What is contemporary romance anyway?

Well in the context of my fiction series it’s about two people who find each other at extremely inconvenient times. Two people who live in a modern world that is ever changing and ever evolving.

It’s rooted in the now showcases a group of people with complicated histories who are living life in a new world filled with technology that irritates them and also is needed.

It’s about modern relationships in a setting of complexity. Where once life was idyllic and slower. Learning how to balance those relationships, find peace yet experience the now and all of its messes.

This contemporary romance isn’t just about the type A fluffy romance. It’s about people, who have baggage, they openly (some of them are still learning) express their fears, their anxieties, talk about their terrible decisions made in the height of emotion and pain. The walls they built from trauma and pain. Their reasons for giving up on love or holding it at bay. The whole lot.

The central relationship drives the narrative, while they’re supported by characters that want these two to win. These characters the support system will help them navigate and get past whatever it is that’s keeping them apart… not just from each other but from themselves.

Contemporary romance doesn’t necessarily mean cookie cutter “perfectly healthy relationships”

We heal our wounds in relationship with others who are also willing to sit with us in that pain and move through it. Don’t get it twisted, it’s not about pulling each other down into the muck… quite the opposite. It’s about holding the other accountable and self acknowledgement…. Because that right there is growth. Avoidance is not the root, confronting the uncomfortable and unconscious is the beginning.

There’s this great Bible verse I once found quite difficult to understand until I went through my own valley –

“Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”
— Psalm 23:4 (NIV)

These characters will walk through their valleys together, lift each other up and out to the other side where the light bring illumination and deeper love for each other and themselves.

As I write this series I want attraction, tension and chemistry but it comes with facing the uncomfortable stuff too.

I want these characters to be people you may actually want to meet one day and say – well done! I read your story and I was rooting for you the whole time.