Female Lead Energy—Computer Geek Edition

Image courtesy of chenspec from Pixabay

I just released my eighth novel. Even crazier, I’ll be releasing my ninth at the end of May.

Nine novels, can you believe it?

Honestly, I can’t, yet here we are. Justice: A love story, part one is now available on Amazon. I sold out of all the autographed copies on my website, but plan to restock it when I get to my California home in a few weeks. In the meantime, I’ll be busy promoting the book online and getting the next one, Grace: A love story, part two, ready for publication on 5/24/26.

Readers who have known me since the ‘90s may notice that the female lead, Grace Van Orden, and I share a few similarities. First, we both launched our adult lives in Chicago. This was intentional, because I wanted to write a romance set in this city I love so much. Hence, I’ve been to many of the places mentioned in the books. Grace and I both love Chicago, second only to our husbands and children.

Because I wanted this love story to be set in Chicago, I decided the main characters needed to meet a midwestern university and out of laziness, I chose Purdue University, since that’s where I went. I didn’t have what it took to research what any other school in the area was like in the ‘90s. I know the streets, the campus, the buildings, and the bars at Purdue between 1990-1994, so the choice was simple, they meet at Purdue.

Justy, one of the male leads, and Grace are also in the Greek system, as was I, but I purposefully don’t mention their letters. Justy’s fraternity and Grace’s sorority could be any one of the Greek houses at Purdue in the ‘90s, though from the narrative, you’ll figure out they were on the main campus and not in what was called The Acres. That made it simpler for writing the scenes.

Lastly, and here’s where most of you may think it’s autobiographical, Grace is a computer science major, as was I. At first, this was also a lazy decision. I’d have to do research on other careers to fill in the story. I considered making Grace an accounting major and interviewing my friends Betsy and Mary Beth to get the correct names of buildings, teachers, and what their study habits and traditions were. However, after some consideration and hanging out a bit with the character of Grace Van Orden I decided, why not make her a computer science major?

I mean, how often is the female lead in a romance novel a computer nerd? How often does she know what D&D and Magic the Gathering are? Normally, the female lead energy of a romance is a plucky, out-of-work journalist in New York, or a reluctant barista, or a musician or artist trying to make it, or even a librarian who’s actually a novelist with writer’s block. Rarely is she a girl who would end up stuck in a lab coding all night, forced to miss out on a party with her love interest and hating every minute of it. Why not give this wonderful life to Grace? Why not allow my female lead to be smart and desirable? Those things are possible, aren’t they?

Thus, Grace Van Orden is a computer geek. She loves to program and she loves to party. She also studies a lot and pushes herself. The male leads are engineers as well. Erik is a fellow CS major and her best study buddy, and Justy is a structural engineer and was the valedictorian of his high school class.

Yes, smart people can be sexy. Trust me, these three are.

As for shared biographical elements between Grace and I, that’s it. To be honest, Grace is a better person than I am. In some way, I wish I’d been as good as Grace in college. Those who were there with me know very well this wasn’t the case. But when it comes to the Math Lab scene, yes I did pull that from the way back files in my memory and plopped Grace and Erik into my past. Yes, I studied with my fellow CS geeks as much as she did, and yes, it was stressful. That’s okay, because while Grace is unable to program the men in her life to do what she wants, her software engineer female lead energy might be exactly what the modern romance genre needs.

I hope you enjoy the story as much as I enjoyed writing it. Grace, Erik, and Justy are my favorite characters. I’m so glad to have met them.

Happy reading!