AUTHOR ' S corner
Jordan Rosenfeld
Jordan is the author of four writing guides and three novels. Her articles
have been published in such places as: Alternet, The Atlantic, Marin
Magazine, the New York Times, the Petaluma Magazine, Salon, the
San Francisco Chronicle, the Washington Post and many more.
Heatherly Bell…
Local Author Empowers
Women Through the
Romance Genre
T
he romance genre is often unfairly
stigmatized as a lowbrow cousin of
literature. Yet those who write it—
largely women—are “educated women,
lawyers, professors and the whole
gamut,” said Heatherly Bell, the pen
name of a Morgan Hill romance author.
She feels that romance is “maligned”
possibly because it is a primarily
woman-dominated genre.
Bell said that the days of simple
bodice rippers are a thing of romances
past. “Now you find that most of
romance is about people going on a
journey together. Part of it is falling in
love, but it’s also about self-realization
and meeting goals.”
She said that she personally writes to
empower women. “I’m really drawn to
writing strong women that know exactly
what they want in every aspect of their
lives and are going to fight for it.” She
does feel there’s a double standard,
however, where men protagonists can
be more flawed than women, but she
strives to write sympathetic protagonists
of both genders.
Romance features a wide swath of
categories: “There’s romantic suspense,
contemporary romance, historical
romance, inspirational romance,
Western romance and so on.”
She tried her hand at the
inspirational but has found her niche
in contemporary romance.
In fact, Bell has been writing all
of her life, she said, typically literary
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works in the vein of Jodi Picoult and
Alice Hoffman, but in 2003, at the
age of 38, she decided to try her hand
at writing for publication. It took her
several years of trying to pin down
which genre she wanted to focus on
most, but by 2010, when a friend
challenged her to commit to finishing a
book, she chose romance “because it’s a
billion dollar industry. I figured I might
as well try to get some money out of it,”
she said with a laugh.
Bell independently published a seven
book series, which is popular in the
genre, and they sold “really well.” Not
long after, she signed a three-book deal
with the romance publisher Harlequin,
the first book of which, “One More
Night,” comes out in early 2019, and
the others in 2020.
Age 53 now, she has 15 published
books under her belt and more to come.
Since she chose romance writing to
make an income, she said she treats it
like a business, committing around 21
hours per week to writing, sometimes
all day on the weekends. “If these books
are successful, I’ll write more,” she said.
Her newest book, “She’s Country
Strong,” is the second in a two-part
series called Country Gold, featuring
the three Wilder sisters. The sisters’
country rock band broke up over a
scandal in book one, and they returned
to their hometown of “Whistle Cove,”
which is a fictional version of Monterey.
Bell describes the novel, published in
GILROY • MORGAN HILL • SAN MARTIN
february/march 2019
November 2018, as, “When a disgraced
country singer meets a wealthy rancher,
sparks fly.”
Bell loves planting small real life
seeds in her books, and finds that
readers enjoy picking them out as
well. There are many iconic locations
from the beach town of Monterey in
“She’s Country Gold.” She has also
fictionalized Morgan Hill as “Fortune
Valley” in a separate series called Wildfire
Ridge, in which the male romantic
interests are first responders or military
men, such as the ex-Marine who stars in
the first book, Wounded Hero.
“I’ve put this wildfire ridge in the
second book, a hill like El Toro that is
prone to wildfires,” she said. In the first
book, her protagonist is trying to build
an outdoor adventure company in this
town to attract Silicon Valley people
who like extreme sports.
“I try to pull from the real world as
much as I can. I feel like a sponge for
everything I’ve ever read or heard,”
she said.
Perhaps her favorite aspect of writing
romance, Bell said, is that “there’s always
going to be a happily ever after. We
don’t have enough of that in real life.
I prefer to spend my time in a happier
place, especially as I get older.”
gmhtoday.com