However, I wasn’t ready to give up. I’d set myself up to write this series and I knew there was a way to get excited about it. I just had to find it.
So I let go. I let go of my loose outline, the order of the books, the female main characters, the plot ideas, all of it. I looked at it with fresh eyes and spent a lot of time thinking about what I wanted to write.
The solution came in the title. I was thinking of ideas and already felt the nudge to lean into romantic suspense. I started playing around with words and, long story short, came up with this and several other title ideas.
I loved them and so did my team. I could picture them on book covers and they told me something about the direction I needed to go to jumpstart my brain again.
So I ran with it. Did I worry that existing readers would balk at the emphasis on romantic suspense? Oh yeah. Did I worry that new readers wouldn’t take a chance on me? For sure. Was I afraid that I was straying too far from reader expectations? Definitely.
But did I do it anyway? Yep. Sometimes you just have to do it scared.
I also have to share with you how I came up with the identity of the stalker.
I have three kids who, at the time of this writing, are all in their teens. I was chatting with my oldest son about what I was working on and said I knew the heroine would have a stalker, but I wasn’t sure who he was or why he was stalking her. He said something like, what if he’s the brother she didn’t know she had because her dad had an affair and he hates her because their dad rejected him? I thought hey, that’s pretty good.
But the story doesn’t end there. Later, I was talking with my middle son, and the subject came up. He suggested the EXACT SAME IDEA. His brother wasn’t there and neither of them realized the other had suggested the unknown half-brother idea.
I figured that was a pretty good sign that I needed to run with it. So I did!
A big thank you to my boys for helping with the twists.
I loved writing this book and taking on the challenge of a suspense plot. I’m definitely in my small-town romantic suspense era and I hope you’re enjoying the ride!
Love,
Claire
P.S. I don’t know if you’re ready for the next Haven book, my friends. This one was just a warm up…
Acknowledgments
Thank you so much to everyone who helped make this book happen!
To Nikki and Alex for not holding back when there were ISSUES. This book is so much better because of you.
To Lori for the exquisite cover.
To Eliza and Erma for cleaning up all the word (and comma) messes.
To my sons who each—separately—suggested the same idea for the identity and motive of the stalker. Good idea, boys! Thanks for helping me with the twists!
And to all my readers for taking a chance on the Haven brothers, even though they were once the rivals to our beloved Baileys.