WHY I WRITE THESE BOOKS

Love is for any age, not just the young.

I’ve read romance novels for most of my life. Now that I’m older, I want to read, and write, stories about women like me.

I write these books because I want women to feel that if they want romance later in life, it’s possible. That there’s reason to believe there is somebody out there for them. Because when they can read stories where it happens, they can see the possibilities.

There aren’t as many later-in-life romances, because people don’t think romance exists later in life. I don’t agree.

THE RESEARCH

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couples who married later in life, in one very unscientific study. The oldest: Gertrude, 98, and Alvin, 94.

For fun and inspiration, I read wedding announcements, looking for people who married later in life. In one very unscientific study I found thirty-seven couples. Three couples were in their nineties, six in their eighties, six in their seventies and nine in their sixties. The oldest, Gertrude and Alvin, were 98 and 94. They met at their gym. Gertrude finally asked Alvin to marry her, because she was “tired of chasing after him.”

By the way, the romance genre calls your forties “later in life.” Really? Forty? That’s just midlife.

And I have my own later-in-life romance: married forty years and still going. It evidently shows, since two strangers celebrating their own anniversary once bought our dinner because we looked so much in love.

Wherever you are

  • If you’re divorced.

    However it came about, it takes a lot of courage to start again. You’ve come through the hardest part. Now you just have to keep going to the next step. It’s going to get better.

  • If you’re widowed.

    You may not be looking to replace anyone. But you’d like to have dinner with somebody, and go to the theater with somebody. That’s allowed.

  • If you’ve never married.

    Maybe you put all your energy into your career, like Beth did. And now you want more. So do a lot of us.

PRO-AGING

What’s your next step?

I’m not into anti-aging. I’m all about pro-aging. I don’t want to be younger; I just want to keep getting better. My age is not going to stop me from doing something. I may walk a marathon more slowly, but I’ll still walk it.

I don’t love the word retirement, either. “Re” means going back. The real question is: what’s your next step? If you retire at 62 or 65, you may have twenty or thirty good years ahead. That’s a long time not to have a purpose, or a relationship.

There’s research behind this. Yale’s Becca Levy found that older adults with more positive views of their own aging lived, on average, seven and a half years longer than those with less positive views, a bigger difference than not smoking or exercising. Our attitude is what makes a difference.

ON ROMANCE

Not fluff

Some people think romance novels are fluff. The romances I read dealt with real emotions. My books sit somewhere between women’s fiction, which takes on real issues, and romance, because mine have a happily-ever-after. I think that’s why we read them: we can see our own lives in someone else’s, and think, maybe I could handle it that way, too.

I love Impressionist paintings. Some people think they aren’t serious enough, that they aren’t as deep and dark as modern art. But why not? Why can’t we have that? I want you to close my books feeling happy and hopeful, and surprised at how well things worked out.

ROLE MODELS

Women who didn’t believe they were too old

My role models are the women who don’t believe they’re too old for anything: a friend who walked two legs of the Camino de Santiago, a hundred miles. A friend who started a brand-new business in her sixties. A friend who adopted a baby on her own at fifty. A number of them have started writing.

SHARE YOURS

Your second chance

At signings, women come up and tell me their stories. “I’m 63, I just got divorced, and now I’m finally dating somebody fantastic.” I’d love to hear yours.

Fair warning: your story might just show up in one of my novels.

Reader voices

  • “Their stumbling run to their second-chance happily ever after does not insult the older reader, and left me utterly satisfied.”

    P. Warren, contemporary romance author, Amazon review

  • “We have in fact taken the Katherine Pledge to be more like her... savvy, saucy, learning to listen to her own feelings.”

    LWF, Amazon review of Finding Home

  • “Romance is ready and waiting for you, too. Your Andy may be in the next aisle.”

    Pam Coffey, Amazon review