PICTURE POSTCARDS, author notes for your FREE FRIDAY READ

In 1995, Harlequin put out a call for new submissions with a specific slant. They wanted books that used the written word as an instrument to find romance. I came up with a plot that involved anonymous, romantic postcards that ended up in the wrong hands, in a comedy of errors to find true love.

At the time I was recovering from the emotional devastation of losing my youngest son, who had passed away January 1995 when he was only nine days old. I needed something light-hearted in which to immerse myself, so I tackled my first genre romance. Today it may be considered Chick Lit, or even a romantic comedy. Unlike some of my more angst-y stories, this one was written to be a good time: fun, flirty, funny, sometimes cringe-worthy, but uplifting good-time fluff.

Sometimes you just need it, you know?

Like I mentioned in the note for LOVE PLUS ONE, I initially envisioned my heroine as perfect as all the lovely ladies I had read about as a kid, when I would plow through Harlequin romances as fast as my aunt could pass them off to me. PICTURE POSTCARDS actually was the first to get an agent’s attention, but we ran into some trouble trying to sell it to publishers. They didn’t find Caitlin to be believable or relatable. She was, as they said, “too perfect.” I shelved the project for years, ultimately converting it into a screenplay years later. I figured I could leave how they pictured the affable Caitlin up to a casting director.

Bottom line, I wasn’t ready to give up on PICTURE POSTCARDS yet. I always loved the story, especially the nostalgic, almost whimsical, fairy-tale feel of it. Surely there had to be a way to make it work, I just had to find it.

As years passed I realized how dated my concept really was. What worked in 1995 wouldn’t work in the 21st century, and it seemed further and further out of reach with the introduction of each new gadget or gizmo. We are way more connected than we used to be, so finding love through misplaced snail-mail correspondence grew even more unrealistic by the year. When I decided to rewrite the story with a full-figured heroine, thus resolving the “too perfect” dilemma, I was then faced with the challenge of making my dated plot a contemporary story. It finally fit right into place with the realization there’s only one thing you can do with a modern day fairy tale: you tell it as a bedtime story. My solution enabled me to fall in love with the characters in a brand new way, simply because I got to see what their lives were like after “The End.”

For that alone, it was worth it.

Read the #1 rated sample here.

For Friday, January 4, 2013, you can download the entire full-length novel for a FRIDAY FREE READ as a Kindle e-book.

Enjoy!