Confessions of a Romance Author: Loving in 2013

AND THE WINNER IS....

Laurie!

Thank you everyone who commented!


It's been too long since I last confessed...

I'm going to be honest. It never really crossed my mind to write MC or IR romances. Let me rephrase, I never really thought of my books as IR/MC romance until it came time to market them. It has a lot to do with I grew up mainly in CA. For the most part it's one big ol' melting pot of folks of differences, backgrounds and lifestyles. I wrote what I saw. The things that shaped me, the things that shaped my family members. I took from the books I loved and read and tried to write the same kind of stories. That lasted until I found my own voice through humor.

So, for the most part, none of these things had anything to do with race. It was a non-issue unless we were smacked in the face with the differences. I'd always walk away from those situations knowing it was an injustice and the other person was pretty much clueless Jim Crow and such laws had happened eons ago.

Mind you, I was nineteen when I first started to write and I can attest it's a completely different generation. And then I spent two years of my life studying the law. I fell in love with employment law. Surprise, surprise majority of the cases revolved around discrimination in some form or fashion. Very little involved an employer just not following their own procedures.

So...why, when I'm keenly aware race and racism do I choose to make it a non-issue in my romances? My answer is simple: I write contemporary romances. My characters are of many shades of color. The prevailing problem is that they've made mistakes in their life that they need to recover from. Who hasn't? People of color don't love differently. Interracial couples don't love differently. Their family, friends, and mistakes they've made are what I'm interested in. I choose to write romance first and last. If someone makes a different chose I don't begrudge them. That in and of itself is the freedom we've fought for. To be who we want to be with. Do what we want to do. It's an honor and privilege to be able to write a romance where the hero is white and the heroine is black, or vice versa, and race is a non-issue.

Plus, I'd rather have my heroine too distracted with his humor and rock hard abs to dwell on much else. Folks, really, it's the little things that make me happy.

To find out more about me and the books I write you can check out this blog or my website and Facebook page:

Website

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Hey, wait! Don't click out yet. There's also a giveaway. I'm leaving the choice up to you. You can win my latest release, Bad Boy Next Door (Bad Boy Shorts series), or one of the books in my Modern Fairy Tale series, Double Dare or Twice Smitten. Leave a comment with your email addy to win.

Check out the next blog hop author KoboBrown for another chance to win.

Blurb for Bad Boy Next Door:

After a lifetime of dating too many Mr. Nice Guys, Penelope Copeland is ready to shed her good girl persona. She's looking for a little adventure, with a sprinkle of fun and whole lot of naughty. Unfortunately, most bad boys won’t give her the time of day. They only see her as a sweet kindergarten teacher. Now, all she has to do is convince Ryan Pollard, her self-proclaimed bad-boy neighbor, that she's not as sweet as she looks.

Ryan Pollard is not one to follow conventional rules. His job as a crime reporter doesn't leave him with much use for them. Yet, he's managed to keep his relationship with Penelope platonic with just a hint of flirtation—until tonight. She says she wants an adventure, a walk on the dark side, and he's more than eager to give her one.

When their adventure takes a turn from playful to serious, Ryan and Penelope must choose between pretending the night never happened or embarking on the greatest adventure of all—love.

Excerpt

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