30 years, McMillan’s remarkable story of black female friendships continues to reign as the ultimate “girlfriend” book, but thankfully, newcomer Sharina Harris is bringing that flavor to a new generation. Harris’ (Im)Perfectly Happy tells the story of four college friends navigating the joys and pitfalls of relationships, careers and family 10 years after their graduation.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our review of The Boyfriend Project.

The one genre where that bond between girlfriends seems to be lacking is the one that is closest to my heart: romance. Maybe because the genre relies so heavily on the romance between the lead protagonists, authors feel there isn’t enough space on the page to highlight anything more than the spunky best friend who lends sage advice. Don’t get me wrong, there are a number of romances that portray close female friendships. Ledi and Portia in Alyssa Cole’s Reluctant Royals series and Kristen and Sloan from Abby Jimenez’s connected stories The Friend Zone and The Happy Ever After Playlist showcase the type of friendships many of us seek in real life. Interestingly, when it comes to the romance genre, it seems more common to find stories based on male-centered friendships. Suzanne Brockmann’s trailblazing Navy SEALs, Kwana Jackson’s upcoming Men Who Knit series, and Lyssa Kay Adams’ Bromance Book Club series, which features an all-male romance reading book club, all rely on male friendships as their foundation.

When I first came up with the idea for The Boyfriend Project, I knew that I very much wanted it to remain a romance, but the instant friendship that develops between the three women readers meet in the novel’s opening scene was just as central to the story and, in my opinion, deserved equal time. Samiah, Taylor and London each find something that none of them realized they needed: strong friends they could lean on.

Basically, I took a page from my own life.

Back when the internet was still shiny and new, I happened upon a message board for fans of the legendary Judith McNaught. Brought together by a shared love of our favorite author, the friendships born in that little corner of the web have lasted 20 years. Those women changed the course of my life. I would not be a romance writer today without them championing my early writing attempts.

That’s what friendships can do—they can be life-changing. Those who have been blessed with lasting friendships understand the valuable role our they play in our lives. Our friends are the sounding boards, the cheerleaders, the shoulders we cry on. Friendships enrich our world. They deserve a place in our fiction, especially in the romances we read.

Author photo by Tamara Roybiskie.

Minnie Darke’s The Lost Love Song is a winsome and heartwarming love story that follows the brokenhearted Arie after his blazingly talented fiancée, Diana, passes away. A classical pianist, Diana composed a beautiful love song that, after her death, begins to make its way around the world and just might bring hope and light back to Arie’s life. We thought it only fitting to ask Darke which five songs she thinks are the most romantic she’s ever heard.

Can music make you fall in love? Capture the spirit of your own love story? Can it help you stay in love? These songs did the trick for me.

1. In my teens—"Raspberry Beret” by Prince
For me, this boppy tune from the purple pop star is permanently emblematic of my first love affair with a boy who had a car. I only have to hear the opening riff and all of a sudden it’s high summer. The windows are down, there are smudgy toe prints on the windscreen and sand on the red leather of the bench seats. Probably, I’m eating a rainbow Paddle Pop on the way home from the beach. I confess that at this time in my life, I even had a raspberry beret. And if it was warm, I wouldn’t wear much more.

2. In my 20s—"The Ship Song” by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Oh, the sweet angst of being in one’s 20s, and in the turbid depths of a love affair with a tragic, emo art boy with big green eyes. The one I always knew wasn’t quite right for me but couldn’t resist even so. I sailed my ships around him, I burned my bridges down, and Nick Cave sang the soundtrack to the great and terrible pain of an on-again, off-again relationship.

3. In my 30s—"First Day of My Life” by Bright Eyes
This song makes a cameo appearance in The Lost Love Song as the wedding song at Arie’s little sister’s nuptials. It wasn’t released at the time of my own wedding, which happened under a waterfall in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. But, if it had been, I’d definitely have chosen it as my own wedding song because it’s as simple, straightforward and beautiful as the moment in life when you commit yourself utterly to one person. I’m so glad I didn’t die before I met him.

4. In my 40s—"If I Ever Lose My Faith in You” by Sting
I came close to picking Shania Twain’s “You're Still the One” for my 40s, because—I confess—I do sing along to it super loud in the car when it comes on the radio. But the song that really pierces me to the core in this phase of my life is Sting’s “If I Ever Lose My Faith in You.” It’s a song about how true love holds steady, even when every other belief is crumbling, and despite the challenges of our complicated world (politicians who look like game show hosts, miracles of science that turn from blessings to curses). It’s a song that might sound disillusioned if you couldn’t hear the idealistic belief in love beating at its core.

5. In my future—"I Know You by Heart” by Eva Cassidy
Maybe nobody else is masochistic enough to work out in advance what song they would want to listen to if they lost the person they love. But I think I already know that if I’m ever in that situation, I’ll turn to this exquisite autumnal song by Eva Cassidy. I’ll walk with Eva’s soaring vocals down roads of orange and gold, remembering everything that I’ve come to know by heart.