Dear Prudence follows two people whose lives cross while they are each on a journey of self-discovery and find an unexpected connection. What was the inspiration for the love story and the relationship the characters have?

I had the Beatles’ song, “Dear Prudence” in my head for a week or so, and Pru slowly emerged in my head. There are some lines in the song, “Dear Prudence, open up your eyes…the sun is up, the sky is blue, it’s beautiful and so are you.” My “Pru” seemed afraid to experience life and risk getting hurt. It’s such a beautiful, encouraging song, and I think my (not yet written) character needed to hear it. As far as Shawn…I read a lot of contemporary romance, and one thing I noticed about many of the heroes is that they tend to be movie-star-perfect. Since the book switches points of view between the two characters, I wanted him to have at least as complex of a life as Pru did, and I wanted his personal journey to parallel hers. I decided I wanted to write a story about two very flawed, realistic human beings looking for direction in life and realizing that when they’re not hiding from reality, they’re more than capable of giving and receiving love.

Pru’s character struggles with finding herself after leaving an abusive relationship, while Shawn struggles with living up to everyone’s expectations for him but himself. Are there any emotions or memories from your own life that you put into your characters’ lives?

Well, yeah. In fact, when some of my friends and relatives read the book, they saw me, my personality, my past personal issues, and many of my experiences in both characters.

My inspiration for Matilda was a poorly trained yellow lab I had back in the nineties named Sophie, and my golden retriever, Daisy, who I recently lost to cancer. Matilda is partial wish fulfillment. Her personality very much mirrors my dogs’, but she’s a lot better trained than either of them ever were.

There is a sense of love and innocence throughout the novel. How were you able to capture those feelings and put them into words?

I’m sort of hopeless about romance, but I’m also the first person to roll their eyes when two characters inexplicably fall in love. So, I wanted Pru and Shawn to gradually feel genuine raw emotion while they fight off the chemistry between them. They’ve never completely, fearlessly loved someone before, and they don’t know what to do with those feelings. In that sense, I think there is a kind of innocence to their love because it’s part of their own self-discovery. They’ve come to a place in their lives where they’re living without a safety net.

So, that’s one answer. The other answer is a little boring. My writing focus, until a few years ago, was always poetry, and I’ve had some amazing teachers. I used a lot of the lessons about evoking emotions with a few strong images and tried to apply them to fiction—hopefully with some degree of success.

What is the next book you are working on, and when will it be available?

My book Her Name Was Lola, another contemporary romance, is currently with Extasy Books’ in-house editors and should hopefully be out sometime in early to mid-2024. It prominently features Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid and includes tropes like professor/student, age gap (not a huge one, mind you), forced proximity, and grumpy/sunshine. It was a lot of fun to write and I hope everyone loves it.

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