Someone in Dallas this weekend asked me if when I started a new series, such as Rhymes with Love, am I tempted to bring in old characters from my other series. The answer: Boy, am I ever!
Old, familiar characters are what makes writing a series fun.
Anyone who has read my Danvers series will notice I have a slight fondness for Temple. He appears in nearly every book. I adore that man, er, character, to the point that borders on obsession. I had thought that after giving him his own book, Stealing the Bride, that would be enough. No. He had a habit of wandering onto the page of whatever story I was telling, slanting a rakish wink at me, and while I was still flush with joy at his arrival, make himself indispensable. Wretched rogue!
So when I started writing Along Came a Duke, I really had to keep all the old characters at bay, barring the door to my office. Refusing their friend requests on Facebook.
Even Temple.
But that doesn’t mean the old books are not in the new series. Because like Temple, I am a wretched rogue at heart. And there are two “cameos” in Along Came a Duke. You may or may not have noticed them. One is a reference from to Love Letters from a Duke and the other is from It Takes a Hero.
In the interest of not providing spoilers, did you spot them, yea or nay?
I did notice them!! When I saw them I thought, hey this is familiar!!
I wondered if anyone would notice. Makes me giggle when I put them in the manuscript. Then I debate leaving them in or not.
Love the continuity, and the familiar feeling of knowing that all is well with my favorite characters.
Isn’t that the truth!
I LOVE when other characters “pop” into New Stories,(I shudder to call them old, for they will forever be that glorious age I first read them to be). You have a delightful way of bringing them in just when needed for a helping hand, and NOT letting them take over the current story, which I think is a talent in and of itself. I do not have your new book as I am out of work and cannot afford to buy it, but when I do go back to work, LOOK OUT AMAZON!!!!! Keep up the EXCELLENT work!!!
Try the library! I know the out of work thing–I have been there. And the library was my best friend.
Yea! And loved them :-).
Good books and good characters ‘stay with you’ and it’s always nice to run in to an ‘old friend’
Exactly!
Shame on me….I just got my copy but haven’t cracked the cover yet. But, I promise, I will…very soon. I have to laugh at you Elizabeth…you and Liz Carlyle could shake hands with your book-hopping characters. She has some characters that have appeared in nearly every book she’s written.
Some of them are just so hard to let go!
Call me the Helicopter-Author. I can’t let go of my characters, like the mothers who hover over their kids.