The honeymoon’s over. The real love story — the one that requires faith and forgiveness — is just beginning.

In 2022, my husband and I went through a devastating season of marriage. Then, by the grace of God, our marriage was saved! We had no business coming out of that sin and brokenness better than we were before, but the Lord is so merciful and kind. He brought us through that darkness and showed us firsthand what redemption looks like. But I found myself in a strange place: falling in love with my husband all over again. There were old wounds to contend with, babies who needed breakfast, a house and responsibilities, and years of familiarity. All blended — impossibly — with the sense that we needed to begin again from less than zero.

The books I liked to read simply did not represent romances like mine. Books — which had been my safe place for as long as I could remember — made me feel shut out, othered, and tarnished. My "happily ever after" had fallen apart, so the perfect love stories I saw on paper felt like salt in my wounds. But neither did I want to read "dark romance" that leans into the hurt. I wanted redemption.

That was when Jesus gave me my first story.

So I set out with some real big, "fine, I'll do it myself," energy and started writing novels as fantasy retellings of what it's like to fall in love with your own spouse all over again after betrayal and brokenness have torn you apart. These books don't shy away from the sins (both large and small) that can destroy a marriage. Nor do they downplay the confusion, awkwardness, and painfully slow march of forgiveness that is required in a second chance romance between husband and wife.

My stories have strong themes of faith in God, change, forgiveness, and restoration. My main characters aren't looking for love. Instead, they learn to fall in love with their own spouses all over again. I've watched God heal my broken heart, mend my damaged marriage, and save my sinful soul — and I want that for you too! I pray my books point you to Jesus. He is the only one sufficient to meet you in your hurt as well as make you whole.

If you've ever felt like romance novels just don't "get it" because real happily evers aren't like that, then already-married romance is for you.

♡ ♡ ♡

This poem explains the heart behind my stories and why I keep writing books in a sub-genre that (to the best of my knowledge) is utterly barren. In an industry where romance is idolized but marriage is forgotten, I hope to do things differently — representing the God who doesn't give up on broken hearts, but instead redeems and restores them no matter the cost.

One Author's Thoughts on Writing a Sub-Genre
That
Doesn't
Exist

I'm shouting in an empty room
The bare walls echo back reproachfully
Wondering why I'm being
So loud

Scouring library shelves and the dusty reaches
of the Internet for a comp title

Just
One
Book

Just one that agrees that broken marriages
Aren't garbage
Just one that proclaims Jesus loves
Even these

As if I don't already know it doesn’t exist
As if that isn’t why I started shouting
In the first place
Poorly polished tales about broken vows
And the God who mends them

They say artists are insane

So I keep looking, expecting a different result
And I start wondering
Are the books not here because no one cares
Or is it because books like these aren't
​Supposed to exist

Have I set out on a hopeless crusade

"Jesus cares,"
Says a little voice in the back of my mind
So quiet it's almost drowned out by the pulsing
Ache of my inadequacy

I know that much, at least, is true
Because the first love story I saw Him rewrite
Was mine

And even now years later He's still the same God
Tender towards those who are buried in shame
Because their "ever after" fell apart

And His daughters are still out there
Fighting for a second chance and
Feeling
So
Alone

So I keep shouting in an empty room
With the door propped wide
Because maybe my sister can hear me from where she
Sits in the hallway
Tear-stained and weary hearted
With knees drawn up to her chest
To protect her broken heart

"To the God who fixes broken things," I shout,
Lifting my glass in a toast

I hope she knows I poured her one too
And until she comes in to drink

I'll just keep on
Shouting
in an
Empty
Room​