Page 142 of Nice Guys Don't Kiss Like That At Christmas
Christmas small-town spicy Rom-Com
Single Dad
Best friend’s brother
Grumpy / Sunshine
Step into Swans Cove forF.R.E.E withOnce Upon A Christmas Eveand meet Landon and Julie.
Chapter forty-seven
MY FUCK-IT BOOK…
Evehadcancer…andis living a rom-com.Because, Fuck-it, why not?
While revising this story what seems like forever ago but was most likely end of 2024, I hit a moment that didn’t feel right.Why did Eve ghost Adam?After everything they’d shared, after the way he made her feel…why ohwouldn’t she show up in Pittsburgh?
I’d given her a backstory that didn’t feel like hers.It felt wrong.Like Santa without his reindeers.Like a vanilla cupcake without frosting.Like a romance novel without a Happily-Ever-After.
To give them a real second chance, I had to dig deeper.
I had to trust myself.
And then I knew.
But part of me hesitated.I didn’t want to use cancer as a plot device.(And I don’t think I did.)
Still, let’s be real: when I got diagnosed, it felt like a shitty plot twist.
At first, I tried making the cancer storyline belong to someone else.Then came the moment of:Wait…why the hell can’t the heroine of my rom-com be the one who had cancer?
I’d written a steamy, angsty romance under a pen name where the heroine had cancer.It didn’t define her, but it had changed her life.It informed some of her decisions.Years of treatments had an impact: emotionally, mentally and physically.Writing under a different name made it easier, somehow, to go deep.None of those stories are an autobiography.None of those stories aremystory.
But they definitely hold parts of me.Like all of my books.
So...why not a rom-com?
I had cancer.I still laughed—and laugh—a lot.
There were rom-com moments during treatment.(And a few sad ones, quiet ones, sleepy ones.And okay, a few horror movie ones, too).And remission is different for everyone, I'm sure.And for many, like for me,cancer still has an impact years later.It's in the background.Not always there.Sometimes buzzing louder, sometimes quiet.But the fatigue, the neuropathy, some other fun side-effects… it's still there.
During treatments and now,I had nurses who made everything better.Two of them had cancer when they were younger.That’s why they became nurses.As I wrote in the dedication: they fought for me in ways that still make my throat tight with gratitude.
Eve is for them.
