A Magnolia Romance

I want to tell everyone about my next project. It’s called A Magnolia Romance, and it’s a young adult romance set in the area I grew up. This is the first time I’ve used a real place in my books, and I did it for a reason. I wanted this book to come off as authentic. That meant including places I knew a lot about and letting real life experiences and feelings guide how my characters acted. After all, these characters are young, so emotion still guides a lot of their actions. Logan and Madison are two of my favorite characters I’ve ever had the honor of writing about. I’m not sure if everyone will perceive them like I do or if people will love the world they live in, but I do know this. No one will be able to say that place doesn’t exist or people really don’t act that way because I know they do. I grew up here with people exactly like them.

At its heart, A Magnolia Romance is a love story that doesn’t pretend to be much else. It’s in the same vein as Destiny only simpler. It’s a small town story with a hint of tragedy to bring the characters together. You see, when I started writing this story I wanted to make a book about younger characters who had to grow up fast. They had to have a backstory that made them into somewhat of outcasts, but it was that experience that would bring them together. While that was the backbone of the story, I never knew how much more Logan and Madison would be. These characters jump off the page and bring a familiarity that’s so much like real life. They’re not perfect, but sometimes that’s what makes us who we are. While editing this, someone asked if I thought the characters could be a little inappropriate sometimes for teenagers. I really asked myself were they, and the answer was yes. Logan and Madison do things they shouldn’t, make mistakes, and joke about things that parents don’t want to know their kids talk about, but it was my experience as a teenager that made me know that there’s no such thing as a cookie cutter person, no matter how much our parents might wish we were perfect. It’s those imperfections and inappropriate thoughts that we let slip off our tongues that makes us who we are, though. In the end, I kept the things that made Logan a teenage boy with inappropriate thoughts and the little things that made Madison what we don’t want to picture our daughters as. Don’t get me wrong. They’re good people, but they’re exactly like us. It’s in our flaws that we find relation, not our fake perfections. In that way, I hope you will all give Logan and Madison a chance to show you how real and well rounded they are as characters.

I can’t guarantee that everyone will love A Magnolia Romance, but I can promise you that I’m proud of this one. It’s the opposite of what Nora Roberts or John Grisham would write, but I think that’s the point. You can get so lost in dreams of success that you try to emulate what you think people want to see, but that’s never been me. Success comes in different forms, and whether this sells millions or hundreds, I feel successful. This is a book for people who love deeper, aren’t scared to go outside of norms, and who want something different. I also think some of my local people will enjoy the scenery and recognize many of the places in the book from the early 2000s. For everyone else, welcome to my world. This is where I grew up, and these are the types of characters I love to write about. It’s almost ready. I feel confident that I can have this in everyone’s hands by at least the middle of March. I can’t wait for you to read it. I want this one to be very successful, but my main goal is to share something real and show the passion I still have for writing. In that regard, I know for sure A Magnolia Romance will be everything I could have ever dreamed of.