Romeo and Juliet experienced the purity of young love, and look what happened to that pair of star-crossed dreamers.
Orpheus and Eurydice fell in love at first sight. Eurydice dies from a snake bite and Orpheus had to go to hell (literally) to try and bring his beloved back to the land of the living.
Cathy and Heathcliff wept their way through a crazy kind of love that Emily Brontë made harder to endure than the moors surrounding Wuthering Heights. I weep, too, every time I read the book.
Katie in Love is my sixth novel, the first romance, and it occurred to me as I began that, like Juliet, Eurydice and Cathy, love today has complications, but of a different kind. We live in a throwaway society, love is fragile, and love can be swept out with the garbage just as easily as the dust and empty bottles.
When love appears in Katie's life, she doesn't at first welcome it. She feels terrified. What if I give my heart to him and he doesn't want it? What if I change my mind? What if he changes his mind?
With this my theme, I explored the lives (and love) of Katie and Tom. The erotic scenes emerged when the characters were in the mood (once born, they really do write their own story). Three weeks after meeting, Tom leaves for his post overseas and Katie stands tearfully at the airport contemplating a decision that will change her life. Forever.
I set out in Katie in Love to create a book in which every woman would see herself in Katie, and find aspects of their own lover in Tom. It took 13 months to write (with countless edits and rewrites) and I am inordinately proud of the published novel. It is out NOW.