Course Correction!

I had an epiphany at 2 a.m. while revising a scene in Caution to the Wind. Insomnia may be a nuisance, but it’s also when my brain pulls out the most interesting ideas—the ones I can’t quite see in the full light of day. Last night’s realization was this: I don’t actually write historical romance.

Perhaps I should unpack that a bit before I lose half my audience.

The 2 A.M. Epiphany

There I was, tinkering with a battle scene, deciding how much detail to include and how much to cut. After all, if my core target market is women, they might have a “blood and guts” threshold somewhat lower than mine.

Tall Ships Festival in Duluth, Minnesota—a research trip that helped launch Caution to the Wind. Photo by OakleyOriginals, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).

Then it hit me: The beating heart of my stories is the romance, but the bones are pure historical fiction. The ships, the battles, the political tensions, the social constraints—they’re not just wallpaper behind a love story. They’re the engine that drives it. The romance can’t exist without the history, and the history is more fun (for me, anyway) because of the romance.

On a whim, I decided to ask AI what I might read for further inspiration. It suggested series such as Sharpe, Hornblower, and the Aubrey–Maturin novels that inspired the movie Master and Commander. I not only own the books, I own the DVDs. (If your heart is in romance, you really can’t beat Sean Bean, Ioan Gruffudd, and Russell Crowe as hero models.) And yet, after reading and watching these stories, I often find myself oddly unfulfilled.

Those stalwart seafaring and soldierly tales I love so much tend to leave me hungry. I admire the heroics and the immersive detail, but the romantic elements are a side story at best. In fact, I've sometimes wondered if the poor authors have yet to recover from a wound to the heart of the emotional kind. The good female characters are intriguing, but they’re left underdeveloped or relegated to temporary romantic interest status. Worst case, they’re more than a little cloying. (The Needle – temporary, Maria – cloying, Sophia – undeveloped.)

The Inspiration Behind Caution to the Wind

Caution to the Wind was the first novel I wrote, even though it wasn’t the first one out in the world. It began, quite simply, as me revising those beloved stories in my head. I would finish a book or a movie and immediately start mentally rewriting scenes: What if we stayed with the woman for once? What if we saw the battle from her vantage point—her fears, her calculations, her impossible choices? What if the romantic connection wasn’t a side quest but the driving reason we care who wins or loses?

That “what if” pushed me from reader to writer. I wanted the same kind of action, the same meticulous historical detail, but with the romance turned up to the emotional volume I craved. Not wall‑to‑wall swooning, but a story where the women have a critical role and the romantic stakes are inseparable from the historical stakes. If the characters don’t win this battle, sign this treaty, survive this storm, they don’t just lose a ship or a commission—they lose each other.

The Rewrite

Which brings me back to that 2 a.m. scene surgery. After thirteen years, Caution to the Wind is getting a rerelease, and I’m treating it as the book it always tried to be: historical fiction with a strong romantic core. My writing has grown since I first drafted it; the sentences are tighter, the pacing more confident, and the history is woven in more cleanly. I’m also leaning into the emotional throughline with more intention—amplifying the romance while dialing back explicit sexual content.

That doesn’t mean the chemistry is going anywhere. The attraction, the tension, the vulnerability, the slow (or not‑so‑slow) burn—all of that is still very much on deck. But I’m more interested now in the emotional impact than the anatomical detail. I want the focus to be on how these characters change each other, challenge each other, and choose each other in a world that gives them every reason not to.

So if you’re here for tall ships, cannon fire, and carefully researched detail—but you also want to feel that tightness in your chest when two stubborn, brave people finally admit what they mean to each other—then you’re exactly who I’ve been writing for. And I hope this new version of Caution to the Wind turns out to be the book you secretly wanted to read all along.

Join the Advanced Review Crew

Caution to the Wind is set to come out of dry dock this fall (2026), and I’m putting together a small Advance Review Crew who’ll receive a free pre‑release copy sometime in late August or early September. Reviews are not required—but they’re deeply appreciated and make a world of difference in helping this kind of story find its readers. If that sounds like your cup of grog, you can find all the sign‑up details here on my website.