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What’s Coming in 2026
As I look ahead to 2026, I’m holding plans gently.
Rather than fixed promises or rigid timelines, I’m following creative threads that have proven meaningful—stories rooted in trust, transformation, and love that grows slowly and sincerely.
Here’s a glimpse of what I’m hoping to explore next.
A New Fantasy Romance Direction
One of the stories calling most strongly is a fantasy romance series inspired by classic fairy tales—including Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, and other familiar stories reimagined with warmth, emotional depth, and character-centered romance.
In these, I hope to explore:
- transformation instead of enchantment alone
- courage
- intimacy built through choice
They’re stories about becoming in a world where light and love work together to shape kingdoms. The series will start with a Cinderella-inspired fantasy romance, The Glass Slipper’s Secret, currently building on Royal Road.
A Return to Familiar Hearts
In the fall, I’m planning to return to the world of 26 Reasons to Fall in Love, spending time again with Charles, Daphne, and the quiet, creative romance that grew pie by pie. Their story reminded me how powerful it can be to let love unfold gently, and I feel there’s still more to explore there.
Letting the Romance Deepen in Fantasy
The Dragon and The Ranger began as romantic fantasy, and in 2026 I’m hoping to revise it to lean more fully into romance—deepening emotional arcs, partnership, and the choices that bind two characters together.
An Ongoing Promise
Whatever shape these stories take, my hope for 2026 is simple:
- to write romance that feels warm, earned, and hopeful
- to honor patience over pressure
- and to keep creating stories worth lingering in
Thank you for being here as the next chapter unfolds.
Frequently Asked Questions
Will these stories be sweet romance?
Yes. Whether contemporary or fantasy, my romances continue to focus on emotional intimacy, slow-burn attraction, and relationships rooted in trust, courage, and care.Are the fairy tale–inspired stories retellings?
They’re inspired by classic fairy tales rather than strict retellings. Expect familiar emotional themes—transformation, hope, belonging—expressed through original characters and settings in the fantasy world I started with the short story, The First Light of Lumiare.
Do I need to have read previous books first?
No. New projects will be designed to stand alone, while returning characters will always include enough context for new readers to jump in comfortably.When will these books be released?
Because these are soft goals rather than fixed deadlines, dates will be shared only when stories are ready. The best way to stay updated is through the newsletter.Will there be more artisan romance?
Yes. Creativity, craft, and quiet connection continue to be central themes—especially when I revisit familiar characters.
If you are interested in reading my work, head to the links in the menu section, or check out The Glass Slipper’s Secret chapters at Royal Road.
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Happy New Year! Celebrating a Return to Romance in 2025 and a Free Book
A New Year and a Quiet Return to Romance
Every new year invites reflection, but sometimes the real story isn’t about resolutions. It’s about return.
For me, 2025 has been an unexpectedly meaningful year as an author. Not because everything was new, but because something I once walked away from found its way back.
Romance.
The First Time I Tried to Write Romance
The first romance I ever wrote was in seventh grade.
It was intensely confessional. Earnest. Vulnerable. A handwritten declaration of a crush on a boy at my school—one I never intended anyone else to see.
Unfortunately, someone did see it.
A “friend” took my notebook, passed it around, and by the time it made its way back to me, the damage was done. I threw out the notebook—and that story—as quickly as I could.
I didn’t just stop writing romance after that.
I stopped writing anything romantic.For a very long time.
A Reader Before a Writer (Again)
What does this have to do with the New Year?
New years often invite honesty. And honesty means acknowledging where we’ve been before we decide where we’re going next.
About five years ago, I began to realize something quietly: I loved reading romance. I returned to it first as a reader—curious, comforted, inspired. A handful of books, especially gentle, character-driven romances, reminded me what the genre could be.
Not embarrassment.
Not exposure.
But tenderness, hope, and courage.Still, writing romance felt like a stretch.
So I took a side road.
Finding My Way Through Romantic Fantasy
Before writing contemporary romance, I eased back in through familiar terrain—fantasy.
On Kindle Vella, I began writing The Dragon and The Ranger, a romantic fantasy series I’m now revising and continuing on Royal Road, with hopes of bringing it to ebook and paperback in 2026. It gave me room to explore connection, longing, and partnership behind the protection of magic, swords, and non-modern settings.
Then a romance writer kindly—and accurately—named something important for me:
The Dragon and The Ranger wasn’t romance.
It was romantic fantasy.
And that distinction mattered.
Stretching Into Contemporary Romance
If I wanted to grow as a romance writer, I needed to write romance without armor. No dragons. No enchanted barriers. Just people.
So I gave myself a small, safe challenge:
short contemporary romance stories.Meet-cutes. Quiet moments. Gentle risks.
Last spring, I released my first short romance, Rain Check. I had so much fun writing it that I immediately wrote five more—and sketched ideas for a dozen.
Somewhere along the way, something shifted.
The stories stopped being just about strangers meeting. They became stories about artists, makers, and creators—bakers, sculptors, photographers, mechanics learning to knit. People who communicate through craft when words fail.
Art became the bridge.
Creation became the language.
Romance became the reward.And without realizing it, I had returned to the genre I once abandoned—this time on my own terms.
What This Has to Do With the New Year
The New Year doesn’t always ask us to reinvent ourselves.
Sometimes it asks us to reclaim something we laid down long ago—not because it was wrong, but because we weren’t ready yet.
Writing contemporary romance in 2025 has been less about starting over and more about coming home. About offering tenderness where there was once silence. About trusting that some stories deserve a second chance.
Including the ones we tell ourselves.
As we move into a new year, I’m grateful for readers, for encouragement, and for the long arc that led me here. And I’m excited to keep exploring romance.
One story at a time.
A FREE Book for a Happy New Year!
What’s the best way to celebrate New Year’s?
You could go out and go dancing. Yes, that’s fun!
But also, you could curl up with a sweet romance.
True, this sweet romance starts on Halloween, so it isn’t quite set on New Year’s, but it is FREE, and it does involve a sweet meet-cute at a costumed community event. The book will be free December 31st through January 1st.
Kiss or Treat into Love
When the Maple Street fall festival turns the neighborhood into a river of lights and laughter, art teacher Hailey is there with paint-spattered sleeves, a booth full of tiny watercolors, and a heart she’s still mending.
Enter Jack—a Navy photographer with steady hands, a soft smile, and a way of noticing the quiet good. He comes to help for one evening… and ends up fitting into every corner of Hailey’s life.
From a bonfire with friends and cider-steam in the air, to a slow dance that steadies more than footsteps, to pizza night where sketches and photographs trade stories, Hailey and Jack learn the tender art of going slow—on purpose.
Together, they discover how love grows in small acts: a fixed game, a shared joke, a promise kept.
Get Kiss or Treat for FREE!
Note: this is a Universal Link for all readers and will go through a Bookfunnel site that will not say “free,” but once you click through, readers will find the book FREE on Amazon.
Direct Amazon US-only Link
Happy New Year’s!!!
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Writer’s Corner: Shared Creation in Romance and Wishing you a Merry Christmas
Shared Creation: Building Something Together as Intimacy
Some love stories are told in words.
Others are told in what is made—
recipe by recipe,
hour by hour,
side by side.In sweet romance, shared creation is one of the most powerful paths to intimacy. When characters build something together, attraction grows naturally. Trust forms quietly. And love becomes something practiced long before it is declared.
Twenty-Six Pies, One Love Letter: 26 Reasons to Fall in Love
In 26 Reasons to Fall in Love, Charles Rivera knows how to follow instructions. Recipes make sense. Ingredients behave. Results can be measured.
Love, however, does not.
Fresh out of the Army and rebuilding his life through ceramics, baking, and routine, Charles harbors quiet feelings for Daphne—the photographer who documents life with curiosity and care. When an offhand conversation sparks an idea—baking twenty-six pies in November, one for every letter of the alphabet—Charles sees a way forward.
Not through speeches.
Not through pressure.
But through creation.Each pie becomes a sentence in a love letter he isn’t yet brave enough to say aloud. As Daphne photographs the project, their collaboration deepens into late nights, shared laughter, and moments of recognition. Building something together creates emotional proximity. Being witnessed—without judgment—becomes intimacy.
What makes the romance unmistakable is choice. Charles doesn’t bake for attention. He bakes for her. Daphne doesn’t simply observe; she engages. Attraction grows because both of them show up—consistently, vulnerably, side by side.
Love Proven in Action: Persuasion
Jane Austen’s Persuasion is one of literature’s finest examples of love revealed through endurance and deliberate action.
Captain Wentworth loves Anne Elliot not through grand gestures, but through constancy. Time. Growth. Choice.
One line says everything:
“You pierce my soul.”
Though brief, the power of that declaration lies in what precedes it: years of restraint, self-improvement, and shared social space where love survives without entitlement.
26 Reasons to Fall in Love echoes this truth. Charles’s devotion is visible long before it is spoken. Love is demonstrated through follow-through—through finishing what he starts, and through allowing Daphne into the process.
In sweet romance, this kind of proof matters. Creation becomes a language of devotion.
Witnessing as Love: Julie & Julia
In Julie & Julia, a creative challenge transforms not only Julie’s confidence, but her marriage. What matters most isn’t the cooking—it’s the witnessing.
Someone sees the effort.
Someone encourages persistence.
Someone believes the project is worth finishing.That dynamic mirrors Charles and Daphne’s relationship. Collaboration doesn’t flatten attraction—it sharpens it. Love deepens because one person’s courage is held by another’s attention.
Shared creation invites romance because it removes performance. What’s left is sincerity.
Why Shared Creation Is So Romantic
Building something together creates:
- Proximity without pressure
- Vulnerability without exposure
- Commitment without control
Romance emerges not because characters talk about love—but because they practice it.
In sweet romance especially, this allows attraction to feel earned. Projects end. Feelings don’t. And when the making stops, characters must finally face what they’ve built between them.
Writing Prompts for Romance Authors
- Give your characters a creative challenge with a clear end date. What fears surface as the deadline approaches?
- Let one character document the other’s project. What do they notice first—and what do they fall in love with?
- Write a scene where the project nearly fails. How does love respond?
- Replace a declaration scene with a moment of quiet completion.
- Write the moment when the project ends—and feelings must be spoken at last.
Craft Tips: Using Shared Creation in Sweet Romance
- Make the project finite (deadlines create emotional stakes)
- Let attraction grow
- Use sensory detail to ground intimacy
- Allow silence while hands are busy
- Let love be revealed before it is named
If you liked this post, you might like 26 Reasons to Fall in Love, and it is FREE for e-book Kindle readers for a limited time between December 24-27. It is also available in paperback and hardback at stores like Barnes & Noble, Walmart, and Amazon.
Merry Christmas!
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Work as Craft: When Everyday Creation Becomes Love
Creation Over Competition: Sweet Warmth
In Sweet Warmth, Callie Morgan has already built her sanctuary.
Her chocolate shop—warm, amber-lit, filled with vintage mugs and the scent of memory—is more than a business. It’s an inheritance of love, a legacy passed down through her grandmother’s treasured hot chocolate recipe. It is stability, identity, and heart.
Then the blizzard comes.
Daniel, a pastry chef scouting locations for a future bakery, arrives not as a rival but as a man brought low by circumstance: stranded, disconnected, and unexpectedly in need. Over steaming mugs of chocolate and flickering candlelight, something gentle unfolds.
They could compete.
Instead, they listen.As Callie and Daniel talk shop—recipes, techniques, dreams—they discover that creativity doesn’t have to divide. Their ideas blend beautifully. Chocolate and pastry. Warmth and structure. Care and precision.
Their romance grows not out of grand gestures, but out of mutual respect for each other’s craft. Their work reveals who they are. And love follows naturally.
Food as Emotion and Memory: Like Water for Chocolate
Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate takes the idea even deeper: food as the direct language of emotion.
Every dish carries intention, longing, grief, and love. Recipes become ritual. Cooking becomes storytelling. What characters cannot say aloud is expressed through taste, scent, and shared meals.
In this novel, craft is inseparable from feeling. Food is not background—it is the conduit for connection. Love literally passes from one heart to another through creation.
In Sweet Warmth, we see the same quiet truth: what Callie pours into her chocolate, and what Daniel pours into his baking, is not just skill—it’s care. And care is the foundation of love.
The Film Pairing: Chocolat (2000)
If Sweet Warmth had a cinematic cousin, it would be Chocolat.
Set in a small, tradition-bound village, the film shows how food—and the act of making it—softens rigid hearts. Chocolate becomes invitation. A shop becomes a gathering place. Craft becomes community.
Like Callie, Chocolat’s heroine isn’t trying to change people. She simply offers warmth. And warmth, given consistently and sincerely, transforms lives.
Key connective thread:
Creation that welcomes others reshapes both the creator and the world around them.
Why Craft Works So Well in Romance
Craft-based romance works because it is embodied.
- Hands are busy
- Focus is shared
- Vulnerability arrives sideways
People reveal themselves through what they make—and how they make it. Respect grows. Trust follows. Love doesn’t feel forced because it isn’t rushed.
Craft allows romance to rise naturally out of competence, care, and collaboration.
Writing Prompts & Craft Notes for Romance Authors
Writing Prompts
- Two artisans meet in a moment of disruption (weather, equipment failure, supply shortage). What do they make together?
- Write a scene where competition almost happens—but cooperation changes everything.
- Let a family recipe or inherited skill create both comfort and conflict.
- Show attraction growing through professional admiration rather than flirtation.
- Write a first kiss that happens because a task is finished—not because words run out.
Craft Tips
- Let work reveal values
- Use sensory detail generously
- Show learning and adjustment
- Allow collaboration to replace rivalry
- Let the romance deepen as the craft deepens
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Story and Art as Healing: How Making Together Rebuilds Hearts
Story And Art as Healing: How Making Together Rebuilds Hearts
There are wounds that don’t respond to advice.
They live in the body.
They surface in silence.
They resist being named.In stories like these, healing doesn’t arrive with speeches or solutions. It comes quietly—through rhythm, repetition, shared space, and the gentle permission to create again.
Stories, crafts, and community don’t erase pain.
They give pain a place to rest.
Purls of Love
In Purls of Love, a veteran mechanic begins knitting not because he dreams of becoming an artist—but because he needs something to steady his hands and quiet his thoughts.
Knitting becomes therapy.
Then routine.
Then refuge.With the help of a knitter who understands both patience and pain, he learns that creation doesn’t require perfection—only presence. Yarn moves through his fingers. Stories emerge between stitches. Slowly, what began as private healing grows outward.
Together, they imagine something more: a knitting group, a gathering place, a way to invite others into connection when loneliness has felt like the default.
Love in this story doesn’t rush in to “fix” anything.
It grows alongside healing.
It respects the pace of restoration.And that may be the most romantic thing of all.
Stories That Find Us—and Each Other:
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society**
In The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, romance grows not in spite of hardship, but through the shared act of storytelling. Born from wartime scarcity and lingering grief, the literary society becomes a place where people are allowed to tell the truth—slowly, imperfectly, and together.
One line captures the heart of both the story and its romance:
“Perhaps there is some secret sort of homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers.”That quiet observation applies just as well to love.
Through letters, books, and long conversations shaped by mutual curiosity, characters begin to recognize one another—not through dramatic gestures, but through attentiveness. Stories open emotional doors that survival had closed. As grief is shared and understood, attraction becomes possible, grounded not in urgency, but in trust.
The romance in Guernsey unfolds through witness. To be read—to have one’s story welcomed and remembered—is a deeply romantic act. Love arrives not as rescue, but as companionship: a choice made after understanding has taken root.
For writers of sweet romance, Guernsey offers a powerful reminder: when characters are drawn together by shared meaning and story, love can feel both inevitable and earned.
Why Storytelling and Art Heals in Romance
Stories and art heal in romance because they slow us down.
They give:
- Structure without pressure
- Expression without exposure
- Community without demands
They allow characters—and readers—to sit with pain long enough for hope to arrive naturally.
When love enters these healing stories, it does so gently. Respectfully. Not as rescue, but as companionship.
Writing Prompts & Craft Notes for Romance Authors
Writing Prompts
- Write a scene where a character learns a craft or skill strictly for survival—and discovers connection instead.
- Create a shared group (book club, crafting circle, repair shop, café table) and let love grow on the edges.
- Let healing come through repetition rather than revelation.
- Write dialogue that happens while hands are busy making something.
- Let romance wait until healing feels rooted, not rushed
Craft Tips
- Allow silence to matter
- Show care through action
- Let community be character
- Honor slow pacing
- Treat healing as nonlinear
If you liked this post, you might like my short story, Purls of Love.
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Art as Lifeblood: How Creativity Restores Hearts and Stories
Some stories don’t begin with romance.
They begin with stillness.A closed heart.
A guarded life.
A person who has learned to survive—but not quite to feel.Again and again, across literature and film, art enters stories not as decoration, but as lifeblood. Creativity awakens what grief, fear, routine, or loss has pushed aside. It restores wonder. It creates connection. And, often, it makes love possible.
That truth sits at the heart of so many beloved romantic stories—including one very dear to me.
When Art Opens the Door to Trust: Sculpted Chance
In my short romance Sculpted Chance, a businessman falls in love with a sculptor—but the romance itself isn’t the first transformation.
At the beginning of the story, he is emotionally restrained, cautious from past wounds, and structured by a world where control equals safety. Art unsettles him. It doesn’t demand; it invites. Through the sculptor’s work—and through watching creation happen—he begins to remember something long buried: the instinct to imagine, to feel, to create.
As he slowly discovers that he may be an artist himself after all, love becomes possible not because someone persuades him to trust—but because creativity teaches him how.
Art doesn’t fix him.
It reintroduces him to himself.That same pattern echoes through many of our most enduring romantic stories.
Beauty as Awakening: A Room with a View
E. M. Forster’s A Room with a View is, at its core, a story about beauty breaking through polite suffocation.
Lucy Honeychurch lives by expectation—social rules, proper matches, appropriate feeling. Art, music, travel, and the sensory richness of Italy awaken something in her that cannot be tucked neatly back into place. Beauty forces her to notice her own heart.
Art in Forster’s novel isn’t loud or dramatic. It’s atmospheric—architecture, landscapes, music, the quiet permission to feel deeply. And that permission changes everything.
Like the hero in Sculpted Chance, Lucy doesn’t gain courage through argument or logic. She gains it through experience. Through beauty. Through attention.
Art teaches her that a life without passion is not safety—it’s absence.
Creation as Connection: Ghost
Few films capture the intimacy of creation as memorably as Ghost (1990).
The pottery scene is iconic not merely because it is romantic, but because it shows art as shared vulnerability. Hands shaping clay together become a language beyond words. Trust is built not through promises, but through presence. Creativity becomes communion.
Even after loss, art remains the bridge—between love and grief, memory and hope, the seen and the unseen. Creation holds what cannot be held any other way.
In Ghost, art doesn’t erase pain. It gives pain somewhere to go.
Why Romance Needs Art
Romance thrives when characters are becoming more fully themselves.
Art—whether sculpting, music, architecture, cooking, writing, or simple acts of creativity—signals growth. It slows characters down. It invites attention. It allows transformation without speeches or declarations.
Art lets love arrive naturally, because the heart has already been opened.
That is why creative acts appear again and again in romantic storytelling. They are believable catalysts. They show change rather than announce it. And they remind us that love is not something we manufacture—it’s something we make room for.
An Invitation
Whether you are a reader, a writer, or simply someone who has forgotten the quiet joy of making something beautiful, stories remind us of this:
Art is not a luxury.
It is lifeblood.It restores hearts.
It opens stories.
And sometimes, it teaches us how to love again.
Writing Prompts & Craft Tips for Romance Authors
Writing Prompts
- Write a meet-cute where the first real connection happens through a shared creative moment—not conversation.
- Give a guarded character an artistic instinct they’ve denied. What awakens it?
- Write a scene where hands create something together—food, art, repairs. What emotions surface?
- Let art be the reason a character finally speaks the truth.
- What happens when a character’s creative work is misunderstood—and how does love respond?
Craft Tips
- Use art as action, not exposition
- Let creativity reveal vulnerability
- Tie creative acts to emotional turning points
- Avoid perfection—art works best when messy and human
If you liked this post, you might like Sculpted Chance or other stories in my Artisan Romance Series.
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Writer’s Corner: Cozy Settings that Carry Emotional Weight
Practical craft notes for romance writers
Cozy settings don’t work because they’re charming. They work because they hold emotional meaning.
A kitchen, a coffee shop, or a living room becomes powerful in fiction when it reflects routine, values, and change. In sweet romance—especially holiday romance—settings often do the quiet work of deepening connection before the characters realize what’s happening.
Here are a few practical ways to make setting pull its emotional weight.
1. Let Cold Weather Narrow the Scene
Winter is useful because it reduces options.
Characters don’t wander as much. They linger. They make intentional choices about where to be and with whom. Rather than describing the cold itself, focus on its effect:
- Who invites someone inside?
- Who stays longer than planned?
- Who begins to associate warmth with a particular person?
Setting isn’t about weather—it’s about response.
2. Use Familiar Spaces to Reveal Character Values
Familiar places show us who people are when they aren’t trying.
A kitchen can reveal:
- comfort with hospitality (or discomfort with it)
- routines shaped by family or history
- whether a character fills silence or lets it stand
A coffee shop can function as:
- neutral ground
- a halfway step toward intimacy
- a ritual that slowly becomes personal
Choose settings your characters return to, then let repetition do the emotional work.
3. Describe Function, Not Furniture
Readers remember how a place feels to use, not how it’s decorated.
Instead of listing details, anchor descriptions to action:
- where coats are placed
- who pours the coffee
- how quickly someone moves or stills
Settings gain texture through movement, habit, and use.
4. Let Setting Change as the Relationship Changes
Settings should evolve alongside emotional stakes.
A place that once felt practical may later feel intimate—or vulnerable. A neutral location may become charged with expectation. These shifts don’t need to be announced. Let them show up subtly:
- a pause before entering
- a longer goodbye
- an awareness that the space feels different now
When setting reflects emotional growth, the romance feels grounded.
5. Use Writing Exercises to Deepen Awareness (Not Just Drafts)
You don’t need to publish every scene you write.
Try drafting:
- a scene where your POV character notices a shared space differently because someone else matters now
- a paragraph where the setting observes patterns or changes over time
These versions are tools. Their job is clarity, not perfection.
Final Craft Takeaway
Cozy settings work best when they’re treated as emotional containers—spaces where trust, presence, and affection can slowly take root.
In sweet romance, love often grows where characters feel safe enough to stay.
Optional Writing Prompts for Writers
Prompt 1: Character-Focused Setting Shift
Rewrite a quiet scene and ask:
What does my character notice now that they wouldn’t have noticed before this relationship mattered?Prompt 2: Place-as-Observer (Draft Only)
Write 200 words where the setting notices consistency, hesitation, or change over time.
Cut it later if needed—but keep what you learn.
If you’d like, this post pairs well with 26 Reasons to Fall in Love, a holiday sweet romance where kitchens, coffee shops, and shared traditions slowly become spaces of connection.
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Recipes, Coffee, And Christmas Lights
When Setting Becomes a Character in Sweet Romance
How cozy places, winter traditions, and shared spaces deepen emotional connection
In sweet romance, intimacy often grows not through grand gestures, but through quiet moments—shared spaces where two people slowly learn each other. During the holiday season especially, setting does more than host the story. It becomes part of the emotional rhythm.
In 26 Reasons to Fall in Love, the story unfolds from Thanksgiving to Christmas, where cold days push characters inward—toward warmth, tradition, and the simple act of showing up. A familiar kitchen becomes a touchstone. A coffee shop becomes neutral ground that slowly turns personal. These places don’t just sit in the background. They shape the connection.
Cold Weather and the Pull Toward Warmth
Winter naturally narrows the world.
Cold air pushes people indoors. It slows movement. It gives small comforts—warm mugs, familiar rooms, shared meals—greater emotional weight. In 26 Reasons to Fall in Love, the seasonal chill heightens the significance of time spent inside together. It’s not about escaping the cold so much as choosing where to be warm.
For writers, cold weather can:
- Encourage proximity without rushing intimacy
- Emphasize comfort, stability, and routine
- Highlight contrast between emotional distance and physical closeness
Winter settings excel at making quiet moments meaningful.
Cozy Traditions as Emotional Bridges
Holidays bring traditions—and traditions reveal values.
In 26 Reasons to Fall in Love, the kitchen isn’t just where food happens. It’s where relational rhythms live. Where a character’s habits, memories, and expectations quietly surface. As characters encounter one another’s traditions—what’s familiar, what’s new, what’s missing—they begin to understand each other more deeply.
Setting supports this by:
- Providing a shared space for traditions to unfold
- Allowing contrast between characters’ backgrounds
- Creating low-stakes moments that still carry emotional significance
A kitchen during the holidays isn’t neutral. It’s loaded—with memory, comfort, and meaning.
Details That Invite the Reader In
The difference between a functional setting and a memorable one lies in selective detail.
In both the kitchen and the coffee shop in 26 Reasons, the most important descriptions aren’t about décor. They’re about use. How the space feels when entered. How long someone stays. Who has been invited in—and who hasn’t.
Effective setting details:
- Reflect what the POV character values or notices
- Reinforce emotional tone (comfort, hesitation, familiarity)
- Stay grounded in action rather than static description
Readers don’t just want to see a place. They want to feel welcome—or uncertain—inside it.
When Place Reflects Character
Setting becomes character-like when it aligns with who the characters are becoming.
A kitchen that starts as merely functional can slowly feel like home. A coffee shop that once felt impersonal can become charged with expectation. These shifts mirror emotional change.
Ask:
- What places feel safe to this character—and why?
- Which settings expose their habits, fears, or hopes?
- How does a familiar place change once someone else matters?
When setting evolves alongside the relationship, readers feel that growth instinctively.
Writing Prompts to Try
1. Character-Noticing-Place Prompt
Write a short scene set in a familiar space (a kitchen, café, or living room).
Focus on what your POV character notices because of the other person present.
What suddenly matters now that it didn’t before?2. Place-as-Observer Prompt (Optional Twist)
Write a paragraph from the perspective of the place itself—not narrating, but observing.
What patterns does it notice as the characters return?
Where does the space “hold” tension or warmth?You don’t need to use this version in the final draft—the goal is to deepen emotional awareness.
Final Thought
In sweet romance, love often grows in ordinary places made extraordinary by care, presence, and time. During winter especially, settings become containers for warmth—showing readers that love doesn’t need spectacle.
Sometimes, it just needs coffee, a special recipe, and Christmas lights.
If you liked these thoughts on writing romance, you might like my novella 26 Reasons to Fall in Love.
Find out more on the 26 Reasons to Fall in Love page here at my website.
Find 26 Reasons to Fall in Love on Bookfunnel for a universal link to online stores.
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Hardback editions are here for 26 Reasons to Fall in Love!
I’m so excited to share that it’s now possible to get 26 Reasons to Fall in Love in paperback, ebook, and hardback! And it’s the perfect size for a stocking stuffer!
I love this book and I loved writing it, so I hope readers will love it, too!
I unboxed it today, and that was a special treat. See the video on my Instagram.
On a sad note, it has come to my attention that my link wasn’t working for the for the first few days of the Bookfunnel I joined for Christmas in KU.
I fixed it today! Try the link direct HERE.
And, it will be free for all readers December 23-27th, just for Christmas.
Want to know more?
He can follow any recipe—but love doesn’t come with instructions.
Twenty-six pies. Two months. One chance to tell her how he feels—without saying a word.
After two years in the Army and a lifetime of playing it safe, Charles Rivera is finally rebuilding his world—one recipe at a time. His quiet college life revolves around ceramics, his tiny kitchen, and a Thursday night book club where the highlight isn’t the literature…it’s Daphne, the Navy veteran with a crooked smile and a camera that never leaves her side.
When a conversation sparks a wild idea—bake twenty-six pies in November and December, one for every letter of the alphabet—Charles dives in headfirst. What starts as a creative challenge soon becomes something deeper: a way to speak through flour, butter, and sugar the words he can’t quite say out loud.
But as Daphne begins documenting his project for her photography portfolio, their collaboration turns into late-night laughter, quiet confessions, and a friendship that feels like something more.
And when the pies run out, Charles will have to decide if he’s brave enough to take the biggest risk of all—the one that doesn’t come with a recipe.A tender, slow-burn romance about art, courage, and finding home in the people who see you.
Perfect for readers who love baking challenges, creative passion projects, found family, and love that rises slowly—but beautifully.Get 26 Reasons to Fall in Love Today!
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Christmas Romance in Kindle Unlimited!
Christmas Romance in Kindle Unlimited
From December 1st through December 31st, find dozens of holiday themed romances for all heat levels of romance readers through this promotion! Over 50 authors are involved in the promotion, so there are books for all romance readers.
Curl up by a fire with a sweet or hot cup of cocoa and a fun read!
Within this promotion, you’ll find my sweet holiday-themed romance 26 Reasons: A Sweet Meet-Cute Novella (Artisan Romance Sweet Meet-Cute Stories).
26 Reasons: A Sweet Meet-Cute Novella
He can follow any recipe—but love doesn’t come with instructions.
Twenty-six pies. One month. One chance to tell her how he feels—without saying a word.
After two years in the Army and a lifetime of playing it safe, Charles Rivera is finally rebuilding his world—one recipe at a time. His quiet college life revolves around ceramics, his tiny kitchen, and a Thursday night book club where the highlight isn’t the literature…it’s Daphne, the Navy veteran with a crooked smile and a camera that never leaves her side.
When a conversation sparks a wild idea—bake twenty-six pies in November, one for every letter of the alphabet—Charles dives in headfirst. What starts as a creative challenge soon becomes something deeper: a way to speak through flour, butter, and sugar the words he can’t quite say out loud.
But as Daphne begins documenting his project for her photography portfolio, their collaboration turns into late-night laughter, quiet confessions, and a friendship that feels like something more.
And when the pies run out, Charles will have to decide if he’s brave enough to take the biggest risk of all—the one that doesn’t come with a recipe.A tender, slow-burn romance about art, courage, and finding home in the people who see you.
Perfect for readers who love baking challenges, creative passion projects, found family, and love that rises slowly—but beautifully.Find 26 Reasons: A Sweet Meet-Cute Novella within the Christmas Romance on KU promotion!
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Rene (Rose) Hawthorne 