Let’s Talk One True Mate (One True Mate Companion, Vol. 1)

3—Series Tidbits

How many books:

One True Mate (OTM) will be thirteen books long. Book 11 is Canyon’s book, book 12 will be Timber’s book, and book 13 will be Sebastian’s book. I do have a spinoff series percolating in my head and in my notes that will be centered around the next generation.

I’ve recently thought that there could be a One True Mate 14, 15, etc. Each of my books ends with a ‘final battle’ and the one at the end of book 13 will be the big one that deals with the demon once and for all. I’ve had this particular ending in mind since I started writing the very first book and I always thought it would mark the end of the series, but I’m organized enough now that I can write timeline-lateral books and books that don’t necessarily deal with the demon, but are still a dual, entwined hero’s journey that unite a shiften and a One True Mate. So we’ll see what happens!

Note:

One quirk of the series that anyone who lives in Illinois has probably noticed, is that I like to use Illinois place names as my character last names. I shamelessly stole this quirk from the excellent Saving Grace (2007-2010) TV series by Nancy Miller.

How One True Mate got started:

I started writing books in 2012 when I was 40 years old and pregnant with the younger of my two sons. I didn’t produce anything decent until 2014, which was when I published my first Romantic Suspense novel, Edge of the Heat 1 . I kept writing Romantic Suspense, and one day about a year and a half later, I bought my first ever Paranormal Romance book— Dark Lover , the series opener of Black Dagger Brotherhood by J.R. Ward, about vampires and human women. I read it in a few days and enjoyed it a lot. I remember thinking to myself, “ This works in romance? I can do this . I’d be good at this .”

I messaged my bestie, Anette, and she agreed I would be good at it. She listened to my ideas, researched names for me, and told me what she thought. She’s naturally funny, and she helped me learn to be funny, which I will be forever appreciative of. She is responsible for some of the more endearing funnies in the series, like these Mac and Bruin jokes:

? Monterey jackass in book 2 (Graeme and Heather):

Mac flipped him [Beckett] the bird, grinning. “Fuck off, cheese-eater!”

He snorted and looked around to make a joke, but the only one within joke distance was the bearen . Oh, well. “Monterey jackass,” he muttered.

The bearen laughed hard and loud before he cracked his own joke. “Ah, give him a break. He’s a Gouda boy.”

? Bearistotle in book 5 (Mac and Rogue)

Bruin grinned, showing all his teeth. “Bears think more than wolves, Mac. We’re philosophers. We get life on a very deep level.”

“Whatever, Bearistotle.”

? Bruhi in book 7 (Harlan and Eventine)

Rogue took the wriggly pup, and told Mac, “Just imagine Bruin saying it.”

Mac smiled. “Oh, ok. Got it. So what, this is some kind of bearen legend?”

Harlan held up a hand, speaking to himself, just out loud. He still was not convinced this all was not a dream. “Hold on, just because Mac can speak Bruhi does not mean anything Conri just said made sense.”

Story Evolution:

Way back at the beginning, before I wrote the first word of One True Mate, I thought deeply and often about what the world would look like. Vampires were an instant no-go for me as heroes, so I set my sights on shifters. Bear shifters as firefighters was a popular trope at the time (2016), and my first attempts at plotting a paranormal romance series involved firefighter bears. A wild wolf encounter flipped those bears to wolves in my mind (actually, it was a family trip to Great Wolf Lodge in Seattle ha ha), and if bears made sense as firefighters, then wolves made sense as police officers… at least to me.

My early plotting centered around a character named ‘Kwaad’ as the bad guy and a character named ‘Ren’ as the good guy; Ella’s nickname was originally Gabi; and the bears and wolves were enemies. Over time, my ideas evolved—Kwaad became Khain—a demon; Ren became Rhen—a goddess; Gabi became Ella, and the bears and wolves worked together as firefighters and police officers.

Location:

The events of the One True Mate series take place in Serenity, Illinois, which is a fictional town located exactly where Rockford, Illinois is, which is the general area where I spent much of my childhood. I have used a few place names from Rockford, for example—Machesney Park. Other than that, Serenity’s streets are loosely laid out like Hilo, Hawaii, because Hilo is where I lived for much of my early adulthood and so it was easiest for me to move my characters around that landscape in my mind.