This book took me ten years to write. I don’t mean that literally, but the initial idea simmered in the back of my mind for a long time before I actually sat down and wrote the book.

Way back before my first novel was published in 2013, I wrote a thousand words on a writing prompt for my writer’s group meeting. It came from a simple thought. “What if I woke up on the top of the Empire State Building and I saw the twin towers in the distance?”

That simple prompt triggered a series of what if thoughts for me, but none of them got farther than those first thousand words. I knew nothing about the narrator, the scene, the setting, the plot…it was all a blank canvas as vast as the blue sky overhead. I put that prompt aside in a notebook and let it sit for ten years.

In 2021, I finally came back to it. The moment I reread that passage, a flood of ideas hit me at once. Kate traveled back to 1985 through a time slip at the top of the Empire State Building.

What if this was her opportunity to see her dad who passed when she was a toddler…

What if she found her dad’s boss instead of her dad…

What if she fell in LOVE with her dad’s boss…

The spark caught my brain on fire. I outlined the whole book and then wrote it in two months! It was one of the first books I outlined before I wrote, and it worked so well, I started doing it for the rest of my projects. Win-win!

Why did I choose 1985? I blame Back to the Future on that one. I’ve loved that movie since I was a kid, and as an 80s baby myself, I have a strong draw to that decade. 1985 gave me a firm grasp on contemporary life but without the digital contamination of the internet and cell phones, etc. It was the perfect blend of past and present giving readers a way to connect with it at a nostalgic level.

Marketing this book became difficult because it’s not a true contemporary romance, but it’s also not a historical romance. It’s somewhere in between. I like to call it Retro Romance. Personally, I think we need more of those. Books set in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s have wonderful potential.

No one could really give me a definitive answer on WHAT this book category was, so I stuck with time travel and retro romance even though I couldn’t list it like that on Amazon. But it makes a FANTASTIC meme. I apologize in advance. *Laughs in Xennial*

The 1980s was vibrant and crazy, so it gave me the perfect backdrop for my story. A modern woman dropped in the year she was born and she falls in love with her dad’s boss. That’s trippy!

What I never expected was the secondary characters in When I Found You demanding I write their love story. Marcy and Rob were such delightful characters, I had to give them a voice and explore their romance. But then their story gave me more secondary characters which sparked a third book…then a fourth…and a fifth! What a wild ride it’s been.

My biggest regret is not giving Book 1 a snazzy rockstar title like I did with the rest of the series, but the current title fits too well to give it up. I’m a huge fan of Classic Rock and the 80s was a great decade for music. I even have playlists built on Spotify for each book if you want to check them out.

Here’s the playlist for When I Found You:

If you love the 80s, Time Travel, and smoldering sexual tension, then you should check out this book. I had so much fun writing it, and the series’ cast of characters will forever hold a special place in my heart. I’ll be writing more on each book soon, so keep an eye out for those inspiration posts!

Here’s a meme for the road! Hope to see you soon.

Thanks for all the love and support. xoxo

Kirsten