There’s an old saying that advises people to write about what they know and after 36 years of living my own amazing version of a transatlantic romance I find it definitely works for me! The romantic fiction I produce tends to be full of the fascinating conflicts and culture clashes associated with such a relationship.
Christmas at Black Cherry Retreat
The first ‘Whatever are you talking about?’ moment with my own American hero came when I complained about not being able to buy squash to drink in Denmark (where we met). He stared at me in total confusion and explained that where he came from squash was a vegetable and they ate it fried! Another funny moment that sticks in my mind came years later when our children were at school in London in the 1990s and I heard one of the other American mothers take the teacher aside before the start of the school year to make a very specific request. She asked her to please always refer to an eraser as opposed to a rubber because she didn’t want her daughter to return to the States and possibly ask the boy sitting next to her in school if she could borrow his rubber.
I thought we had sorted out most of our cultural and language differences until we moved near Nashville 23 years ago. We’d lived in other parts of the US and visited his family in Tennessee and South Carolina multiple times so I hadn’t envisaged too many challenges but they still existed and when I started to write I tried to make good use of those instances to add authenticity to my stories.
Language is often the least of it but although it might be hard to believe after all the time I’ve lived outside of the UK there is still rarely a week that goes by without someone commenting on my accent. I am forced to admit it’s a strange one though these days. A few years ago when I listened to myself after I’d been on a radio show in Cornwall I veered between sounding English, American and Cornish all within the space of about ten minutes!
This year both of my Christmas books feature couples from opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean and that is of crucial importance to their stories. Christmas at Black Cherry Retreat, newly released in print this November, features Fee an uptight British photographer and Tom the affable all-American man who runs the Appalachian mountain resort where she goes to de-stress. Christmas in Little Penhaven, released in digital and audio in November, is set nearly 4,000 miles away in Cornwall. Jane Solomon, whose family and life keep her rooted in the village should have nothing in common with ex-Hollywood gym trainer to the stars Hal Muir but would you care to bet a warm mince pie (with clotted cream because we are in Cornwall remember) that their seemingly insurmountable differences won’t stand in the way of love? And mince pies are a definite sticking point between this particular couple. In the end they will all hopefully discover what really matters and it certainly isn’t the way they pronounce a word.
So let’s hear it for those opposites who shouldn’t attract but do anyway! We’re the ones who help bring the world closer together and help to show that our similarities, the values we cherish and people we love are more important than any geographical boundaries.
So from the three parts of my own cultural mix up I’m wishing you all a Happy Christmas, a Merry Christmas and Nadelik Lowen!
Christmas at Black Cherry Retreat is out in paperback and audiobook on 3 December. It is available from all good bookstores and online retailers. Christmas at Little Penhaven is now out as ebook and audiobook. Further information can be found at www.choc-lit.com