- Two Weeks Until Never the Right Time!
- Meed Ced
- Meet Nikki
- Join me at Lights, Camera, Acton in Raleigh in August!
Thank you for your overwhelming feedback last week on whether or not you like character name guides in a novel. I’ve added one to NEVER THE RIGHT TIME. Speaking of which…we’re just TWO WEEKS away from the release of Ced and Nikki’s story. Next week, look for exclusive sneak peeks of the story. In the meantime, pre-order your copy so you don’t miss a thing.
Meet Ced!
Celebrity Inspiration: Think actor LaRoyce Hawkins from Chicago P.D., but a whole lot thicker and about a half a foot shorter.
If you read Spin the Block, you’ve already met Cedrick Brown. He’s Ward’s long-time best friend and eventual business partner. Ced is an award-winning, in-demand record producer who goes by the stage name EtCedEra. And he’s one half of the newly formed Peachtree Records.
There are so many things I love about Cedrick’s character. In Spin the Block, I loved the relationship he had with his best friend. How he was there for him, but also told him what he needed to hear straight with no chaser. But something else we discover about Ced in Never the Right Time is that he’s a loving, supportive, nurturing son and older brother who has sacrificed a lot for his family. Yet, he still found a way to move his career forward.
When I first thought of this series, Cedrick came to mind immediately as a plus-size character who wasn’t the typical 6-foot-tall romance hero. Handsome? Absolutely! Debonair? You bet! But our real-life romance heroes come in all sizes and shapes, and I love that Ced—Nikki’s thick-thighed king—is representative of that.
Meet Nikki!
Celebrity Inspiration: Singer and actress Kelly Rowland, but a whole lot thicker.
Anika “Nikki” Hart is probably one of the most complicated characters I’ve ever written. The only character who came close is Parker from my award-winning novel, Engaging the Enemy. Though I never mentioned it on page, I wrote Parker Abbott from the perspective of an undiagnosed man on the autism spectrum. But I was terrified of getting it wrong, so I made no mention of him being on the spectrum in the book.
But then I wrote other characters with disabilities (stuttering, ADHD, dyslexia, autism). As a neurodivergent individual who loves and is close friends with people who are on the spectrum or dealing with issues like anxiety, it has become more important to me to write characters dealing with these issues, and to do them justice.
Mental health issues aren’t like eye color or height. They impact every part of a person’s life. What they think. How they act. The decisions they make. Their perceptions of events. So writing an introverted character dealing with anxiety, like Nikki, means that we’re in her head for many of those tortured moments.
I love Nikki’s character, and I loved watching her growth and the development of her relationship with Ced. I hope you will, too.
Meet Me at Lights, Camera, Acton in Raleigh in August!
Join me and a long list of amazing authors for one of my favorite reader events: Lights, Camera, Action in Raleigh on August 23rd and 24th. Attending authors include Beverly Jenkins, Alexandria House, B. Love, Jacquelin Thomas, Vanessa Riley, Kimberly Brown, Deborah Mello, Bailey West, and more. Grab your tickets here.
