Larissa and Friends' Bookish Life

Guest Blog by Emma Cane + Book Giveaway! {US Only}

An Introduction to Emma Cane

Hello! My name is Emma Cane, and I’m new to contemporary romance. My first novel, A TOWN CALLED VALENTINE, was just published yesterday—and am I excited! Now I confess, I’m not a debut author. I’ve written twenty-five historical romances as Gayle Callen and Julia Latham, and I’ll keep doing so because I love history!

But…I read a lot of contemporary romance, too, from Susan Elizabeth Phillips to Debbie Macomber. I fell in love with the small-town America depicted in a lot of books and began to get the urge to try it myself. And so the town of Valentine Valley was born. Now it wasn’t an immediate sell to Avon Books, my historical publisher. They loved the idea of the town itself, a place known for romance, where people

come to get engaged, get married, or have the “Valentine Valley” postmark stamped on their wedding invitations. But I was thinking of setting it in the Fingerlakes region of New York, in the middle of wine country and the historic villages along the Erie Canal. And my publisher said, “How about setting it in a ranching community out west? Everyone loves cowboys!” I was immediately intrigued! My son lives in

Colorado, so it only seemed natural to set my series there.

To my surprise, I did just as much research on cowboys and the ranching life as any historical novel I’ve written. But ultimately, it’s fun learning about how other people live, and isn’t that part of the reason we all read? I realized that writing a romance isn’t so different when it’s set in modern times. Sure my characters can drive cars—that was so fun and different for me that I had the heroine driving a car in the opening scene!—but it still comes down to a conflict between two people who are falling in love, but really resisting it. In some ways, that’s a little more difficult to plot in modern times. After all, no one cares how many dates you’ve had before you sleep with a guy. There’s more tension in historic times where even a private kiss on the cheek can ruin a woman. But that’s okay—it just made me dig deeper into my characters and give them even more reasons why they resist falling in love. I hope you enjoy

reading all about them.

So which do you usually prefer, contemporaries or historicals? Tell me why! And don’t forget, a lucky commenter will win a free book today.