Claire is an undercover RCMP officer trying to catch a ring of thieves in a small town in Manitoba--that just happens to be the home of a former fling, Benton. Benton and his family are well-known in the area so to protect her cover, he and Claire fake a relationship so she can investigate more easily with his connections paving the way for her.
But being undercover isn't easy, especially when Benton's family gets wind of the thefts in the area and begin to suspect Claire, who can't reveal to anyone else that she's actually there trying to lure out the bad guys. While old feelings are returning, how can Benton go against his family while also protecting Claire's cover?
This is a sweet cowboy novella just waiting for you to pick up! The Cowboy and the Constable is available everywhere in e now!
An Accidental Meeting by Melanie Rachel
This is a Pride and Prejudice variation in which Darcy and Elizabeth meet at Pemberley, and Darcy invites her and the Gardiners to stay at the house. He's trying to do everything he can to show Elizabeth that he's changed, and it's working! They're on their way to falling in love when they discover a mysterious treasure, and things (and people) around Pemberley start getting weird and suspicious.
This is a super engaging and funny novella that explores Darcy and Elizabeth's shaky new relationship in a sweet, lighthearted way, like all of Melanie's work in this series of novellas has. (They're all standalones so you don't have to read the previous to understand this one.) An Accidental Meeting is out now on KU!
What POV is best for your romance novel?
Let’s talk narrative voice and how to use characters’ perspectives to get them a happily ever after in a romance.
First-person POV, second-person POV, and the various third-person POVs are different kinds of narrative voice. (I’m going to use voice and POV pretty much interchangeably here.) So let’s go through each one and discuss how they work and when to use them in romance.
First-person POV
With first-person POV, you’re in a character’s head and they’re using “I” to narrate the story. It’s basically like the character is talking to the reader directly and telling them every thought that crosses their mind.
E.g. “I caught his eye from across the room.”
When should you use first-person? When you want the reader to be incredibly close to your protagonist(s) and have the reader feeling/thinking/seeing/etc. everything that the character is. This works great for high-angst stories when you want the reader to have visceral reactions to the story, or if you have lots of world-building and want to create a visceral, immersive experience for your reader. First-person has been the most common POV lately in certain contemporary sub-genres (dark romance, some adult contemporary, mafia), New Adult, fantasy, and YA.
People have big feelings about first-person (and about third-person, for that matter): they either love one and hate the other. Do not get super caught up in this—you’re never going to please everyone. (More on this near the end about which POV you should choose.)
Second-person POV
Second-person is tricky, because the narrator doesn’t have their own individual voice, but is talking directly to another character by using “you.”
E.g. “You caught his eye and beckoned him over to you.”
It’s very hard to do second-person, and you need to have a good reason to do it to justify it over the course of a whole book. I see it mostly in fanfic when there is a self-insert Reader or original character, but I would not recommend it for published romance. (You can get away with it in literary fiction, maybe, but not in romance.) Where I think it can work in romance is when you need to hide the identity of the narrator, e.g. a baddie in a mystery/thriller, especially if they’re sinister and threatening to the protagonist(s). I’ve seen it done in romantic suspense with an occasional POV of the stalker or the killer. Again, a very tough sell, and you’d have to really convince me it needs to be there.
Third-person limited
In third person limited (or close) POV, you use he/she/they/etc. to refer to the POV character(s). The character is telling you their thoughts and feelings, but unlike in first-person, there’s mediation between the character and their actual emotions through the narration.
E.g. She caught his eye and beckoned him over. His expression went from confused to surprised to...pleased? Whatever he was thinking, he schooled his features before approaching her.
Third-person limited is common in historicals, contemporary (rom-coms, some adult contemp), and paranormal. This POV is great if you have an unreliable narrator who’s clearly misreading the signs they’re given, or if you want a bit of a wider narrative lens than you’d get in first-person.
Deep POV
Deep POV is a subset of third-person limited. You are deep (duh) in a character’s head and immersed in their thoughts and feelings—basically like first-person POV except using third-person pronouns and only a tiny bit of mediation through the narrator. There’s no “she felt” or “she thought”—those filler words aren’t necessary in deep POV.
E.g. She caught his eye and beckoned him over. He looked surprised for a moment, and her heart jolted. Was he nervous around her?
If you’re using third-person in romance, you probably want to be using deep POV—romance is all about character and emotions, and you get more immediate access to them with deep POV.
Third-person omniscient
Third-person omniscient POV is a narrator who is not a character in the story but has access to the perspectives of ALL the characters, and the characters are still referred to as he/she/they/etc. The narrator can give each of their perspectives as needed. It gives a bird’s-eye view of the story and characters, but it’ll never get deep into any character’s thoughts and feelings.
E.g. She caught his eye and beckoned him over. He was bewildered that she wanted him, of all people.
Third-person omniscient was popularized by Jane Austen—and you know I love my girl Jane, but unless you are actually Jane, you probably want to avoid omniscient and stick with limited or deep POV. Omniscient is just not in fashion at the moment, and most people will mistakenly believe that you’re head-hopping (which is also not on trend).
What’s the difference between head-hopping and omniscient? Head-hopping happens when you switch from one character’s deep POV to another within the same section. In omniscient, you’re not in deep POV so your narrator can easily move from one character’s perspective to another. The difference is very subtle! But you can only do limited OR omniscient—not both in the same story (usually).
Head-hop:
She caught his eye and beckoned him over. His expression went from confused to surprised to...pleased? He plastered on a smile, knowing that this could be his chance.
Omniscient:
She caught his eye and beckoned him over. He was bewildered that she wanted him, of all people.
What voice should you be writing in?
Any POV is doable if you write it well. I have my own preferences for POV, but when it’s done well, I don’t even notice what POV the book is being written. You need to know the voices of your characters and how to express their POV in the way that works for you, for your reader, and for your genre. And you’ll need to look at comps, books like yours (in the same genre with a similar vibe to you and targeting for similar readers) to see which POV is used most often.
The question I get most often from clients is “should I write in first- or third-person? I don’t like one of them, but that’s the one that seems to be selling most.” Unfortunately, I can’t answer that for you if you’re self-publishing because it’s ultimately your choice whether you want to write a POV that feels easy and brings out your best writing or a POV that might sell well (because wow, some readers will not even pick up a book if it’s in a POV they don’t like, or will rate it low because of the POV they don’t prefer).
I spoke about this more in-depth here—but if you don’t want to watch a video, basically the point is that there is value in doing the POV that works best for your creativity because you’ll attract people who are into that AND trends get started by people doing something different and outside the market-prescribed box. But there is also no shame in writing to market either! It really depends on what your goal is.
Should you use single or dual/multiple POV?
This is a separate question from voice, but just as important. When should you use just one narrator, and when should you use more than one?
Single POV—where you only get one character’s POV for the entire book—is best to use when the story is very much about the arc of that one character, and the arc of the other protagonist(s) is secondary. More often, how I like to see it used is when the other protagonist(s) has something to hide or that can’t be revealed to the reader or to the POV character if we were in the other person’s head. So we can’t know that he’s harboured a secret crush on our first-person character since he was their childhood bully, but there should be signs that the first-person character misses entirely but are legible to the reader.
If you’re doing multiple POVs, how many should you use? Ideally I’d say just the main protagonists of the book, so for most romances, this is two. But for why-choose romance or a book that has two (or more) main relationships, you could have three or four or more. But then you as the writer have to keep track of all these voices, and that’s a lot of unique perspectives to juggle. Not every character needs a POV, so choose wisely.
With multiple POVs, I usually recommend keeping the voice the same for each POV, i.e. not using first-person for one character and then third-person for another. It’s absolutely possible to use first and third in the same book, but I personally find it jarring when it switches back and forth. It is, however, a great way to distinguish between different characters—we’ve all experienced the confusion of not knowing which character’s head we’re in in first-person because their inner narratives sound too same-y.
Each character should be distinctive in their voice so that you don’t have to flip back in the section to figure out who it is or look at the top of the chapter to see which voice is narrating. To me, this is lazy shorthand to tell the reader who the character is at each chapter/section break—it should be obvious from the way that character thinks and speaks, so make sure each character has their own unique quirks that set them apart.
Questions about POV or voice? Let me know!
'Til All the Seas Run Dry by Eliza MacArthur
Listen, if you want a masterclass in yearning and pining and longing, let me introduce you to Callum McLeod.
The man yearns for a THOUSAND years for his lost love (oops, did I mention he’s a vampire?) and arranges his entire life to make the world a better place as she would have wanted—and then finds out that hey, she didn’t die a thousand years ago and ALSO she’s not human.
She’s actually a selkie and he’s kept her skin all these years, not realizing that’s what it was. So now Jory has a chance to go back to her selkie life—that she originally gave up for him—even though her lost love Callum (who she also thought was dead for a thousand years) is right there. Which one will she choose?
Eliza MacArthur writes beautiful, aching emotion so well, and you will fall in love with Callum and Jory! ‘Til All the Seas Run Dry is out now!
Is it time to discontinue your romance series?
I did a presentation to the Ottawa Romance Writers’ group earlier this month about The Dos and Don’ts of Being a Romance Novelist, and one of the participants asked a great question at the end (and one that I’ve been meaning to write something about for a long time!).
The question was: How do you know when you should stop writing a series that doesn’t seem to be getting any traction?
I’m sure as readers or consumers of media, we’ve all experienced the frustration of not getting the end of a series. We can all name a TV show that we loved that ended on a perpetual cliffhanger, never to be resolved, or perhaps less often, a book series that a trad publisher decided not to continue to put money into. But what about if you’re on the other side of that as an indie author?
So here are some considerations to help you decide what to do:
1) Why is it that the series hasn’t gotten enough traction?
Be very, very honest with yourself here and analyze what’s going on. Are the covers not giving the reader a good first impression? (Are they on trend with other covers in your subgenre?) Are your blurbs and marketing materials not intriguing or unique or clear enough to get the reader to buy? Are the books priced too high? Have you put in the work to market them and get them in front of your target audience? Is the quality of the writing and editing not as good as it could be?
Do your research, ask your readers and impartial observers, and be very real with yourself. Are you willing or able to put in the work to fix these problems? That might get expensive—i.e. recovering all the books so far in the series, re-editing, doing additional marketing, etc. Which begs the question…
2) Is it worth it to continue to put the time and money towards this series?
Not only to revamp the previously published books in the series, but also for the ones to come. More books in this series means more money put towards editing, cover design, and promotion, and it takes you away from books that you could write that might be more successful. And if the books you’ve already written in the series aren’t helping to fund much of the next books still to come, do you have the budget to continue? The books in this current series may be the books of your heart right now, but if they’re not selling, it might be time to consider how you can rework the larger ideas of this series and eventually repurpose them for a different series that might do better for you down the line.
3) Do you have a full series already?
A complete series is a great thing to have in your backlist. If a new reader falls in love with your writing and goes back to read all your old stuff, they might buy the full series immediately to consume, rather than one standalone book at a time. And if all your books are linked in the same extended universe (which I do usually recommend doing!), a full series is even more of an easy sell. So, is it worth it to finish off the series in this case?
4) How do you feel about this series?
When you’re an indie author, it’s all on you to decide if it’s worth it to continue the series. Are you happy with the quality of the writing? Have you had good feedback from readers, or has it been crickets? Are you still excited to continue the series or get to that final book? Especially if you haven’t had a ton of great feedback from readers about the series, you may have lost enthusiasm for it—that’s normal. It’s time for some soul-searching about whether you should keep going with it.
Even if you do decide to discontinue a series, I do not want you to feel like it was a waste of time or that you didn’t get anything out of it. I especially do not want you to see this as a failure AT ALL. Every single writer, even the most popular or successful, has books that just don’t hit. And every book is a learning experience. Writing those books has improved your writing skills, has made you more aware of the things in your author career that you might have to spend more time/energy/money on, and is going to make your next book and/or series stronger. As much as I’ve asked here “is it worth it?” to help you decide whether to continue the series or not, I think there is always something worthwhile in the experience of getting these books out into the world.
Have you ever discontinued a series? What made you decide to? (I genuinely want to hear! Respond to this email, and let me know!)
A Darling Aviator by Lark Holiday
Food influencer Elle does NOT want to be on her fiancé’s dream trip to Alaska, yet here she is. It’s really a relationship of convenience, but he’s done so much for her that she wants to do something for him. But when he runs off into the wilderness, he throws off all of her meticulous plans for her life.
The additional complication? The grumpy pilot and guide who she finds herself attracted to. She enlists Mac to help find her wayward fiancé, but in their search, she discovers that she might need to blow up her carefully curated life in order to be happy...and that Mac might be the key to that happiness.
Grumpy-sunshine, NO cheating (promise!), lighthearted fun in this small-town Alaska sweet romance! A Darling Aviator is available everywhere in print, ebook, and audio now!
Rising Courage by Heather Moll
How do we feel about kidnapping in our romances? How do we feel when the hero and heroine are kidnapped together?
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This is a Pride and Prejudice variation where Darcy still makes his terrible proposal to Elizabeth and gets shot down. Elizabeth takes herself out for a walk after this, and kidnappers mistake her for Anne de Bourgh. Darcy sees her getting kidnapped and he gets taken along with her so that he can protect her (and also ‘cause he’s rich and can be ransomed for $$).
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Now, stuck together (gotta love that forced proximity!) and desperate to escape, Darcy and Elizabeth have to work together, get past their misunderstandings, and save themselves from danger.
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Adventure and angst await! Rising Courage is out now on KU!
Romance = power?
Let me float my theory that romance is all about power.
I feel like that seems like a very cynical thing for a romance editor to say, but I promise it’s not quite as bad as it sounds!
More specifically, I think romance is about power and parity and balance. (Is that making it a little bit better?) And this should work for any relationship, whether it’s straight or queer, or if it’s a couple or more than two people.
Power isn’t about physical strength or money or social capital, but really about one person having a stronger position over another at different points in the story. And what happens in romance novels is that the main characters are constantly jockeying for position over the other and eventually coming to balance each other out so that they share the same amount of power and one isn’t dominating the other.
If you’ve been around me for even just a little while, you’ll know my favourite book of all time is Pride and Prejudice (#basicbitch, but zero shame about that), one of the foundational texts for romance. Darcy and Elizabeth are perhaps not matched in socio-economic power (and also in terms of gender, because patriarchy, which I’ll come back to), but they are matched in terms of wit and the power they have within their initially combative relationship. Every interaction is one-upping each other each time to prove their power, until the end where they finally figure things out and their power dynamic evens out. The internal power dynamic eventually comes to parity, and that’s where the HEA happens.
P&P is the blueprint for this, but all romances are playing out this dynamic, no matter if there’s also an external power dynamic between the characters—for example, in a rivals-to-lovers workplace romance where they’re gunning for the same job. This dynamic usually evens itself out or is removed entirely in order to bring the partnership into parity again.
And as always in romance, the strength and stakes of the story are actually in the internal conflict, which is where the power struggle is, whether it’s in terms of wanting more communication or more vulnerability or deeper understanding of each other. The romance itself happens when the more powerful one in the relationship (whoever it is at a particular point in the story, because it’s almost always going to switch off throughout) is willing to surrender some of their power to the other(s) to balance it out.
Because we live in a patriarchal world, we already know that men inevitably have more power than women in this structure. In a hetero pairing, then, the man definitely has to realize (consciously or unconsciously) that the world is unfair to his partner and work to give over some of his power to her or even things out externally. (Obviously, it’s better if he can make it so that it’s better for all women, rather than just his, but sometimes he’s constrained by other power structures beyond him.)
So, as an author, your job is to make sure that your MCs are constantly jockeying for power in their relationship (this is basically conflict) and then bringing them together so that they’re sharing equal amounts of power in terms of their personal dynamic.
Honestly, every romance novel I can think of plays this theory out. Am I wrong? Am I too cynical? Do you agree? Disagree?
Sex, Lies and Sensibility by Nikki Payne
Nora is not having a good year. She’s just discovered that she and her sister Yanne are her late father’s secret family, all they got left in the will was a barely habitable house in MAINE of all places, and oh yeah, her sex tape just went viral. With no options at home, she and Yanne head to Maine with hopes of fixing the place up and making it a viable inn before they run out of money.
Bear has a habit of taking on more responsibility than he can handle, and the weight of his Abenaki community rests on his shoulders. If his tourism business fails, the community fails too—and it’s not looking good for business right now, especially since the abandoned house they use as a home base is suddenly un-abandoned by a beautiful woman and her sister. But maybe if they work together, all of them can succeed—or maybe it’ll bring all of them down?
This is a modern retelling of Sense and Sensibility, and in Nikki’s capable hands, it’s fresh and funny and sexy. It’s out everywhere today!
(I’m not the editor on this one—just worked with Nikki on an early version of the story. But I’m always happy to hype her up!)
With This Witch by Isla Winter
Petra thought she’d have ages before she’d have to take over the role of Premier Witch, the leader of the witches in her small community where supernaturals and humans live together, but a family emergency means she’ll have to step up sooner. The Premier Witch, though, traditionally has to be married, and Petra thought she’d have ages for that as well. But if she can’t find a spouse in 30 days, the supernatural council will give the Premier Witch title to her family’s long-held enemy.
Her friend Lachlan, the demon representative on the council, who has secretly been pining for her for years, offers to fake-marry her for the good of the council (sure, babe). Petra, of course, thinks they’re just friends and doesn’t want to ruin anything, even though her new husband is hot and sweet and has HORNS, you guys.
Family, legacy, politics, small town, friends to lovers, witches and demons and vampires (and more), oh my! With This Witch is out today!