I love post-apocalyptic stories. I love serial romance novels. Especially B rated ones…
I didn’t used to like either. I was a straight-up horror reader with a taste for gore, nightmares, and other icky things. The weirder, the better. Among my favorite authors are H.P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allen Poe, Dean Koontz, and Anne Perry.
Some might question the Anne Perry. I have found that her books just don’t get any more realistically evil and these would keep me up at night.
I started reading Nora Roberts as J.D. Robb. Her character Eve Dallas is full of grit. I love the world she created with its darkness and Eve’s inability to cope with her changing life.
So how did I get from Poe, Perry, and Robb to creating a cheesecake Apocalyptic series like Novo?
I discovered I had my own dark secret- I love happy endings without the traditional marriage-baby combination.
I got my hands on a book called Agnes and the Hitman, by Jennifer Crusie. It’s a stitch, if you’ve never read it. You should. I discovered a whole slew of normal people with abnormal lives, trying to get along. To survive- their jobs, their families, their abilities or lack their of. All done with a cheeky sense of humor.
In secret, I began reading serial romances like they were calorie-free bon bons. Here was a die-hard goth/street punk chick with a romance novel in her hands? My buddies would have died laughing.
So… Novo. Somehow, Lovecraft and Crusie melded in my head. Add to that, I do a lot of DIY projects around the house and I am a huge environmentalist and animal lover. And, I have another good friend who likes to break the filters in my head because he says it’s like watching glitter bombs go off in there. The “what if” question was raised and Novo was born.
I have had an amazing time writing these books. Getting to know them as I know myself. And, of course, Hell’s Bells, Mrs. Latterly’s demented goat.