Unputdownable Books: Guestpost : When Stars Die: The Romance Element (by Amber Skye Forbes)

Hey all, Please welcome Amber Skye Forbes writing about the Romance element of her book 'When Stars Die'!

When Stars Die by Amber Skye Forbes

October 2013

Amelia Gareth's brother is a witch and the only way to save her family from the taint in his blood is to become a professed nun at Cathedral Reims. However, in order to become professed, she must endure trials that all nuns must face.

Surviving these trials is not easy, especially for Amelia, who is being stalked by shadowy beings only she can see. They're searching for people they can physically touch, because only those they can touch can see them. Amelia soon learns why she is being stalked when she accidentally harms her best friend with fire during the third trial. Fire is a witch's signature. The shadows are after witches.

Now Amelia must decide what to do: should she continue on her path to profession knowing there is no redemption, or should she give up on her dream and turn away from Cathedral Reims in order to stop the shadows who plan to destroy everything she loves?

When Stars Die: The Romance Element

I never used to be that fond of romance in books. I used to think that romance was something that eventually happened to everyone, and that romance was so messy anyway; thus, why would I want to read it in a book? I also used to think there were only so many scenarios one could write about romance before the entire genre became stale. I am still not fond of pure romance books. A prerequisite for these books is often a happy ending, and so if I know the protagonist and love interest are going to end up together, why should I care what happens in between? I like romance books where a happy ending isn't predictable--like The Fault in Our Stars, for example. For the most part, however, I love romance as a sub-plot because the main plot can screw with the romance in a thousand delightful ways that make the romance itself unpredictable.

This brings me to my own book, When Stars Die, being released by AEC Stellar Publishing in October. Originally I didn't even want When Stars Die to have any sort of romance label attached to it. When Stars Die is a very dark book, and I felt that by attaching the romance label to it would immediately water down what the entire book is actually about. But as I was writing the protagonist and her love interest, I realized that in order to have the ending work out the way I wanted it to, I had to develop the romance. I had to push it beyond a simple sub-plot and move it into the main plot.

So I began to make the changes necessary to have a fully-fleshed ending. As I was writing the development between main character, Amelia Gareth, and her love interest, Oliver Cromwell, I began to realize that the romance wasn't watering down the darkness of the book. If anything, the romance was making the book even darker--darker than I had originally imagined. Their love is forbidden, and while forbidden love isn't original, they're also best friends at the start of the book and have had feelings for some time. It isn't like Amelia and Oliver just met and fell in love one-hundred pages later. In fact, I want to argue that Amelia never really falls in love with Oliver. And, of course, Oliver's love is highly questionable as well. Their attraction for one another is arguably dark. Amelia is a witch and an aspiring nun, and Oliver is a priest. Witches are hated in her world, but, in the beginning, Oliver doesn't seem to care.

When I finished developing their romance, I began to fall in love with the idea of romance as a sub-plot. As I've said, the main plot has the potential to make sub-plot romances unpredictable. But for a while I did toy with whether or not to consider When Stars Die just paranormal or actual paranormal romance. I just didn't want to choose the latter because I didn't want to fall into any trend and make people think that the book was heavily romance-based. It does have romance, and the romance is a huge part of the book, but the book is steeped in darkness more than anything else. However, I began to accept that When Stars Die is a paranormal romance because the book can't function without that romance element. And it doesn't matter whether or not people think I'm falling into a trend and trying to capitalize off it.

I wrote the book I wanted, and that's all that matters to me. In any case, I started this story at fifteen before paranormal romance exploded. I just had to shelve it for a few years while I matured as both a human being and writer.