Turning Points

The last time I blogged I had just lost my grandmother. After that I came across this in her house. Trip right down Memory Lane! Being a Southern girl who loves romance and history, I've always been a Gone With the Wind fan. Well, as it turns out Alexandra Ripley wrote a sequel and I was an assistant manager at B. Dalton Booksellers in Atlanta when that book released. We got to start selling the book at midnight on release date. I sold the first copy. That's me on the left, selling the very first copy of Scarlet, the sequel to Gone With the Wind. Poofy pink dress and all lol.

My grandmother kept this clipping all these years. I think I was 19, and I know I wanted to be the next great Southern writer. I wanted to be Faulkner or Welty or O'Conner. I wanted to write books people wanted to read and would remember. Books that were dark yet humble, ya know?

I wrote two books like that and they depressed the crap out of me, the writer. They aren't under the bed. They're under the house! After that, for a lot of years, I stuck to romance. My brand of romance tends to be dark, populated by alpha males, have a Southern accent or two, and some mystery. It fits in the pnr market pretty well, I think. And I am happy being there.

But seeing my grandmother kept this clipping was kind of a kick in the ass. Because I wrote this other book. It is a romance and it is paranormal and it does have a mystery but it is very, very Southern. And I have spent years doing nothing with it because I just have no idea how to market it. And do romance readers even like funny? I don't know. But I finally sent it out and it will be published next year. I will do the official announcement soon. Still figuring out pen names lol.

So, I'm left with this burning question lol! Do you follow your fave authors when they totally change their voice and name? Or do you stick with what is familiar?