Romance and the Big Bang
Theory
It’s unlikely to be news to anyone with a pulse that the romance genre dominates the book market place. Every year thousands of romance novels are released. And out there waiting for them are more than twenty-nine million romance readers worldwide.
With thousands of romance novels flooding the market each year it’s easy to understand why critics of the genre might blankly claim that they’re all following the same recipe.
I’m glad those critics are wrong.
Romance novels today are as varied and fresh as they’ve ever been. It’s as if the collective imagination of their authors is like the creative big bang, continually expanding in all directions to find new ways to tell stories.
Not that every romance plot is the literary incarnation of the big bang. Some romance novels are very mellow and close-to-home when it comes to conflict. But in my experience, that’s unusual. Most romance authors will go to the ends of the universe to explore the mystery around human spirits colliding in a blaze of conflict and then falling in love.
I began writing romance novels because I wanted to write love stories that were born out of that kind of conflict – the kind of conflict that lies explosively deep within a character’s belief systems, their values, even their sense of who they are. I really wanted to know, for example, why a girl would stay engaged to a man who would never allow her to reach her full potential (Alex in Falling for the Lawyer).
I wanted to know why a man would have a whirlwind love affair within weeks of his beloved wife’s death (Adam in Adam’s Boys).
I wanted to know why a man who could have absolutely anything he wanted would deny himself the one woman he does want (Justin in New Year’s Promise).
When I started writing my fourth novel I didn’t even stop to contemplate a cushy conflict that would put happily ever after in the sure-thing bag from page one. Once again, my “what-if these two conflicted spirits collided and fell in love” question was buzzing around inside my head like a persistent mosquito.
What if Harry Halligan, a thirty-something, high-profile artist believed, for the sake of his children, that he must reconcile with his estranged wife and bring her home? What if he hired a twenty-three year old nanny, Somer, to fix his messed-up, out-of-control life so that he could achieve just that? What if Somer became convinced that the only way she could face her own past was to make sure her boss’s dream of marriage reconciliation came true? What if…
‘It’s for other reasons that I won’t need a nanny beyond a month.’
Twenty-three year old nanny Somer Sullivan has never had a job quite like this one: fix the messed-up, out-of-control life of high-profile artist and thirty-something dad Harry Halligan. But Somer is organised, efficient and not afraid of a challenge.She will do everything Harry needs her to do, including bringing his ex-wife home for good.
‘One month, Harry, and I’ll be out of here.’
Harry Halligan doesn’t want a nanny, but he needs one—he needs Somer. She’s the only one who can reach his troubled daughter, who can bring some measure of peace to his home. But as Somer advances her mission to fix his life, a few things become clear: his ex-wife might not be the answer, and Somer just might be. But Somer is running like hell from something in her own life and hiding in his.
Only one thing is for sure. Harry now has less than a month to make the hardest decision he’ll ever have to make—a decision that will change all of their lives forever.
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