Hints for Reaching that Happy-Ever-After: Advice from an Author to Her Characters
By Lynnette Austin
When we love someone, don’t we want—so badly—to save them from hurt and heartbreak? It doesn’t matter if it’s our children, our spouse, our parents, siblings, or friends. To watch them stumble and occasionally fall is difficult, but we stay close, don’t we, so that we’re there to pick them up and brush them off? We’re there to offer a warm hug and a willing ear.
As an author, I fall in love with my characters. And, hey, I write romance! I want that happy-ever-after. But a satisfying read needs conflict and lots of it. That soul-deep love the hero and heroine might or might not want at the beginning of the book has to come at a cost. It’s my job to put these two wonderful people through the wringer before they earn that lifelong love.
In my newest release, Every Bride Has Her Day, the second book in my Magnolia Brides series, I do just that to Cricket O’Malley and Sam DeLuca. Cricket, eternal optimist, has moved back to Misty Bottoms, Georgia, to open The Enchanted Florist and help Jenni Beth Beaumont with her Magnolia Brides wedding business. She’s there for the long-haul, to plant roots. New York City Detective Sam DeLuca has run away to the small Southern town for solitude and healing. Unlike Cricket, his life has been consumed by the dark side of human nature. He’s in town short-term and wants only to be left alone.
My optimist and my pessimist, my country gal and big city guy, the Yankee and the Dixie-to-her-toes across-the-street neighbor. Oh, boy! With all this in mind, I sat down at my keyboard and gleefully went to work to bring these two together, anticipating the sparring matches to come!
But had this been real life, I know the nurturer in me—okay, okay, the meddler in me—would have a hard time watching this play out without stepping in with some advice. So what would I tell these two? What bits of advice could I give Cricket and Sam to make their road a little smoother (without any story spoilers)?
Since this wasn’t real life, and I wasn’t there to advise, the two of them had to slog their way to their own happy ending. I did, though, give Sam help in the form of an adorable stray dog that I lost my own heart to, a teenage boy who needs support, and an eccentric old man who fills an emotional void Sam doesn’t even realize he has. Cricket has her cousin Beck, along with Jenni Beth Beaumont and her fiancé. And, let’s be honest here, this is small town Misty Bottoms, so everybody in town feels free to put in his two cents.
If I’d had a chance to sip sweet tea with Cricket and Sam’s at Dee-Ann’s Diner, I’d have told them that sometimes opposites are simply two parts of a whole. At first blush, the very traits that seem to clash are actually complementary.
Both Sam and Cricket are in situations that are foreign to them. She’s starting a new business in a town she’s not lived in since she was five. Sam’s a city Yankee in a small Southern town. Neither is looking for love. I’d encourage them to stay open to the new, to embrace things out of their comfort zone. Some of the very best things in life come out of accidental happenings when we stray outside the lines of the box we’ve put ourselves in.
The most important piece of advice I’d give my hero and my heroine, though, is that it’s okay to need help, to ask for it. Both Sam and Cricket are strong, self-dependent individuals, and neither finds it easy to admit to any perceived weakness. Yet don’t we all need a supporting hand at times to get us through the difficult? Two individuals cannot meld into a couple until they’re able to both lean on each other and hold up the other.
Cricket and Sam have lessons to learn in Every Bride Has Her Day, and they have some tough times to get through—together. But isn’t that happy-ever-after worth it?
*****
Every Bride Has Her Day by Lynnette Austin
Magnolia Brides, Book 2
ISBN: 9781492618003
Release Date: May 3, 2016
Genre: Small Town Contemporary Romance
Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca
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CAN LOVE REVIVE A WILTING HEART?
Cricket O’Malley can’t wait to plant roots back home in Georgia, where she’s returned to restore an abandoned flower shop to its former glory. The only blemish? Her neighbor’s house is even more neglected than her old flower shop, and its occupant seems as surly as he is darkly handsome.
Devastated body and soul after a tough case went south, New York City detective Sam DeLuca thought he’d have no trouble finding solitude in the quiet Georgia town of Misty Bottoms, but his bubbly neighbor seems determined to shine happiness into Sam’s life. Sam is equally determined to close himself off, but his heart says otherwise…
About the Author
The luxury of staying home when the weather turns nasty, of working in PJs and bare feet, and the fact that daydreaming is not only permissible but encouraged, are a few of the reasons middle school teacher Lynnette Austin gave up the classroom to write full-time. Lynnette grew up in Pennsylvania’s Alleghany Mountains, moved to Upstate New York, then to the Rockies in Wyoming. Presently she and her husband divide their time between Southwest Florida’s beaches and Georgia’s Blue Ridge Mountains. A finalist in RWA’s Golden Heart Contest, PASIC’s Book of Your Heart Contest, and Georgia Romance Writers’ Maggie Contest, she’s published five books as Lynnette Hallberg. She’s currently writing as Lynnette Austin. Having grown up in a small town, that’s where her heart takes her—to those quirky small towns where everybody knows everybody…and all their business, for better or worse. Visit Lynnette at www.authorlynnetteaustin.com.
Connect with Lynnette: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest | Goodreads
Not only do you fail to advise them, you go out of your way to throw up roadblocks for them to fall over! Not very nice… but man, it works for your lucky readers. I haven’t gotten to this one yet, but I know your writing and I know I’m going to love it!
Love small Southern towns, the feel, the people! Great interview…sounds so natural…and so true!
All of Lynn’s books are a delight to read. She’s not the only one who falls in love with her characters. I plead guilty.
What a treat, another Lynette Austin book! Middle school teacher indeed, that takes a special sense of humor which carries over to your work. Can’t wait to read it.