Test blog
Follow up newsletter for Spare - colonialism
I’ve been getting quite a few questions from readers about how I came up with the plot for my recent release The Unlikely Spare, so I thought I’d share my thought process
Me: I’m going to write a fun royal bodyguard enemies-to-lovers romance.
Me: And I’m going to bring my characters on a royal tour to my part of the world (Australasia) so I don’t have to spend so much time researching the setting. It’s going to make my life so much easier!
Me: Hang on a sec, I know from living here that the history of the monarchy with the indiginous people of Australia and New Zealand isn’t exactly great. I can’t write this book without acknowledging that. I need to find a way to incorporate this in.
Me (after doing some further research on the worldwide impacts of colonialism beyond what I learned growing up in New Zealand): They did WHAT? Why did I not learn this in school??? And there’s been no compensation made for any of this? Oh holy shit, that’s not right and needs to be called out.
Me: But also… how do I write about this while still delivering the swoony romance? 🤔
Me: Okay, so my original idea is going to need a bit of revising…
…and that’s how you end up writing a royal romance with an anti-colonialism subplot.
Seriously though, I knew this was going to be a potentially contentious element to my story. But I don’t believe in shying away from things just because they could be contentious.
And one of my pet peeves about other royal romances I have read is they seem to regard the monarchy as just a glorified backdrop to the story without any acknowledgment or engagement about what this institution represents to many people around the world.
I believe that of all times in world history, we need to be remember the lessons from the past so we don’t make the same mistakes again.
That said, I’m planning to sit in my little corner of New Zealand and write nothing but fluffy novellas for a few months…
I knew I was
And it’s a reality that I as a New Zealander, and other people in other former colonies have to handle every day.
“You need to trust your reader that they can handle the political realities of the monarchy in a royal romance.