Tule Author Dani Collins stopped by the Tule Blog leading up to her upcoming release of Forgiving Her First Love, book two in her Raven’s Cove romance series for Tule.
Can you share the story of your journey to becoming an award-winning and USA Today Bestselling Author? What does that mean to you? The journey starts when I was in high school. I found romance and wondered how you got a job writing those books. I rented a typewriter when I was twenty-one (yes, I’m that old!) and quickly discovered writing is hard. Also, rejection sucks.
I submitted to every publisher I could find for 25 years and sold in 2012 to Harlequin Presents. Coincidentally, that’s about the time Tule Publishing was born. I feel very blessed to have started out my published career surrounded by the many amazing authors and fabulously supportive team at Tule.
As far as what it means to me? It’s genuinely a dream come true. I spent many a dull hour at a boring day job dreaming of one day being a fulltime author and here I am. The awards and bestseller status are wonderful, but I’m most grateful that I get to write every day, see my stories get turned into books, then hear from the readers who love them. It’s incredible.
You’ve written a wide range of romance sub-genres. What inspires you to explore such diverse themes and settings in your novels? When I was chasing my first sale, I tried every new market that came along. I’ve always read nearly any type of romance so it was always fun to try writing something different—a ghost, erotic romance, a romcom or a medieval fantasy.
Once I began publishing, I found that writing the more grounded emotions of Marietta was a nice change-up from writing the glitz and billionaires of Presents. It exercises different storytelling muscles and keeps each type of story feeling fresh.
You’ve written rancher romance for Tule’s Montana Born imprint, what do you enjoy most about this genre of cowboys and ranchers and how does it resonate with your small-town roots? I’ve lived small town most of my life so it just feels like home. I love neighborly chats when you bump into someone at the grocery store and I adore the lighthearted gossip that is not mean-spirited, but more like keeping up with family. I love the sense of belonging and community that always shines through in the Montana Born books.
How do you create such compelling and relatable characters across your books? Do you have any particular methods or inspirations for character development? I don’t do a ton of preparations, but I always write 3-4 paragraphs about the character that lists their baggage. Eg. Three years younger than Logan, Sophie was in love with him from the moment he picked up her dropped sweater and brushed off the grass. … At eighteen, she followed him to the ferry slip, bag packed, but he made clear he wouldn’t take her with him. He didn’t want to marry her. He had bigger plans. (Forgiving Her First Love, Raven’s Cove Book 2, July 16, 2024)
It’s less about hard details, more about identifying the layers that will drive the character through the story. They are chasing or avoiding something. Why? What hole in their soul are they trying to fill?
I know it’s tough to pick a favorite, but do you have a favorite genre to write? I always include some humor in my books. Lately I’m leaning into that more and more and loving it.
How does living in Canada with your high school sweetheart and two children influence your writing? Do any real-life experiences sneak into your stories? My Raven’s Cove trilogy is a love letter to my roots on the Westcoast of Canada. My dad and both of my grandfathers were commercial salmon fishermen. Raven’s Cove is based on a real place where my cousin lived and worked as a tugboat operator for twenty years. By the time I got to book three where Trystan’s mother is canning peaches, I was channeling my grandmother. These three books are deeply influenced by my life.
I don’t consciously draw on specific memories of our family life. Our kids are grown and thriving, living with their own spouses. Doug and I are trying to get some travel in before they start having grandkids so I’m constantly looking at where we can go that I might set a book.
What did it feel like to win your first writing award and achieve USA Today Bestselling status? The award was for one of my very first books so imposter syndrome hit me pretty hard. I thought they’d made a mistake! Of course, it’s wonderful to win and see that bestseller tag, but I try not to get too hung up on accolades or reviews and focus instead on the things that I can control like which book to write next.
What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced as a writer, and what have been some of the most rewarding aspects of your career so far? The biggest challenge by far was persevering through twenty-five years of rejection. Perimenopause was no picnic, either. We lost my mom in 2021 and, at first, I wrote to escape the grief, but that eventually caught up to me. I went through a period of struggle, counselling helped, and now I’m in a really good place.
The rewards are endless. I marvel over the fact I get to invent people and situations and worlds for a living. I love when a story takes me down a rabbit-hole of learning something new. I love when an editor reads my book and gets what I’m trying to say and is as excited for the story as I am. I love, love, love when I get a note from a reader who says something in my story resonated with them. To me, that’s pure magic.
What advice would you give to aspiring romance writers who are just starting out? Are there any specific tips for writing across multiple genres?
Tips for New Writers:
You learn how to write a book by writing a book. Workshops and craft books can be helpful, but they offer tools and you learn how to use those tools by actually writing. You learn to find your voice by trusting your instincts. Accept that your first book probably won’t come out the way you hoped and just write it.
Also writing is rewriting. I know authors who spew out an ugly first draft then do massive revisions. Other authors essentially turn out a finished manuscript in one go without ever looking back. I fall somewhere in the middle, preferring to fix and polish as I go. You have to write a few books before you discover your process. Just keep writing.
Finally, the writing is yours. Embrace the joy of creating! No one can ever take that away from you. Publishing is a business. If you choose to publish, there may be rejection and compromise and bad reviews. Always remember they’re two different things and keep writing.
Tip on writing multiple subgenres:
It’s worth considering different pen names. Aside from one project, I’ve always used my own name. Readers know that I deliver sexy, humorous books with complex emotion. I always trusted that they could figure out and decide for themselves whether they were in the mood for a particular subgenre.
However, algorithms are not as smart as readers. Marketing has become very complicated. If I was starting my career today, I might consider using different names for different subgenres. Might. I’m just saying it’s worth some deliberation.
Can you give us a sneak peek into any upcoming projects? What can your readers look forward to next from you? I am *so* excited for Forgiving Her First Love, which is coming out on July 16th. It’s Book Two in my Raven’s Cove trilogy, which had a working title of Three Men and a Baby on an Island.
That pretty much sums up the concept for these books. You don’t need to read the first book, Marrying the Nanny, but you’ll probably want to.
In Forgiving Her First Love, Logan has come back to Raven’s Cove with his two half-brothers to look after their orphaned, infant sister and rescue their father’s fly-in fishing resort from bankruptcy. The men oversee different portions of the operation. Logan’s purview is the marina, where Sofie is the manager.
Sofie loved Logan her whole life, until they had a week-long fling when she was eighteen. Then he rejected her, leaving her on the ferry slip. She promptly went out and made some mistakes—not that you will ever catch her calling her son a mistake—but now she’s focused on being a mother. Logan can take a long walk off a short pier as far as she’s concerned.
Here’s a peek at exactly how mad she is at him. Logan has just asked her about her relationship with her son’s father. He’s hurt that she went straight from giving him her virginity to having a baby with someone else:
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“Since when did you bring home men from the bar?” Logan’s brows crashed together.
“That smells a lot like judgment when I know for a fact that at nineteen, you spent your weekends in the bar, picking up girls. Trystan told me that’s what you told him you were doing when I asked him if you were enjoying university. Sauce for the goose.”
“Trying is the operative word,” Logan said through his teeth.
Trystan had been trying to help her shake off her long and useless crush. She had not appreciated him for it.
“Either way, I’m guessing that behavior continued more or less nonstop until you got the call that Wilf was gone and had to leave your condoms on your yacht while you moved in with your brothers. So I’ll say a polite f-you to you and your double standards.” She rose. “What did you want me to do, Logan? Sit here and pine for you some more?”
“No.” His jaw was locked, his mouth grim. “I’m saying it seems out of character to the woman I knew.”
The one who had saved herself for him. As if he had ever really known her or cared one way or another what she did.
“I was getting over you, Logan.” Screw him and his stirring up of all her old baggage. Now her tortured, angry emotions were leaking everywhere, especially out of her mouth. “I had an empty hookup with a stranger because I thought that’s how I deserved to be treated. Because that’s how you treated me.”
“Sophie.” He pressed back in his chair with shock.
“I hate you for the way you treated me,” she spat, letting the poison squeeze out at last. “But I hate myself more for allowing it. For spending so many years waiting for you. For not seeing that you never actually cared about me.”
“That is not true.” He shot to his feet. “I have always cared about you.”
“You didn’t care about anyone but yourself! But I don’t care about that. I’m furious with myself because I treated myself badly. I punished myself for being stupid over you, and I wound up derailing my future. That’s not your fault. I did that to myself.” She tapped her breastbone where it was throbbing as though fractured all the way through. “But I won’t do it again, Logan. I won’t do this.” She motioned between them. “I won’t have cozy chats with you where I share my feelings and you convince me I matter. Never again. Understand?”
He stood very still, fists clenched as though he were withstanding something unbearable.
“We work together. For Storm’s sake, I’ll help you with her if you need it. Stay in my house and wash my dishes and give Gramps a laugh. He needs it. But we both know you’re leaving as soon as you can. We are not friends. We never were and we never will be.”
BONUS: What is one book that you would consider to be your comfort read that you will always reach for? I’m going to say Pride and Prejudice, but it’s my comfort *watch*. The Colin Firth version. I watch it at least once a year.
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