Everyone in a romantic novel always has some kind of dream job. Or, like…the protagonists always do. The thing is, it needs to be the RIGHT job. If I ‘m going to give my protagonist a job, then it needs to be something that moves the plot along. So many people give their protagonists jobs that sound lovely and romantic, but they’re actually huge mistakes.

A person who writes messages inside love cards? How nice…but WRONG. That woman doesn’t have the chance to meet people. She’s not going to be sent to conferences, where she accidentally gets put in a a room with a wacky prankster who helps her to open up about life and love. There’s an element of irony, but that’s all you really get.

See, I’ve made my protagonist do kitchen renovations. Melbourne already has plenty of people who do that, and it’s an up-and-coming profession that’s still going to resonate with readers years from now. Her name is Imogen, and she’s just an ordinary, plain, boring, normal girl with an incredibly hot and famous mother who she just happens to perfectly resemble. And she does kitchen renovations, because it was her dad’s dying wish that she get into a job that utilises her talents in design, and also maybe kitchens. So now she’s just living an ordinary life in a penthouse apartment, sketching kitchens for incredibly rich clients, when she goes to a guy’s house to remodel his kitchen. He’s due to be married, but she falls deeply in love with him over their kitchen design sessions, and then she doesn’t know what to with her feelings (the wedding thing adds a hint of scandal, and also a villain- the horrible bride-to-be who’s shocked that the guy who asked her to marry him is totally into some other girl). And finally, she uses all the resources of her kitchen designers to make him a kitchen that says…’I love you’…

But if you want to find out if Imogen gets the guy in the end, you’ll have to buy the book!

-Sunita