What Might Have Been

I'm so excited! My newest Blaze, What Might Have Been, is on the shelves now. This book was a labor of love in many ways. I've been working on it for a very long time. And in fact, if you've been on the Playground for awhile you might be familiar with our term "the book has been peach farmed". This is the peach farm book.

For those that aren't familiar with the story, it was originally set at a nudist resort. My editor thought that might be an issue so I made an emergency phone call to the Playfriends and amazing author Rhonda Nelson for some help in fixing the problem (because moving it from the nudist resort kinda killed most of my plot and character arc). We were throwing out ideas. It was late. PC went outside for...three minutes at the most. She comes back and suddenly the book is set on a peach farm in the middle of Georgia. And there's a secret baby. And a past relationship. Needless to say, the book was completely different. In three minutes.

But it turned out absolutely fabulous. I know I'm not supposed to say that a book is my favorite. It's sort of like saying you love one of your kids more than the other. But...it totally is. The entire story just tugged at my heartstrings and writing it was a complete joy. Trust me, that doesn't always happen.

And, as if that wasn't enough, the wonderful, amazing and talented Linda Howard gave me the most awesome cover quote! I had a serious Sally Field moment when I saw the quote. She really did like it.

So, What Might Have Been should be on shelves at a store near you right now. If you pick it up (and I hope you do), let me know if you loved Ainsley and Luke's story as much as I did.

For the writers out there, have you ever had a story turn on a dime like that? Completely morph into something else? For readers, have you ever read a book and wished it was set somewhere else? Or you would have changed some specific thing about the book?

Instigator

P.S. Robertsonreads is the winner from PM's "Getting to Know You" blog. Email your info to playgroundmonitor@writingplayground.com to arrange for your prize.