Why do I write happy-ever-afters?

This is the question Women Writers, Women Books asked me - and this is my answer...

Happy Ever After… It’s such an evocative phrase, isn’t it? We are brought up on a diet of it from an early age, usually with the words “once upon a time” at the beginning, and it’s woven into the very fabric of our society.

But is it really possible to have a happy ever after?

I certainly think so, which is why I write romance.

I draw my inspiration from the wonderful women in my family and their equally wonderful relationships. My grandmother, who lived to the fantastic age of 103, had the happiest of marriages. Of course she and my grandad bickered, and they sometimes had a dingdong row, but disagreements are a part of life and their squabbles never affected the deep core of love and respect they had for each other. Towards the latter part of his life, my grandfather used to solve the issue of arguing, by saying his piece and then switching his hearing aid off – it used to drive my grandma to distraction, but it never impacted on their devotion to each other; nothing ever did.

My parents, too, were deeply in love right until the day my dad died. My mother continues to worship him to this day.

Then there was my great aunt and uncle, who were blissfully married for nearly seventy years, and still had eyes only for each other when they reached the end of their lives.

So yes, happy ever after is possible, and having been brought up in the midst of such strong and steadfast relationships, it was only natural that I sought the same for myself, and was lucky enough to marry a wonderful man. That doesn’t mean to say my husband and I don’t have our ups and downs (we do) and our relationship isn’t always plain sailing, but the core is there – two hearts and two minds coming together to create a deep and loving connection.

It is this heritage of lasting and inspiring relationships which nurtures my heartfelt belief in the power of romance, and it is why I love the genre so much.

That aside, I’m often asked what inspires my story ideas or characters, and I can honestly say it’s frequently my husband who is behind many of my novels, whether he realises it or not! Take Love in the City by the Sea, for instance – this book is loosely based on my hubby’s love of running marathons (his most exciting one being in Barcelona where the story is set) and my aversion to doing anything more energetic than a fast walk. It’s also down to him that Sunrise on the Coast was written, because of a comment he made when he saw the villa that features in the story, and sparked an idea which eventually turned into a novel.

I’ve found that, for me, inspiration can strike in the most mundane of places and at any time – in the supermarket, an overheard snippet of conversation in the pub, a woman sitting on a bench on her own… Stories can be woven from anything and everything, and the only question I ask myself when I come upon something intriguing is “what if…?” What if that woman has just been given some devastating news? What if she is bored with her life and is contemplating something drastic? What if she is about to make a journey she doesn’t want to make? What if she’s building up the courage to tell the person of her dreams that she loves them? Romance comes in all shapes and sizes and fits into all situations. What makes a romance is that the connection between the two protagonists is the focus of the plot, and that they find their happy ever after no matter what.

I also draw inspiration from what might bring two people together. In Waste Not, Want Not in Applewell we have Nessa with her urge to help, and George with his unconscious need to be helped. And what might prevent those same two people in a story from being together is equally fascinating, but ultimately each character wants the same thing: to fall in love and stay there.

For me, happy ever after is the reason I immerse myself in romantic stories. I get to fall in love over and over again, to relive those heady moments of first love, first kiss, first time “I love you” is spoken. But it doesn’t have to end there, because relationships develop and change, so I also enjoy exploring what happens after the happy ever after of confetti and wedding bells, when protagonists are married and have children, and are juggling jobs and family life. This is what inspired me to write Make Do and Mend in Applewell, a curiosity about what happens when the ink has dried on the marriage certificate and life gets in the way of love. But that’s the thing, isn’t it? Life is love, and it’s the exploration of that very emotion which is at the heart of this latest novel of mine, and every other romance ever written

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Most of all, though, my inspiration comes from all those wonderful authors who believe in love and want to write about it, over and over, in so many different ways and different situations, yet all with one common goal – the desire to live happily ever after. Because, let’s face it, that’s what we as romance readers want, and I, as a romance author, wants to write about: uplifting heart-warming relationships, and characters that we can fall head-over-heels in love with. And in the pages of our books, we always live happily ever after.

You may want to check out the Women Writers, Women Books website for lots of cool writing stuff.

And if you want to take a look at my other books, you can check them out here.