Get to Know My Characters

Sometimes readers ask how I get to know my characters, and the honest answer is: I’m not entirely sure. They don’t arrive fully formed, and I don’t sit down with a questionnaire or a tidy list of traits. It’s more like meeting someone new in town — you catch a glimpse of them across the café, notice the way they hold their coffee, hear the cadence of their voice before you know their story. Little by little, they reveal themselves. Not in grand declarations, but in the quiet, everyday ways people do when you’re paying attention.

What I do know is that at some point, something shifts. A character who was once a stranger becomes someone I can feel in the room with me — someone whose heartbeat I understand, whose fears I recognize, whose hopes I can almost taste. I don’t force it, and I don’t rush it. I just listen. And when they finally start talking, when they trust me enough to show who they really are, that’s when the story begins to breathe. That’s when Pine Woods opens its arms and makes room for someone new or someone who has been there all along and finally gets noticed.

Belle and Kevin (Christmas in Pine Woods)

When Belle Quinn first walked into my life, I repeatedly told her I didn’t have time to hear her story. My life was too busy. But COVID slowed me down, and Belle told me all about Quinntessential Café. It wasn’t just a business to her. It was her mother’s legacy, and she guarded it fiercely. Kevin didn’t ask to be liked – at least not at first. When he arrived in Belle’s world, he was carrying friction. Watching the two of them was like standing in a room where you know sparks are about to fly, you’re just not sure what kind of a fire it’s going to start. Belle was reluctant to tell her story to me and Kevin’s story was all over the tabloids, so he was an open book (no pun intended!).

Tara & Austin(Return to Pine Woods)

Tara came to me in a much more quiet way. She didn’t burst into Pine Woods, she stepped into it. She was already carrying something unspoken. There was this sense, right from the beginning, that her world was shifting in ways she couldn’t quite name yet. She was new to Pine Woods, but I knew the town was going to matter to her. I always knew I’d write about a football player some day, and if you know me at all, Austin didn’t surprise you. His story carried weight, shaped by discipline, injury, and recovery. He has the kind of grit that doesn’t fade when life knocks you sideways. There’s something incredibly vulnerable about a character who has to rebuild both physically and emotionally.

If I’m being honest, Pine Woods has as much to do with these characters as I do. I didn’t sit down and design those journeys step by step. I listened. I paid attention. I let the town and the people in it tell me what mattered.

Here’s the secret I’ve come to trust: characters don’t fully belong to me. They meet me somewhere between imagination and emotion, and my job is simply to tell the truth about them as best I can. Belle and Kevin taught me about fire and vulnerability. Tara and Austin taught me about quiet strength and second chances. And Pine Woods? It’s where both those stories found a home.

Hillary and Rhett

I am currently spending time in Pine Woods again, writing the third book in the series. As I’m getting to know Hillary and Rhett’s story, I keep coming back to the way some people simply know each other — not because of history or circumstance, but because something in their bones recognizes something in the other person.

Soul‑recognition romance is special that way. It isn’t about fate swooping in or destiny drawing a neat line between two lives. It’s quieter than that, more intimate. It’s the moment when two people feel an undeniable pull they can’t explain, a sense of familiarity that shouldn’t exist but does. With Hillary and Rhett, that connection hums beneath every glance, every shared space, every moment they try to pretend they’re not already tethered. Writing that kind of love feels like tracing a thread that was always there — I’m just revealing it one scene at a time.

What makes their connection so powerful is that it isn’t built through logic or timing or even shared history. It’s built through recognition — that deep, unsettling, magnetic awareness that says, “Oh. It’s you.” That kind of bond changes the entire rhythm of a romance. It means every interaction carries an undercurrent, every moment feels charged, and even silence has weight. With Hillary and Rhett, that recognition doesn’t make things easier; it makes everything more complicated. They feel the pull long before they’re ready to admit it, long before it’s convenient, and long before either of them believes they deserve something that true. That tension — wanting to step toward someone your soul already knows while your life keeps pulling you in the opposite direction — is what makes their story feel so intimate and so inevitable at the same time.

You’ve already met Hillary. She’s Tara’s best friend in “Return to Pine Woods.” She has been revealing herself to me with the kind of clarity only she can manage. She doesn’t drift in; she arrives. She shows you who she is through her posture, her precision, the way she assesses a situation in three seconds flat and decides whether it deserves her energy. She’s someone who hands you her edges first — the competence, the confidence, the razor‑sharp instincts — and only later lets you glimpse the softness she keeps tucked behind all that steel. She doesn’t hide, but she doesn’t hand over her heart for free either. She expects you to keep up.

Rhett, meanwhile, has been revealing himself in a way that complements Hillary perfectly. He’s steady, grounded, and impossible to rattle. He doesn’t challenge Hillary’s presence — he matches it. He’s the kind of man who fills a space without needing to dominate it, and that balance is what catches her attention before anything else. He shows you who he is through action: the way he steps in, the way he listens, the way he stands his ground without ever trying to overshadow her. His quiet confidence is its own kind of gravity. But he’s wounded. And that wound may just keep him from finding happiness with Hillary.

Together, they don’t spark because of friction — they spark because they recognize something equal in each other. Not softness meeting softness, or fire meeting fire, but two people who are used to being the strongest presence in the room suddenly realizing they’ve met their match. That’s the soul‑recognition between them: not destiny, not fate, but the rare shock of seeing someone who feels like an echo of your own strength.

Have you met everyone?

If you’ve spent time in Pine Woods, you’ve met all these people too. And I hope, somewhere along the way, they felt a little bit real to you. If you haven’t met them yet, what are you waiting for? Pine Woods is calling.

If you feel like sharing, I’d love to hear which story stayed with you most. You can find me over on the Connect page.