Truth in Fiction

Blasco Library, Erie, PA

National Library Week is April 14^th through the 19^th.  I've been invited to talk at our local library as part of 

their celebration.  I’ll confess, I am thrilled.

I’ll be talking about incorporating fact into my fiction.

Here’s the thing, I love including fact in my fiction.  Most of my books are set in, or around Erie.  Why?  Because I love Erie.  I love bringing my hometown onto a national, sometimes even and international stage.  My new series talks about the Lake Erie Wine region.  Yes, I had to do research…lots and lots of arduous research. 

But more than settings, I write about subjects and issues that touch me.  Many of my books have dogs in them.  I have dogs.  I know dogs.  Most days I like dogs.  (My dogs were the stars of my December book, Everything But a Dog…they keep waiting for the PUParazzi to hound them.  Alas, they haven’t been hounded yet.)

So many of my books have babies and kids in them.  I have kids.  I know kids.  Most days I like kids.  

Family. 

You Are Invited...
SuperRomance, 4/13

I think that’s the most common theme in my books.  Even when there are no kids present, family always is.  Maybe it’s a hero or heroine’s parent(s).  Maybe it’s friends that have gone beyond mere friendship and moved into the realm of family. 

When I’m asked why I write romance, I say, it’s about the relationships.  It’s fascinating to take two people and watch them find their way to each other, overcoming all obstacles in their way…and there are always obstacles.  I make sure of that. (This is where I insert my very evil writer laugh, bwah ha ha.)  But so does life...it's a big element of truth in fiction.

April Showers
SuperRomance, 5/13

I think that’s why family is such an important theme for me…I love watching the dynamics of how those families function and how they impact that hero and heroine’s journey to love.  My new Valley Ridge trilogy is a great example of that family reality in fiction.  In the first book, You are Invited... the heroine loses a friend who is definitely her family.  She needs to form a new family with her friend's children...and the hero.  In the second book, April Showers, the heroine forms a bond with an elderly man.  He starts out as her landlord, then becomes a friend, and finally becomes family, as surely as those people who share her DNA.  And finally, in the third book, A Walk Down the Aisle... Well, if I tell you how I explore family in that one, I'll be giving too much of the story away.  Suffice to say, yep, it's in there.

Going back to my mention of libraries, the heroine in my December book, the fourth Valley Ridge book, A Valley Ridge Christmas, is a librarian.  I’ve been lucky to have so many wonderful librarians who impacted my life.  I wish I remembered all their names, but I do remember the librarians who came on the Bookmobile every few weeks.  They discovered I was a bookworm and would frequently have a book or two stashed away for me.  And then there’s Miss Kitty.  She was the story lady at the children’s library when my kids were growing up.  All four kids remember her with such fondness.

A Walk Down the Aisle
SuperRomance, 6/13

Truth in fiction.  It’s in every one of my books.  Both the comedies and the dramas.  There’s settings.  There’s exploring what a family is and how it functions.  There are even dogs and the occasional cat.   But mainly there’s love.  And at the heart of all my books, that’s the main theme…love.  Love of town.  Love of pets.  Love of family.  Love of that one special person who despite all the odds, you’re destined to be with.

Holly