UNORTHODOX is the most appropriate word to describe my journey into romance writing. I grew up a latch key kid in a single parent home for the majority of my formative years. Needless to say, I spent a significant amount of time confined within the four walls of our 500 hundred square feet duplex when I arrived home from school.
Thank the heavens above for the care and compassion of librarians.
The characters that I read about in books were my playmates. But more importantly, my story friends were a buffer zone between me and the world I lived in. The stories I read showed me a world far different than the bleak reality of my personal existence.
Peering through the looking glass of my story characters’ lives, I dreamed, and hoped, and prayed for a future with a happy ending for me. The writing seed had taken root. I knew I wanted to pen stories that empowered the lives of women.
Fast forward 15 years, my professional career led me away from the fiction reading of my youth, depositing me with a thud in the medical library surrounded by peer-reviewed journals and morbidity reports. I did get my happy ending in the form of a nursing degree, a twenty-two year naval career, and a loving husband with two children. Being the wife of a sea going officer is as far from romantic as the stars from the moon.
Contrary to popular belief, eight month deployments do not make the heart grow fonder.
Romance novels became a comforting reminder of the journey of love I share with my husband. When I decided to retire, my husband knowing me to be a Type A++ personality, encouraged me to take time to figure out what I really wanted to do with the next phase of my life. And I wanted to write.
After a year of immersing myself in writing courses, craft books, and conferences, I self-published the first novel in the Bachelors of Shell Cove series. To date, there are three stories in the series, with three more planned for 2016 release. The little girl raised on the proverbial wrong side of the tracks is quite pleased with her life these days.
“Hope lies in dreams, in imagination, and in the courage of those who dare to make dreams into reality.” –Jonas Salk
I write stories of hope for the little girl who can’t see a way out. I write stories of unexpected love for the woman sitting at home alone night after night because she hasn’t found her hero. I write stories of sacrifice for the military wife sobbing when the news reports another bombing and she hasn’t heard from her husband in weeks. I write stories of second chances and new beginnings.
We all are flawed. We make mistakes, sometimes with dire consequences, but we are worthy of falling in love and being loved.
xoxo,
Siera