Sloane B. Collins | Fun Facts About LOVE REDESIGNED

Thank you so much for inviting me to blog today here on Fresh Fiction. I’m excited to share what inspired me to write my debut novel LOVE REDESIGNED.

So many times authors are asked, “What inspired you to write this particular story?” Sometimes it’s a setting, a plot, or characters spring forth and demand their story be told. The inspiration for LOVE REDESIGNED came when I met a French designer. He started speaking in that delicious French accent, and I knew I had to write about a Frenchman.

It took some time to figure out the story – I had to find him the right heroine, after all. Since my hero is French, I began researching France to find out where he’d been borne. Once I started looking at pictures of France, I knew the story must be set there. And honestly, it’s a country that wasn’t on my list to visit…now I’m dying to get there!

Okay, so I had a setting, now I needed Roman’s heroine. I had seen some fantastic cakes on a TV show, and I started thinking about having a character building her own cake design business. Then I had to get Genevieve to France to run into her lost love. What better way to get her there, and not be able to leave? Promise to make the wedding cake for her American cousin who is marrying a French Count.

I chose the Alsatian region of France, on the border of France and Germany, as the groom owns a winery and chateau. The more I read, the more I became fascinated by the history of Alsace. For hundreds of years, control of the Alsace region went back and forth between France and Germany. After WWII, France won back control, but there is still a unique language spoken, a mixture of French and German. I fell in love with Colmar – it looks like a fairy tale village, so my town of St. Armand’s is roughly based on that quaint city.

Now the pictures are pinned, location is chosen, conflict is set up for Roman and Genevieve (you know authors have to torture our heroes and heroines!), and the writing begins. As I began writing, a secondary character, one I had never planned for, walked onto the page and became Genevieve’s BFF, calling her “Sugar”, and sashaying his way into my heart. Daniel is one of my favorite characters ever to write, and he is definitely making a reappearance in the future books set in my little village in France.

If you want to check out pictures that inspired me while writing LOVE REDESIGNED, here’s a link to my Pinterest boards.

I listened to French music while writing as well. I immersed myself in all things France, and it helped to get me in the mood, which can be especially hard writing in 100+ degree heat in Texas! My playlist included the following:

-C’est si Bon by Eartha Kitt

-La Vie en Rose by Louis Armstrong

-Samba de Mon Cœur Qui Bat by Coralie Clément

-Que Reste – T’il Nos Amour by Charles Trenet

-Assedic by Les Escrocs

-Je Cherche un Homme by Eartha Kitt

I have a question for Fresh Fiction readers. Do you like to read books set in other countries? Which ones and why? One lucky commenter will win an ebook copy of LOVE REDESIGNED.

About the Author

Sloane B. Collins is an award-winning author of Contemporary Romance. She is a member of Romance Writers of America, Dallas Area Romance Authors, and Contemporary Romance Writers. Although she is a fifth-generation Texan, she dreams of moving to the French countryside someday. Right now, she lives in the Dallas area with her husband of over twenty-six years, and their four rambunctious cats (all named after characters in her favorite Julia Quinn novel). Since Sloane and her husband love to travel, she is determined to write a novel set in just about every place they visit.