14 Days of Swoon – Hosting Huntley Fitzpatrick

Hey everyone! We knew when we were talking about swoons there was no way we could not include Huntley Fitzpatrick… She will never be forgotten by me because when you say swoony boy, I think of the ones she’s created in her stories! We asked Huntley to share a bit about how she creates her swoony guys, but first, check out her books!

Gwen Castle has never so badly wanted to say good-bye to her island home till now: the summer her Biggest Mistake Ever, Cassidy Somers, takes a job there as the local yard boy. He’s a rich kid from across the bridge in Stony Bay, and she hails from a family of fishermen and housecleaners who keep the island’s summer people happy. Gwen worries a life of cleaning houses will be her fate too, but just when it looks like she’ll never escape her past—or the island—Gwen’s dad gives her some shocking advice. Sparks fly and secret histories unspool as Gwen spends a gorgeous, restless summer struggling to resolve what she thought was true—about the place she lives, the people she loves, and even herself—with what really is.

The Garretts are everything the Reeds are not. Loud, messy, affectionate. And every day from her rooftop perch, Samantha Reed wishes she was one of them . . . until one summer evening, Jase Garrett climbs up next to her and changes everything.

As the two fall fiercely for each other, stumbling through the awkwardness and awesomeness of first love, Jase’s family embraces Samantha – even as she keeps him a secret from her own. Then something unthinkable happens, and the bottom drops out of Samantha’s world. She’s suddenly faced with an impossible decision. Which perfect family will save her? Or is it time she saved herself?

Tim Mason was The Boy Most Likely To:
– find the liquor cabinet blindfolded
– need a liver transplant
– drive his car into a house

Alice Garrett was The Girl Most Likely To:
– well, not date her little brother’s baggage-burdened best friend, for starters.

For Tim, it wouldn’t be smart to fall for Alice. For Alice, nothing could be scarier than falling for Tim. But Tim has never been known for making the smart choice, and Alice is starting to wonder if the “smart” choice is always the right one. When these two crash into each other, they crash hard.

Then the unexpected consequences of Tim’s wild days come back to shock him. He finds himself in a situation that isn’t all it appears to be, that he never could have predicted . . . but maybe should have.

And Alice is caught in the middle.

I have to fall in love with him myself first.

That’s rule number one about writing a swoony guy.

In fact, it’s usually where my stories begin. I get an image of a boy…and then I imagine his story. MY LIFE NEXT DOOR began with a couple I saw on the Boston Common—she was blond, he was dark, they were laughing together. He wanted to take a picture of her against the water, and he tucked her purse under his arm to do it.

“See how in love with you I am,” he called, as she laughed and posed. “I’m not at all threatened by holding your purse.”
They had an ease between them, a friendship besides the obvious love and attraction. I thought “Wow. I bet that’s a really great love story.”

A lot of my writer friends find pictures of people, celebrities, and etcetera, to embody their heroes. I never can, because when I think of my hero I see him in my mind, and he never looks like anyone else. I can see the little scar in Cass’s eyebrow. The way Jase ducks his head when he’s worried, kicks the carpet with the toe of his foot. I picture how Tim falls back on his elbows when he laughs, lying on the sand.

This is my secret to writing heroes: to fall in love with them. When we love someone, we focus on all the little particular things that make them…them. What you notice, when you care. I think of how they dress, what goofy habits they have, what they have for breakfast…things that will never make their way into stories, but that are important for me to know.

Confession: I have, on occasion, dropped a hero from a story because I just didn’t love him enough. The original hero of WHAT I THOUGHT WAS TRUE was painfully shy. Like stammering-he-could-barely-talk-to-the-heroine shy. I wrote a few chapters with him as the hero ….magic just was not happening. I’d have the heroine say things and he’d be silent, she wouldn’t know what to say, and I’d be squirming in front of my computer. Finally, I got that it was not going to work for me, and if it didn’t, it would never work for them or anyone who read about them. So I changed him completely. I made him charming, and a little smooth, and funny and quirky. I fell for him. Then she could too.

So this is the way I write my heroes. It starts with love.

Thank you so so much Huntley, we’re so glad you shared your secrets with us!

About Huntley Fitzpatrick

Huntley Fitzpatrick grew up dreamy and distracted in coastal Connecticut. She flourished in a family of bookworms where everyone always had their nose in a book. She kept an exhaustively thorough journal which frightened her boyfriends but has proved very useful in her career as a writer. Her debut contemporary Romance, MY LIFE NEXT DOOR, was published in June of 2012 by Penguin-Dial for Young Readers. Now she laughs with and eavesdrops on her six children who provide her with perspective and material. She is represented by the amazing Christina Hogrebe of the Jane Rotrosen Agency.

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