I Heart Book Boyfriends

The real world disappoints, but book boyfriends last forever. They never grow old. They’re always available when you want them and you don’t have to pick up their dirty underwear off the floor.

But what makes for a good book boyfriend? That’s something I constantly grapple with when writing my love interest. When writing Phillip for Sweetwater, I had to back off on making him have what I call Perfect Boyfriend Syndrome - he never says or does anything wrong. Which, of course, doesn’t make for a very memorable book boyfriend.

Using memorable book and movie boyfriends, let’s discuss what makes romance books so swoony.

Augustus Waters - The Fault in Our Stars

The listening ear. Kindness personified. Selfless and sweet. Augustus are all these things and more. We love him because he truly has the best interest at heart for the people he cares about. He understands and is willing to be vulnerable with Hazel.

And who doesn’t love a guy who arranges an activity or present that means so much to the girl he loves? I mean, for real. When he arranges for Hazel to meet her favorite author, you just want to give Augustus a big ole kiss.

Gilbert Blythe - Anne of Green Gables

Who else could keep up with Anne’s snarky, sometimes biting humor? Some who’s just as quick-witted and good-humored. We love Gilbert because he’s so devoted to our favorite redhead. We’re secretly cheering for him every time he goes back with a good or better zinger when she’s being a little testy.

We also love him because he loves Anne's intelligence and spunkiness. We love a man who can appreciate our mind and any physical attributes we might have.

And he’s Anne’s biggest cheerleader. Can any else forget in the mini-series after Anne finishes reciting “The Highwayman,” he was the first one on his feet and clapping the loudest? Swoon.

Peeta Mellark - The Hunger Games

Peeta’s the type of character that could have easily fallen into Golden Retriever Boyfriend territory - enthusiastically positive, loyal and adoring of the heroine. But there was so much more to Peeta. Over and over again, he subverted Katniss’ expectations of him. He showed courage in the face of some really scary situations. He pep-talked Katniss when she doubted herself. And he constantly put himself in harm’s way to protect Katniss.

The ultimate Golden Retriever Boyfriend then, I guess? All things we could, and Katniss did, scorn him for ended up being the strengths that we loved him for. He exemplifies those traits - bravery, persistence, and perseverance.

Mr. Darcy - Pride And Prejudice

And I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t include at least one Jane Austen book boyfriend. And might as well go for the GOAT - Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy.

Does he have a bad attitude sometimes? Yes. Can he be kinda snobby? Yes.

But — what did he do when Elizabeth tore him a new one when he asked her to marry him the first time? Darcy gathered himself up, and with as much dignity as her tongue lashing could allow, walked out the door. He gave her the benefit of explaining where she was wrong, but also allowed her to know something about himself that was deeply personal and hurtful. He helped her and her family without expectation that it would come to anything at all.

That, my friends, is an emotionally intelligent man. And that’s why we love him so much.

A book boyfriend idealizes the traits we love in the people we want to love us - compassion, cleverness, courage and emotional intelligence. That’s what’s so addicting. Too many times our real-life relationships disappoint us, but book boyfriends will always be here for us.

Tell me - who is your favorite book boyfriend, and why? Reply below or tag me in your social media post about it!

Happy Reading!

Newsletters and Other Nonesense

 

In the name of house cleaning, I'm going to be reposting some older blog posts that I feel have relevance. One of them is my post Writing about Disability. It was something I wrote because I'm so tired of seeing tropey disableds as they are often portrayed in movies and in books. Disabled people are, first and foremost, people. They come in all shapes, sizes, colors, sexualities, and disabilities. But I will let that blog post speak for itself as I feel my fingers itching to get up on my soapbox once again about this topic.

I got my Pinterest board done finally. Going through the pins I had previously made me reinvigorated to start work on not only Daughter of Witches but also Ophelia as well. After I take my afternoon nap, of course.

But today's project is re-doing not only my newsletter but setting up newsletter exchanges in Story Origin as well. So if you have SO, write clean romance or fantasy (or both!) and want to exchange newsletters, email me. I'm determined to up my marketing game since working within SO and on TikTok have seen the greatest spikes in reads and purchases.

For my newsletter, I think I'm going offer two different incentives. First, sample chapter or two of Sweetwater. You haven't read it? See if you'd like to by reading the first couple of chapters. Second, a sequel short story I wrote about Anna and Phillip called Little Trifles. Read Sweetwater already? You'll want to get your hands on this adorable story about what happens after marriage. Hint, hint. Wink, wink.

If you have any other ideas that I might be able to offer my readers as an incentive to sign up for my newsletter, feel free to email them to me.

Now time for a nap!

Happy Reading!

I've Sort of Lost It

There have been some huge changes in my life over the last few years and suddenly out of the blue, I needed everything to change. 

I had been writing under my legal name and a pen name but I can't tell you what a huge nightmare juggling TWO social media accounts is.

Actually, three because if you count my editing business then that's three. There was just too much to do and none of it was doing me any good.

So, here I am. Changing and consolidating everything.

Instead of Whitney Sivill and WS Deming - it's going to be Whitney Lynn. Or maybe just Whitney Lynn and WS Deming. I do write Christian fiction and while the majority of my Christian fiction readers could read my other novels, I'm not holding my other novels to the same standards, morally and religiously, as my religious novels. I would hate for my readers to have disappointed expectations.

I haven't come up with an official date change yet because there is a huge to-do list.

- I am re-editing some of my novels. Going back, I'm seeing rookie mistakes that I've been itching to correct that now would be the perfect time for.

- I am going to have all the books reformatted. Again, rookie mistake when you try to do something yourself and you have no idea what you're doing. It's less aggravation to let someone who does it for a living every day deal with it.

- Sweetwater's cover may be rehauled. At the VERY least, the name of the author, of course. But in all honesty, I've been wanting to have the cover reflect the main point of the story - a wheelchair mom who finds love again with a hunky Green Beret. I want a wheelchair to be on the cover. That's what sets my book apart from most other second-chances, military romances. Inter-abled romance.

When I do finish all of these changes, I'm going to have a big relaunch party or something. I want my wheelchair woman flag to fly. I want new readers to discover my books and I want my biggest supporters to have something new to look at.

We'll see how that works out over the next few months.

In the meantime, I might still be doing the edit I should be doing on Ophelia, but per the suggestion of my lovely daughter, maybe it's time to work on something new.

I've had this idea floating around in my head for at least the last couple of years. It started when I was writing a Dragonriders of Pern fan fiction, Free to Fly. The premise is if you're disabled, why couldn't you fly a dragon?

In that same vein, I was thinking if she can fly a dragon, she can be a queen or a princess or someone super powerful despite the disability. Even if you have a disability, you can still change the world.

And thus Daughter of Witches was born. The Crow Queen series basically just about wrote itself without too much help. The thing that has been the hardest is researching pre and Iron Age Irish and Scottish history (also known as the Viking Age) and then using those things learned to create a new vision of Ireland and Scotland that never saw the arrival of the Romans.

What if the druids magic was real? What would that look like in ancient Celtic society? The world is created around the idea that the Celts, left alone by Rome, continued as they always had done, fighting against mainland Celtic tribes and the Vikings.

And then at the center of everything - love and disability. In Celtic lore, it is said that someone who was born with a disability was given certain extra powers to compensate. This usually manifested in people that were born blind were given the power of the "the Sight". With Ferelith, she wasn't born with a disability, but her near-death experience and subsequent loss of the use of her legs, plus her being of a line of very powerful witches, all combined to make her fate something she never dreamed possible and something she may not even want.

As you can tell I'm very excited to start on the first draft of the first book. I've got some of it done but I kept getting distracted with awesome scenes from future books in the series that I HAD to write down.

Keep you updated. There are a few kinks to work out characterization wise, but I know for a fact right now you're going to love the love interest, Eamon.

Happy Reading!