It’s been eighteen years since I wrote my first genre romance, and sixteen years since traditional romance publishers told me my romantic heroines weren't relatable. In that time I’ve written (and rewritten) six more romance novels. In every heroine I have left a little bit of myself. Caitlin, from PICTURE POSTCARDS, is a hopeless romantic. Shannon, from LOVE PLUS ONE, hides herself in the shadows because she’s too insecure to claim love and success as her own. Jessica, from UNDER TEXAS SKIES, is a feisty, proud redhead that won’t back down to a male-dominated culture. Adele, from MY IMMORTAL, is much stronger than she knows, and has a purpose much higher than she’d ever believed possible. These are my strengths, these are my weaknesses. These are my passions.
With Andy Foster and GROUPIE, I was able to indulge some of the fantasies I’ve secretly harbored since I was a starry-eyed nine-year-old. I’ve been a music groupie the minute I first saw Davy Jones of “The Monkees.” I believed with my whole heart I’d marry Steve Perry after he stole my heart four years later. My first love was rock and roll, and decades later I know there is no known cure for my affliction.
Despite these ambitious beginnings, however, I’ve never chased a band or any rock stars. Yet to this day a long-haired singer with dark eyes and swagger continues to be my kryptonite. It’s a very primal call to tame the bad boy, and there are no boys more rebellious and compelling than those who strut across the stage in leather and chains, singing about the things they’d do to you if they could.
In GROUPIE, I finally let that inner groupie find out – exactly – what that is. Unfortunately for Andy, it starts her on an epic journey in an on-again, off-again relationship with someone who is completely wrong for her, which only fuels the attraction. Haven’t we all been there at least once?
I did a couple of things different in GROUPIE than my other novels. I made it sexier, because like I said, bad rocker boys are my weakness. If I’m going to live vicariously through my heroine, I’m going to do the things that I’ve never done. Seducing/being seduced by a sexy singer made the top of that list.
I also made her unapologetic about her size-sixteen body. There’s no angst on whether or not she’s good enough for him because of her weight. She knows he has just as much trouble saying no to her curves that she has saying no to his dominant, seductive nature. Needless to say, it’s been a lot of fun to write. There is a constant power struggle going on, which I find oh, so fascinating, and it inadvertently turned the whole sexy saga into a series. We’ll blame Graham Baxter for that. He wrote himself into the story and turned my neat and tidy original outline upside down. With the introduction of a better suited lover for Andy, it became obvious to me that there would be no “Happily Ever After” by the time I brought GROUPIE to a close. I was at a crossroads many of us women find ourselves eventually. Do we pick the one we love? Or do we pick the one who loves us the way we wish to be loved? Do we chase after raw and unbridled passion? Or settle for security and mutual respect?
What do you do when you love two completely different men? Can you be practical in matters of the heart? These are the questions I found myself unable to answer by the time I resolved the “plot” of GROUPIE. Andy and her bad boy rocker, Vanni, had too many starts and stops. They were nowhere near ready to settle down and commit, if they ever would be. They both had a lot of growing to do, especially Vanni. If I had been the one reading it and it ended with a happily ever after, I’d have tossed the book across the room. There’s no way someone like Vanni, who was an entitled commitment-phobe (read: womanizing asshole,) would forfeit his extracurricular activities right as his star truly started to rise and he was given free rein to indulge himself. He was too selfish, still. He hadn’t suffered enough. (I take care of that in book two, and it ain't pretty.)
My philosophy is if I can’t sell the story to myself, I won’t be able to sell the story to you. This triangle was a tangled mess, and I knew I’d need a lot more space to work things out. As such, GROUPIE became my first published series, with the subsequent ROCK STAR that released in September 2012, to keep the readers guessing whether I’d ever let Andy and Vanni reach their happy ending.
Not everyone who has read GROUPIE/ROCK STAR likes this approach, but frankly the critics have been fewer in number than I had expected. I published on a wing and a prayer that people would "get it." Much to my surprise, many of you have. The audience GROUPIE draws understands the constant push/pull of the triangle (even if they do want to throttle the characters – and by extension, me – on a regular basis.) The GROUPIE series trounced LOVE PLUS ONE as my personal best seller, and these are the books generating buzz and interest.
I guess I’m not the only one who harbors lascivious fantasies about sexy rocker boys. The question has never been whether or not we can love a sexy rock god. The true variable is whether he can learn to love us like we deserve.
And I gotta tell ya... it's a lot of fun trying to figure that out.
The journey continues with MOGUL, which will release in February 2013… but you can start with this little teaser into the highly acclaimed Groupie series.
Read a sample of Groupie here. If you like what you read, check out the whole book for $0.99 while it's on sale for a limited time.
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