Annie Seaton | Billionaire Heroes or Ordinary People?

Why do you like to read romance? What do you enjoy most about it? When I talk to my readers, they fall into two groups.

The first group like to read about exotic locations, billionaire heroes and impossible coincidences. Usually the heroine is an ordinary person, who finds herself swept into a romantic and exotic location, and of course a difficult situation. Naturally there is always conflict, because without that we wouldn’t have the romance, the character growth and the happy ever after.

As authors, we are limited only by our imagination to choose our settings, the hero and how he became mega rich, and the heroine and her background. It is all such fun!

Sheikhs in the desert, businessmen in London, billionaires in Italy. The stuff of which romantic dreams are made. Of course, our heroes are always really great guys but they have to hide this from the heroine for some reason or another.

So how, as authors do we research these settings, and mega wealthy businessmen, and their corporations which are unfamiliar to most readers? If an author is in a position to travel the world, they are very fortunate, but most of us have to rely on other sources for our research...with maybe the occasional, very special, overseas trip thrown in. Lots of trips to the library to look at colourful pictures and settings, or much time spent trawling the internet, travel sites and glossy photographs of our settings.

What did we do before Google Earth!

In 2014 I was very, very lucky and attended a writer’s workshop in Tuscany with Eloisa James, and as well as learning lots of great things about becoming a better author, I also had a readymade setting for a book about an Italian billionaire. The working title was actually In Tuscany with the Italian Billionaire but the premise of the book about a billionaire who goes to Tuscany every year for ten days saw a title change to TEN DAYS IN TUSCANY. My Italian billionaire will be available through the Indulgence imprint of Entangled Publishing next month.

But what about my second group?

Many of my readers say they love to read about ordinary people in everyday settings. I sat down and thought about that for a long time. Everyday settings are what we are used to...so a book about an ordinary heroine in an everyday setting, will turn out to be very different to a rich or exotic setting for another reader. Here we rely on other things to create the conflict. Family, community, small town issues. My Half Moon Bay series is set on the Half Moon Bay coast just south of San Francisco. I was fortunate to visit the area and do my research there a couple of years ago. A beautiful and scenic place with lots of history, but not a location you would call exotic. Nevertheless, I fell in love with the grandeur of the scenery and had a story about an ordinary heroine in an ordinary town percolating in my thoughts as I wandered around snapping pictures with my iPad. That book developed into a series and a whole community in an imaginary town called Nebbiton. I subbed my series to a publisher with guidelines that said romance is in the air with fun, fresh, flirty stories of modern women and everyday men finding their happily ever after in the sweetest of places.

So my idea of three ordinary heroines who started off working together in a hardware store in this town turned into three stories of women who find happiness and romance in a sweet but ordinary place.

My latest release which wraps up the series is called GUARDING HIS HEART and brings in all of the characters from the first two books.

Georgie Sacchi decided she wanted an adventure, in far flung exotic locations, and she has a plane ticket that promises her everything she needs—excitement, independence, and a way to escape the memory of her last ruined relationship. Still, she has one last job to complete before she can leave the country. I had so much fun writing this book about a hero with writer’s block in that beautiful house on the cliff at Half Moon Bay, I would love to go an d live there!

So how do you like your romance ?... Tuscan billionaires or ordinary people finding romance in ordinary places? I love it all, and I enjoy writing both.

About GUARDING HIS HEART

Bestselling author Liam Wyndham needed an escape, and Half Moon Bay, with its small town charm and beautiful ocean, is the perfect place to hide out from the scandal surrounding his estranged dead wife. A place where he can enjoy his writer's block in sweet isolation. But all of his plans to become a surly recluse disappear when carpenter Georgie Sacchi marches into his house…

Georgie wants an adventure, and she has a plane ticket that promises her everything she needs—excitement, independence, and a way to escape the memory of her last ruined relationship. Still, she has one last job to complete before she can leave the country. The last thing she needs is a recalcitrant author with a gorgeous face (and a hot body) distracting her from her plans.

But life doesn't always give you what you think you need…

About Annie Seaton

Annie lives in Australia, on the beautiful mid north coast of New South Wales. She sits in her writing chair and gazes at the tranquil Pacific Ocean while she dreams up romances.

Her debut novel HOLIDAY AFFAIR hit the best seller lists on both Amazon US and Amazon UK within a month of release! Since then Annie has written many books which you can find on her books page.

Her latest book, GUARDING HIS HEART, is now available and completes the popular Half Moon Bay series. Book 1 TANGLING WITH THE CEO made #1 in Amazon Romance series books.