After Darcy leaves Netherfield, he begins having dreams of Elizabeth in which she rejects his proposal—but it gets him thinking about Elizabeth and if she might not be the exact match for him if he can get past his pride. Meanwhile, Elizabeth is also having dreams that are making her reconsider her opinion of Darcy.
By the time they meet up again at Kent, they’re both ready for each other—but their families aren’t necessarily ready for them together. With opposition from both sides, they only have themselves and their dreams to keep them together.
A teeny tiny bit of a paranormal spin on the classic P&P story, Darcy and Elizabeth’s Dreams of Redemption is available now in KU!
Whiskey in the Jar by Irene
All Jenny wants is to protect her sister Nell and get her away from Nell’s abusive husband. When a highwayman’s ransom means that she no longer has the money to fund her and Nell’s escape, she decides she’ll capture the highwayman herself to get the reward.
What she doesn’t bargain for is Adam, the highwayman, having faerie luck on his side and being too charming for his (and her) own good. But she’s already too deep into her plan when she starts falling for him and might have already destroyed their chance for happiness.
This story is based on an old English ballad, but Irene’s updated it to have a badass heroine who takes no shit, a bit of magic and romantasy, and a morally grey hero who makes even his unflappable heroine (and me) swoon. It’s available on KU now!
Summer on Butterfly Bay by Judith Natelli McLaughlin
Widow Ali needs to get out of the city and spend the summer away from her grief. The most beautiful house on Butterfly Bay is hers for the summer--except she has to share it with infuriating finance bro Brooker and his vapid model girlfriend.
Brooker has hidden depths, though, and starts Ali on a new path. With the help of Brooker, a rescue dog, and an old woman who keeps dropping wisdom and then disappearing, Ali might find herself again on Butterfly Bay.
This is a sweet romance about two people who have been mired in grief and need each other to push themselves out of it. It's available everywhere today!
When is it time to quit romance writing entirely?
The Gentleman Spy by Georgina North
Beau has been a spy for years, escaping all the expectations heaped on him as a future duke. He's abroad when his father dies and manages big things from away, but Emerald, his father's—now his—ward, has actually taken on the day-to-day operations in his absence. When he finally returns (after an injury), Emerald is pissed that he's swooped in and taken away her work, and that he's still as handsome as he was when she was younger and had a crush on him.
They're clashing all the time about the estate, and Emerald is curious and suspicious about why he keeps running off in the middle of the night. At the same time, they're fighting their attraction to each other. But will Beau's spy past come back to haunt him and threaten Emerald?
This slow-burn, suspenseful historical romance is swoony and delightful, and it's available on KU now!
The Cowboy and the Constable by Elle Rush
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! Let me know in the comments!)