My romance characters evolve from who I am, where I came from, and the people I’ve experienced in my life.

In a box somewhere, there is a small black and white picture of some relatives on my father’s side of my family from the 1900s (not the picture to the left). He was born in Czechoslovakia when there was still such a place, and I can see a strong Slavic look in these relatives. It’s the same look I see when I look in a mirror. The same that I remember well from my father’s sister.

She was a little shorter than I am, but our build is the same: short waist, tendency to be round, and somewhat … er … top heavy. But as I grow older, my movements echo her mannerisms, and the tendency to put my fisted hands on my hips has been passed down from the women in the picture through her to me.

I think all of us have that realization at some point as we grow older. There’s something that we do or say that echoes our parents or older relatives. It’s part of what makes us what we are.

This is a roundabout way of getting to Maggie, the heroine of Spring in Promise Cove. Because she’s my “child” in a sense, she does have a few of my own characteristics, a drive to get things done being one of them. She’s also a child of her parents. I think some of her grit comes from Elaine, her mother; while a sense of duty is obviously something her deceased father passed down to her.

When I plan before I write a book, I spend some time on my romance characters, especially the main ones. Some of the questions I ask my characters is who or what influenced them. While growing up in Promise Cove made Maggie appreciate her small town life, she also dreams of a life bigger than the one she has. The two men in her life, Tom and Justin, reflect that push-pull within her. Will she realize that she has everything she’ll ever need in Promise Cove? Or will the call of big city lights pull her away?

Find out what kind of romance character Maggie turns out to be.

Start reading Spring in Promise Cove today.