Hello! Dominique Gibson is back with another post. So, it’s been a crazy weekend. While I was able to get some stuff done when it came to working on my thesis (I finally managed to make it to my 10,000 word word count for the second round of my thesis submission). There seemed to be this desperate urge to read this certain book since I ordered it from Amazon a couple of weeks ago. If you checked out my newsletter from last month, I gave out a glowing review for the last book I read, which was Blame it on the Billionaire by Naima Simone. Now, I am reading both The Sea Glass Cottage by RaeAnne Thayne (See below) AND Before Summer Ends by Susan Mallery (See Above). These two books have become my latest addictions so far and I have to admit I love them both. The more I read these stories (Even though one is a category romance and one is a single-title romance), the more I realize that my contemporary voice fits within these two books.
These two books have really resonated with me when it came to the different characters and plot lines these two ladies developed within their stories. I won’t go much into detail considering I’m still reading the book but as I am reading these stories, I can’t help but wonder if my contemporary stories fit more for the Harlequin Special Edition line vs. Harlequin Desire. For the longest time, I thought my voice fit very well with Harlequin Desire considering how much I loved reading Brenda Jackson’s novels and how much I loved reading about a rich sexy billionaire sweeping me off my feet (and in a lot of ways, I still do, hence the sexy men from The Truson S.E.T. Series) but just because I love reading Harlequin Desire novels doesn’t mean I am able to write one.
Yes, I have realized that I love reading them but my writing voice wouldn’t love writing them. Why? Because those 50,000 word short novels I have been reading for years only focuses on the hero and heroine of the entire story and not much on the secondary characters unless it’s about the hero and heroine’s relationship. I tried writing a story like this and I just wasn’t comfortable writing it without adding the secondary characters to the mix. That is why there are a lot of secondary characters in my paranormal romance series as well. I try my best to add in secondary characters who contribute to the main romance plot as much as possible as the hero and heroine try to sort out their feelings while battling criminals along the way.
I have thought long and hard about this when it comes to which genre(s) I want to write besides paranormal romance and the only thing that would make me just as happy as writing paranormal romance is writing contemporary romance. Since I have decided that Harlequin Desire doesn’t fit within my writing voice, I have found out that Harlequin Special Edition might be. The word count for Harlequin Special Edition is 60,000 words instead of 50,000 words and it has more leeway for secondary characters in the mix, which is the kind of style I enjoy.
So, maybe it’s time for me to sit down and look over my submission that I submitted back in 2019 to the Harlequin Mentorship program, write it over (Both the outline and the chapters within itself), hire a beta reader for my work and finally send it off to Harlequin in the near future.
Before that happens, there are a few projects I have to finish first…
Well, that’s it for today. If you’re interested in buying the books I mentioned earlier, click on the link above where the highlighted titles are and it will take you to the Harlequin website. Otherwise, I will see you soon.
Dominique
Dominique Gibson knew she wanted to be a writer ever since she sat down at her plastic table and wrote her first book out of sheer boredom at eight years old. Years later, she decided to go get her Bachelor’s Degree from Columbia College Chicago. She is obtaining her master’s degree in Creative Writing from Southern New Hampshire University. When not writing, she is busy teaching two year olds at a daycare center in Skokie, IL. For more information, check out her website at http://www.dominiquegibsonauthor.com.
