Some love stories begin with a glance across a crowded room. Embers of the Bay begins with a foreclosure notice and a rusted pickup truck. We sat down with the author to talk about writing romance that doesn't flinch — the kind where love isn't a rescue, but a reckoning.
On the Origins of the Story
Space4Rent: Where did the idea for Embers of the Bay come from?
It started with a place more than a person. I grew up spending summers on the coast, and there's a particular feeling you get in those small waterfront towns when the tourist season ends — this mixture of relief and loneliness that I've never been able to shake. I wanted to write about people who live in that feeling year-round. People who stayed when everyone else left.
S4R: The setting really does feel like a character in itself. How much is drawn from real places?
It's a composite. I borrowed the fog from one town, the crumbling boardwalk from another, the kind of diner where the coffee is always burnt but nobody complains because complaining would mean admitting you care. The bay itself is invented, but the emotional geography is very real. Every scene is anchored to a place I've stood and felt something I couldn't name at the time.
On Writing Romance with Grit
S4R: Your approach to romance is different from what readers might expect. There's real hardship here. Was that intentional?
Absolutely. I think the best love stories earn their tenderness. If two people fall for each other and nothing stands in the way except a simple misunderstanding that could be cleared up with one conversation, I lose interest. I wanted obstacles that were structural — debt, family obligation, the weight of small-town reputation. Things that don't resolve with a grand gesture. They require patience, compromise, and the willingness to be inconvenienced by another person's reality.
The best romances make you ache before they make you smile. If there's no ache, the smile doesn't mean anything.
S4R: There's a scene in the second act — without spoiling it — where the leads have a fight that feels painfully real. How did you write that?
That scene was the hardest in the book. I wrote it seven times. The trick was making sure both characters were right and both were wrong at the same time. Real arguments between people who care about each other aren't about one person being the villain. They're about two people protecting different wounds. I kept asking myself: what is each person afraid to lose? Once I knew that, the words came.
On Characters That Linger
S4R: Readers have connected strongly with both leads. When you're building a character, where do you start?
I start with what they want for breakfast. That sounds ridiculous, but it tells me everything. Are they the kind of person who eats standing up at the counter because sitting down feels like wasted time? Do they make something elaborate because the ritual keeps them sane? Do they skip it entirely and pretend that's a choice? Once I know how someone starts their morning, I know the rest.
S4R: Do your characters ever surprise you mid-draft?
Constantly. There's a supporting character — the aunt who runs the bait shop — who was supposed to appear in three scenes. She ended up in twelve. She kept saying things I hadn't planned, and every time she opened her mouth, the story got better. You have to follow the characters when they wander off your outline. That's where the real story lives.
On Publishing with Space4Rent
S4R: What drew you to Space4Rent Publishing?
The fact that you actually read the manuscript before responding. That sounds like a low bar, but in this industry, it isn't. I'd sent queries to dozens of places and gotten back form rejections that had nothing to do with what I'd written. Space4Rent sent back notes. Real notes. That told me you cared about the work, not just whether it fit a formula.
S4R: What's next for you?
I'm working on something tonally adjacent — still character-driven, still rooted in a specific place — but with a bit more mystery woven in. I don't want to say too much yet, but if you liked the atmosphere of Embers, the next one goes darker. In a good way, I hope.
Embers of the Bay
A romance about what stays when everything else burns away. Available now on Amazon.
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