From Rom-Com to Non-Rom by KM Golland

[Note from Frolic: We’re so excited to have author KM Golland guest posting on the site today! She’s taking all about her author journey.]

As an author who predominantly writes sexy romantic comedy, making the switch to an emotion-packed love story was, surprisingly, easier than I predicted it would be. And maybe that’s because, where a love story is concerned, there are no rules. In a love story, love is not only wonderfully uplifting, but it can also hurt like hell. Because if it didn’t, then one could argue it’s not love.

So what do we know about the illustrious L word? We know it’s a strong sense of affection—emotionally positive for the most part—that apparently makes the world go round and fills the body with ‘warm fuzzies’. Now, before I continue, I’m fairly sure gravity makes the world go round, not love. And as for those ‘warm fuzzies’, when I hear that expression, I can’t help but picture caterpillars with glowing backsides navigating our circulatory systems. But that’s a story of an entirely different genre I don’t write. So let’s get back to love

I love love. Silly love. Playful love. My heart-is-full-and-ready-to-burst-with-joy love. I also prefer to laugh than cry, which is why I’ve written mostly romantic comedies. And not only do I love to write them, I also love to read and watch them on the big screen. Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding, Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan, and 50 First Dates are just to name a few of my favourites. Stories like those pull on your joyous heartstrings and leave you blissfully floating through the uplifting side of love. They inspire hope … and sometimes anger toward your husband who didn’t bring you home a bunch of flowers or leave you the sweetest note listing all things he adores about you. Poor husbands. (Btw, if you haven’t seen those three movies or read the books, I suggest you drop everything and do that now. You’re welcome. Thank me later).

In real life, though, love isn’t always rainbows and unicorns or finding Mr Perfect in the middle of a park on a summer’s day after you’ve tripped and smooshed your half-eaten ice cream into his shirt. Love isn’t always a romantic comedy with a happily ever after. It’s inconsistent, ever changing, and it transforms—a bit like Optimus Prime. When all is said and done, love is unpredictable.

So why do most people read romantic fiction? My guess would be to escape real life but to also relate, to identify with the good and the bad, the ups and the downs, and to see both the light and the dark. You can’t have one without the other, and that’s the reason I wanted to make the switch and write a love story that encompassed all there is to love. I wanted to write about the fear, the excitement, hurt, joy, and pain. I wanted to draw every emotion from my reader so they could feel the happiness of love and life but also the heartbreak that accompanies it.

Unspoken Words, my new release, is one of those stories: a real-life love story of hope, joy, laughter, loss, and pain. Think stories like Forrest Gump, A Star is Born, and Beaches. They take you on an emotional roller coaster and leave you feeling full, or empty, or perhaps both. They rip your heart out, stomp on it, break it into tiny pieces, and then stitch it all back together again.

Love stories are unapologetically honest, and they don’t conform to any set of rules. They are raw, poetic, and beautiful. And as a writer of all things love and romance, having the freedom to explore all of that without restriction was what I treasured most about switching genres.

About the Author:

Born and raised in Melbourne, Australia, K.M. Golland is a best selling author with HarperCollins, and a ranty, married mother of two who is quite happy to support a very healthy high heel obsession. A lover of rabbits, doughnuts, bridges, and cars, she traded her legal work for her love of writing and found her dream career.

Unspoken Words by KM Golland, out now!

This is a story of unspoken words and how loud they can be.

Connor Bourke and I met when we were twelve years old. He was a quiet boy with so much to say and only one way to say it—through song. He’d lost his best friend to cancer, so I showed him there was love and life in loss, and to hold on to his memories, always.

Eloise Mitchell was a blazing fire when my world turned dark. She’d shined so bright and burned so fierce that the wall I’d built around myself simply melted to the ground at her feet.

We shared everything together:

Our first kiss,

first love,

first mistake,

and first regret.

She taught me to speak,

to forgive,

and to never forget.

Through his music, he could say all he needed to say except for, ‘I love you’.

I could never tell her those three words.

Yet, I knew he meant them, that he loved me beyond all measure, beyond time

… beyond a broken heart.