How I start a story – Kandy Shepherd

I’m starting to write a new book—if all goes well, it will be my sixteenth for Harlequin Romance. My fourteenth is out now, Second Chance with the Single Dad and the fifteenth will be out in September.

So how do I start? I have a character from an earlier book who has been clamoring for his story. (I won’t go into any detail as who knows what might change after these preliminary thoughts!) It’s his time. I think I’ve found him the perfect woman, however neither he nor know this yet. There’ll be quite some mind changing to do to get them together!

I like to have a clear idea of what my characters look like, what they wear, where they live. I start a Pinterest board for each story and have a lot of fun with it. If you’d like to see my boards for my published stories, why not visit my Pinterest Boards?

 I have a special notebook for each book I write, to jot down ideas, try out paragraphs, keep by my bed in case I wake up at night with a brilliant idea that will be forgotten by morning if I don’t write it down.

Isn’t this notebook with the wisteria beautiful? It’s probably my favorite. I think I’ll have to include a scene with wisteria in the new story in honour of it! Yes, I do have nightmares about losing the notebook but so far that hasn’t happened. Fingers crossed it doesn’t!

 Some writers use computer programs to keep track of everything for their book. If I was writing a big book with lots of research and multiple story lines, I might try that. In the meantime, it either goes in the notebook or in a file on my computer. A timeline for a story is a must or I can get very muddled. But my version of a timeline is very simple, just a roughly sketched calendar for the months the story spans. 

 Now I’m working on the first chapter, the most important to get readers hooked into the story. It takes me forever! I might rewrite it many times until I get it right and move on to the next chapters which tend to flow more smoothly.

 So that’s where I’m at and I have to get cracking! A deadline that seems comfortably months away has a habit of sneaking up on me at a remarkable pace… So wish me luck as I set off on a new writing journey!

Second Chance with the Single Dad is a February 2019 release from Harlequin Romance in North America; Mills & Boon True Love in the UK; and Mills & Boon Forever Romance in Australia and New Zealand.

Kandy Shepherd is a multi-published, award-winning author of contemporary romance and women’s fiction. She lives on a small farm in the Blue Mountains near Sydney, Australia, with her family and a menagerie of four-legged friends.

Visit Kandy at her website

www.kandyshepherd.com

Connect with Kandy on Facebook, Twitter,Pinterestand Instagram

Come visit a tropical paradise! - Kandy Shepherd

One thing I love about the Harlequin Romance series line I write for—apart from the lovely emotion and the happy-ever-after ending!—is the fact that these books often spirit me away to an aspirational and sometimes exotic destination.

As an author, we are often told to write what we know. I find it difficult to actually bring a place to life if I haven’t actually been there. Fortunately, I have travelled a bit and stayed at the destinations where my books are set. 

 My July release Best Man and the Runaway Bride is set on the beautiful small island of Nusa Lembongan in Indonesia, off the east coast of the much larger and better known island of Bali. I was fortunate enough to visit Lembongan last year and actually wrote some of the story while I was on location.

This month I thought I’d share with you some of the events in the novel, that actually happened to me on the the trip.

We stayed on a beautiful resort similar to the fictional Big Blue resort in the book. Our lumbung was right on the sea and it was absolutely heavenly! (With mod cons like our own bathroom and airconditioning.)

The lumbung where we stayed

View from our room - bliss to wake up to

 There’s a pivotal scene in the book where the hero Max and heroine Nikki dine at a restaurant with their feet in the sand and witness one of the awesome sunsets the area is famous for. We did that too!

This is the meal that inspired Nikki and Max's in the book - love that Indonesian food!

 Nikki and Max go snorkelling on the reef surrounding the island, in a small traditional fishing boat known as a jukung. We bravely set out and snorkelled and it was an utterly wonderful experience.

This little boat transported us to a beautiful reef where we snorkelled and saw the most beautiful fish and coral

Just remembering the experience is making me want to go back there as soon as I can—or perhaps to another wonderful destination that will inspire a story! And of course I'm hoping while my readers are flicking through the pages of my book, I'll transport them for a few hours to an exotic, tropical island!

Is there a “dream destination” you’ve always wanted to visit? Do you have a favorite setting for a romance novel?

Please leave a comment, I’d love to hear from you! If you want to be in the draw to win a signed paperback copy of Best Man and the Runaway Bride, also include your email address.

Kandy Shepherd’s Best Man and the Runaway Bride is a July 2018 release from Harlequin Romance in North America; Mills & Boon True Love in the UK; and Mills & Boon Forever Romance in Australia and New Zealand. 

Kandy Shepherd is a multi-published, award-winning author of contemporary romance and women’s fiction. She lives on a small farm in the Blue Mountains near Sydney, Australia, with her family and a menagerie of four-legged friends.

Visit Kandy at her website

www.kandyshepherd.com

Connect with Kandy on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram

That scandalous runaway bride - Kandy Shepherd

Have you ever experienced a moment where you realise the action you take next might very well become a defining point of your life? 

For Nikki Lucas, the heroine of my July release for Harlequin Romance, Best Man and the Runaway Bride, that moment comes when she realises she simply can’t go ahead with her wedding. Despite all the expectations of her friends and family—not to mention the groom!—she decides to bail. She begs best man Max Conway to help her flee from the wedding—straight into scandal

North America edition

 It’s bad enough she ran away from her wedding, but handsome Max is one of the world’s top tennis players and a celebrity. People are convinced they’d been having an affair!

The repercussions of that impulsive decision change everything for Nikki and Max—and gets right in the way when love starts to blossom.

Australia and New Zealand edition

Have you ever made an impulsive decision that changed your life? A relationship? A job? Travel? Thirty years ago, I went out on a limb to hire someone for a job on a magazine where I worked. Little did I know that her room-mate would become my husband!

Please leave a comment, I’d love to hear from you! If you want to be in the draw to win a signed paperback copy of Best Man and the Runaway Bride, also include your email address.

Kandy Shepherd’s Best Man and the Runaway Bride is a July 2018 release from Harlequin Romance in North America; Mills & Boon True Love in the UK; and Mills & Boon Forever Romance in Australia and New Zealand. 

Kandy Shepherd is a multi-published, award-winning author of contemporary romance and women’s fiction. She lives on a small farm in the Blue Mountains near Sydney, Australia, with her family and a menagerie of four-legged friends.

Visit Kandy at her website

www.kandyshepherd.com

Connect with Kandy on Facebook, Twitter,Pinterestand Instagram

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Best Man and the Runaway Bride - Kandy Shepherd

One of my very favourite things about being a romance writer is I get to write the kind of stories I  love to read!

 I've always been a sucker for a runaway bride story (or movie!) and thoroughly enjoyed writing my July release for Harlequin Romance, Best Man and the Runaway Bride. There's a scene very like this one in the book, only the bride heroine fleeing her wedding ends up in the arms of the best man when running in her bare feet becomes a little difficult!

I also love an exotic setting, preferably an island. Last year I had an amazing vacation on the small Indonesian island of Nusa Lembongan – just the right romantic setting for an important part of this story! In fact I wrote some of the story while I was on the island—a writer really takes a break!

Here’s the blurb for Best Man and the Runaway Bride :  

Scandal at a society wedding!

Can he resist the runaway bride?

After helping Nikki Lucas flee her high-society wedding, privacy-loving best man Max Conway never expected to be accused of having an affair with the bride! As the media scandal dies down, he escapes to a remote island—and comes face-to-face with Nikki! Their connection is undeniable but she’s completely off-limits. Yet as the sun sets in paradise, both are struggling to resist…

Kandy Shepherd’s Best Man and the Runaway Bride is a July 2018 release from Harlequin Romance in North America; Mills & Boon True Love in the UK; and Mills & Boon Forever Romance in Australia and New Zealand. 

Kandy Shepherd is a multi-published, award-winning author of contemporary romance and women’s fiction. She lives on a small farm in the Blue Mountains near Sydney, Australia, with her family and a menagerie of four-legged friends.

Visit Kandy at her website

www.kandyshepherd.com

Connect with Kandy on Facebook Twitter Pinterest and Instagram

Stranded with Her Greek Tycoon—Kandy Shepherd

Have you ever met someone just fleetingly, yet you can’t get them out of your head?

That happened to me with a minor character named Cristos in my last novel for Harlequin Romance, ConvenientlyWed to the Greek (May 2017). Cristos was the cousin of that book’s hero. I didn’t know a lot about him other than he was extremely good looking. But I couldn’t stop thinking about Cristos. Why was someone so handsome on his own? Why did I sense secrets and sadness behind his happy-go-lucky mask?

I had find out more about Cristos Theofanis—so he had to have his own story! I discovered Cristos was estranged from the wife he’d adored, Hayley Clements. They’d married young but trauma and tragedy took the gloss off their marital bliss and they’d spiralled apart. When Hayley unexpectedly reappears, she and Cristos get a last chance to save their marriage.

Stranded with Her Greek Tycoon is set in the beautiful Ionian Islands in Greece. What a perfect place for a couple to reignite the spark of their passion and fall in love all over again—just in time for Valentine’s Day!

I’ve been fortunate enough to visit those beautiful islands and hope to return. Our visit was in September when the weather was hot but not too hot and the water glorious for swimming. People there told me, however, that they could have a cold winter on the islands. I discovered that sometimes it actually snowed.

What’s more romantic? Summer where clothes are minimal or winter where you can snuggle to keep warm? I decided to set Cristos’s story in winter—with snow!

Where I live in Australia, we get snow. Not in Sydney but certainly in the mountains. In fact I learned to ski on the Australian snowfields. We’re having a very hot summer DownUnder. But I know right now friends in the northern hemisphere might be snowed in. Is it actually as romantic as we authors suggest in romance novels like Strandedwith Her Greek Tycoon?

UK edition

What are your thoughts on snow? Comment here for a chance to be in the draw for a paperback copy of Stranded with Her Greek Tycoon.

US edition

Kandy Shepherd’s Stranded with Her Greek Tycoon is a February 2018 release from Harlequin Romance in North America; Mills & Boon True Love in the UK; and Mills & Boon Forever Romance in Australia and New Zealand. 

Kandy Shepherd is a multi-published, award-winning author of contemporary romance and women’s fiction. She lives on a small farm in the Blue Mountains near Sydney, Australia, with her family and a menagerie of four-legged friends.

Visit Kandy at her website

www.kandyshepherd.com

Connect with Kandy on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram