I got my start in straight up romantic comedy with books like I Waxed My Legs for This? and Not Precisely Pregnant. I slowly moved into sweet humorous romance, like my Perry Square series for Silhouette Romance, and my Everything But…Series for Avalon/Montlake. Over the last few years, I've added comedic mysteries with my Maid in LA Mystery series and emotional dramas for SuperRomance.
Just One Thing is the most emotional of all the stories I've ever told.
Someone asked me if it was hard moving between comedy and drama. I said, no. To be honest, in many ways, comedy and drama are mirrors of one another. I wrote a book, Ready, Willing and…Abel? that opened with a woman staring at a catalog of potential sperm donors, trying to pick out a father for her someday baby because she wasn't in a relationship and was tired of waiting for true love in order to have the baby she longed for. That was a story that could have been written as a comedy (which is how I wrote it) or a drama. I mean, that kind of longing pulls at the heart strings. Yet, I set the tone for the whole book with the opening line, "Sperm 'R Us." LOL Heinlein wrote a book about a Martian trying to 'grok' human behavior with Stranger in a Strange Land. The character mastered pretty much everything about being human except for humor until one day at the zoo he finally starts to laugh so hard he can't stop. When he finally gets himself under control he explains, “I've found out why people laugh. They laugh because it hurts so much . . . because it's the only thing that'll make it stop hurting.” I think that's why I love writing both comedy and drama…for me, it's just two sides of the same coin, the same emotions.
But back to Just One Thing…I never even considered comedy with this story. From the moment it started tugging at me, I knew how it needed to be told. The heroine over a period of years, suffered a series of heartbreaking tragedies. She's withdrawn from everything and everyone…except on Mondays, when she goes to the local bar, has exactly one beer and then walks home. For weeks, she doesn't say a word to anyone, but then one Monday, the bartender says the words, "One thing?" Those two words end up being her salvation. Monday after Monday, Lexie's story unfolds, and she begins to heal.
I could have chosen any day of the week, but all my online friends know about my strange love of Mondays. As someone who works from home, weekends are loud and busy and not overly conducive to work. But Mondays…ah, Mondays. The family goes to work, or school and the house is…silent. So on Mondays I share my Glee with all my online friends, and it seemed like the perfect day for Lexie to share bits of herself with Sam.
I'm so grateful for the positive feedback so far. And I'm equally thankful that readers seem to be willing to follow my writing whether I'm writing comedy or drama.
Do you have a favorite type of story…comedy or drama?
Holly
