Bringing Waldorf Manor to a close . . .

My first book, ''The Solicitation'', was purely a work of my imagination.  Kinky or not.  And if by kinky you think a man giving a woman/girl a smack on her bottom is kinky, you need to get out more.  That's not kinky, love.  That's fun.  It tells the story of an eighteen year old girl taken in by an orphaned billionaire and how he raises her within the protective, formal walls of Waldorf Manor. 

The second book, ''The Shortlist'', is the sequel and features Brayden's best friend, Bennett Fowler, on his journey to secure the same relationship, except that it doesn't take the father/daughter path.  The privileges of having a legally mature girl to look after in a platonic way against the backdrop of a stunningly similar setting, Barton-Court House.  The redemption of Bennett's character in book II is unmistakeable.  I did that on purpose.  We like good.  We like to see people turn over a new leaf.  Improve.  Find happiness.  Feel joy.  Change.  That's what happens to Bennett.  Brayden and Alice continue to deepen their father/daughter relationship and we see alot of growth in various places in this cast.  Bennett is the most obvious purveyour of change as he literally faces emotions he's never experienced before.   

The third book, which doesn't yet have a title, has been easy to write and difficult to finish. 

I don't want Waldorf Manor to end.  I should have titled this post, ''Tears on a Thursday,'' because as I sat down to write today I realised that I'm probably drawing it out slowly because I know it has to end.  I know that the Waldorf Manor series has to come full circle.  The characters will develop and then I will have to leave them at the end of the story.  They won't come and visit me anymore when I sit down to write.  They won't keep telling their own stories.  It will be over, and I already feel like a chunk of my heart has been taken out of my chest.  I am in love with this world I've created (from who the bloody hell knows where) and people have been gobbling up the series.  One review in particular on Blushing Books touched me so deeply that I reread it on a weekly basis.  She gets it.  She gets how a story can connect with you on a level that even you don't understand even though you understand that you connect with it. 

Perhaps you don't identify with this.  But this was me becoming an author, my first contracts, and this series goes back to my childhood.  Back to when I was a young teenager and knew I was missing alot of things from my home and parents.  Things I so deeply desired that I had to fantasise about, like unconditional love, just to experience it.  I didn't actually properly learn about that until I was in my twenties.  Love always had conditions in my childhood. 

I feel as though I've suffered a great loss as I bring book III to a close.  It's not even finished and I already feel this way, so I dare say the day I submit it to the publisher will be one where I spend the rest of it in bed under the duvet.