From the author…
My books feature older couples–forty-something and up– as the lead characters. I write romance fiction, not Women’s Fiction and by this I mean the love story drives the plot rather than being a romantic element of the story. I am passionate about making women over the age of 40 visible, and portraying these women as intelligent, vibrant, sensual, sexual, whole people rather than as the stereotypes we see, or more rightly seldom see, thanks to Hollywood.
What we see on the big and small screen and what we are presented in fictional forms matters. The sexist and ageist entertainment we are so used to seeing (Tom Cruise paired with a woman 20 years his junior) and not seeing has created a vicious circle. Since there are so few older women presented in positive ways, there is an assumption no one wants to see older women presented in any way–except perhaps as stereotyped comic foils, villains, or secondary characters. This results in younger women having no role models to aspire to be and fosters the fear that growing older means becoming lesser, or places the focus on aging as decline or disease, instead of a wealth of experience and a life still to live. This happens within Hollywood and within romance publishing.
It also results in mature-aged women being moved out of the Romance genre into Women’s Fiction, shoved into a handful of roles (grandma, harpy, cougar) or being erased from view completely. The thing is, women of a certain age DO want to see themselves presented in positive ways that match their reality and show they are intelligent, vibrant, sensual, sexual, whole people, not stereotypes. I am out to erase this sexist and ageist pervasive attitude and bring about a new norm, one that casts women of a certain age (I hate that expression) as the fascinating human beings they are. But mostly, I want to show that love happens at any and every age–and not just to silver fox men like Bruce Willis.
