Hello! I’m Rebecca Heflin, and since this is my first time here, I thought I should begin by introducing myself.
I write contemporary romance and women’s fiction with romantic elements—stories about ordinary people finding extraordinary love, often when they least expect it. Lately, I’ve been especially drawn to writing what I call “seasoned romance”: love stories about characters in their fifties and beyond who bring a little more life experience—and maybe a little more baggage—to their happily-ever-afters.
I’ve published thirteen books over the years, and while my stories are fiction, bits and pieces of my own life inevitably find their way onto the page. Not the events themselves, necessarily, but the emotions behind them.
After all, writers are notorious for repurposing everything that happens to us.
Heartbreak? Material.
Embarrassing moment? Material.
Family drama? Definitely material. (Names changed to protect the guilty.)
And sometimes, the experiences that were the hardest to live through become the richest ones to draw upon years later.
Which brings me to divorce.
When I met my now-husband, I had been divorced for almost three years. It had been an especially rough patch in my life, as most divorces are. A mutual friend introduced us, and I have to admit, I was gobsmacked by him.
I was twenty-eight years old and hadn’t traveled much in my life, unless you counted the many trips I’d made to Georgia to visit family. This man, on the other hand, had just returned from the Galápagos Islands. I had to look them up, by the way. And he was planning another trip that summer to Tanzania to climb Kilimanjaro.
My head was spinning. I barely knew where these places were, much less imagined that I would ever go there myself.
Spoiler alert: I eventually went to both. Although I did not climb Kilimanjaro. Some adventures are better left to Hubby.
Since then, I’ve traveled to more than twenty-two countries and many U.S. states. This year alone I added Norway, Denmark, Bhutan, and India to the list.
If you had told my twenty-eight-year-old self what her life would eventually look like, she would have said you were lying. Because at the time, I couldn’t see beyond where I was.
I had come out of a very dark period in my life and eventually found a man I could absolutely trust. We built a life together that the younger me could never have imagined—a life filled with love and friendship and adventures in places I once had to find on a map.
Some days, I’m tempted to write my ex-husband a thank-you letter for being such a jerk. Had he not been such a spectacular jerk, I might never have found the life I have today.
Time has a way of changing our perspective on the difficult periods in our lives. The angst I felt back then has become more distant with each passing year. But I can still remember it. And as a writer, I can use it.
When I write divorced characters—especially my heroines—I understand some of the emotions they’re experiencing.
The loss isn’t simply the loss of a marriage. It can be the loss of the future you thought you were going to have. It’s questioning your judgment. Wondering what you missed. Trying to figure out who you are outside the relationship.
And perhaps hardest of all, it’s wondering whether you’ll ever be able to trust someone that completely again.
I can take those emotions and channel them into my fiction.
That’s exactly what I did with Eleanor Marshall in Under the Paris Moon, the first book in my Whirlwind Romances series.
Ellie is in her fifties when her husband leaves her for a younger woman. Suddenly, she finds herself occupying a role she never imagined for herself: the divorced middle-aged woman whose husband traded her in for a younger model.
It’s a cliché, and Ellie knows it. That makes it hurt all the more.
She isn’t looking for another great love. She’s still trying to figure out what comes next when her best friend decides Ellie needs a reset—and secretly enters her in a contest to win a dream date in Paris with a real-life romcom heartthrob.
Enter Geoffrey Harrison.
Geoffrey is an aging actor whose once-thriving romcom career is beginning to falter. It turns out Hollywood’s romantic heroes keep getting younger, even if the people watching the movies don’t.
When his agent dreams up a social media contest to generate some buzz, Geoffrey agrees to have a romantic dinner in Paris with the winner.
The unexpectedly attractive Eleanor Marshall.
Then the publicity stunt blows up the internet.
Geoffrey persuades Ellie to extend their date into a ten-day fake romance, complete with handholding, candlelight dinners, romantic strolls through Paris, and, of course, kissing.
It’s like something straight out of one of his movies.
And just like in the movies, it isn’t long before their fake romance is anything but.
The problem is that falling in love requires Ellie to do the one thing she isn’t sure she can do anymore: trust.
And just when she begins to believe she might be ready to take that chance, her fragile trust is shattered.
Can Geoffrey convince her that their story deserves a Hollywood ending? Or will Ellie walk away from a second chance at her own happily-ever-after?
I sometimes wish I could go back and have a conversation with my twenty-eight-year-old self.
I wouldn’t tell her everything that was coming. Where would be the fun in that?
But I might tell her this:
The life you think is over is really just beginning.
There are places you haven’t seen yet. Adventures you haven’t had yet. People you haven’t met yet.
And love?
Well, sometimes the best love story begins after you thought yours had already ended.
Maybe that’s why, all these years later, I still believe so strongly in happily-ever-afters.
And why I love writing them.
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