Romance and romance novels have evolved tremendously in the past several decades. The choices are almost overwhelming. I can now read about shapeshifters, monsters, and aliens finding love and there are varying degrees of spice in available novels too. Women’s rights and romance novels have come a long way in the last hundred years and I can’t wait to see the progress we make in the next ten or twenty years.

The romance novels of my parents and grandparents’ generation were revolutionary at that time because they were written expressly for women and gave the female characters a major voice, something that was fairly lacking back then. Love and happy endings were the staples of the romance genre. Romance novels became a safe space for women to escape into since the reality of relationships was often one-sided— women were expected to listen and do as they were told and were required to play a lesser, supporting role to magnify and emotionally support their husbands. Romance books were looked at as frivolous nonsense by those who didn’t know any better, leaving women free to sneak away into moments of stolen peace to read tales of men who possessed masterful skills in the bedroom and treated the women they loved like queens.

Romance novels have evolved as women’s rights have evolved. In the United States and many other countries in western culture, there are no longer rules barring women from seeking education in any field we wish to study. Women can now manage our own finances, hold managerial positions at work, and even own and operate entire companies. Having a life partner is no longer a requirement to ensure our survival. In keeping with the changes to society, romance novel heroes and heroines have changed. Women are able to be an equal decision-making partner in a relationship and determine for ourselves what we want from a partner, both in the bedroom and in general.

I love creating heroines who discover their strength and resilience as they fight to withstand the devastating things life throws at them. My novels contain a ton of suspense, because I discovered how much fun it is to create twists and turns and terrifying situations where the characters must fight their way to safety. It’s a lot of fun making the characters work together when they are trying so hard to stay away from each other and fight their feelings.

Scary rabbits and other strange creatures:

When I was writing my first book a few years ago, my oldest daughter who was about ten at the time, was reading Bunnicula by James and Deborah Howe. She loved the Bunnicula books so much that she asked me to write a scary rabbit into my series. So, for my daughter, I created the rabbit shifters which are viewed by the other shapeshifters with a mix of awe and fear.

The rabbit shifters can appear as harmless rabbits but they can also morph into bony fur-covered skeleton looking creatures with teeth like a bear trap and fur full of projectile needles. Though the rabbit shifters look scary, they’re usually pretty decent people. They don’t like to be touched by anyone while in rabbit form and won’t hesitate to get mean about it. They also like to play pranks. They are the deadliest of all kinds of shapeshifters and usually use their skills to protect shifters and regular humans. In their rabbit form, rabbit shifters are incredibly vulnerable but become a deadly force to be reckoned with when they shift into their secondary, more terrifying form. Sometimes we all have to be a little scary or loud in order to be heard and our fierceness can take people by surprise.

For my Stranger Creatures series and Haven Forest Resort series, the other shapeshifters I created were predatory animals like bears, wolves, and tigers. Instead of the typical structure of a pack with an alpha and all others being bound to follow one specific leader and submit to the his will, I wrote the shifters in my stories as having no hierarchical structure. The alpha or pack leader of each group is usually an older woman who provides guidance and advice as well as some tough love when necessary.

An important part of being a shapeshifter in the worlds I created is taking care of the environment since the shifters need land to be able to run free in their animal form. Shapeshifters have become a part of the force that works to keep greedy land developers from tearing down countless forests and fields or filling in every creek and stream just to build strip malls and more luxury homes. The town of Great Oaks, where most of the stories in my Stranger Creatures series take place, was once a factory town that became desolate and forgotten when the factories closed. When shifters began to see the potential of the town by renovating the existing buildings and creating a community where shifters could live without worry that all of their parks and land would be destroyed, the town began to thrive and grow to become a desirable spot for shifters and other strange creatures.

The one strange creature I haven’t written about yet is mermaids. I have always loved the water and try to go to the beach or the river whenever possible. I like to canoe, swim, or just sit on the shore or the wide flat rocks protruding from the river, and read. When I was a little kid, I used to wish on my birthday candles every year that I could become a mermaid but I’ll have to settle for one day writing about the beautiful strange creatures of the ocean.

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