Why I Write Plus Size Romance

Growing up, I devoured romance novels. I lived for the moment the hero finally saw the heroine—really saw her—and fell completely, irrevocably in love. But there was always a catch. The heroines in those books never looked like me.

They were described as slender, willowy, petite. If a larger woman did appear, she was the comic relief. The best friend. The "before" picture in someone else's transformation story. She wasn't the one getting swept off her feet by the billionaire. She wasn't the one being worshipped.

I kept reading anyway, squinting past the descriptions, trying to insert myself into stories that weren't built for me. But there's only so long you can do that before you start to believe the quiet message underneath: women who look like you don't get this kind of love.

"Women who look like you don't get this kind of love."
I believed that for a long time. I don't anymore.

That belief followed me for years. Into dressing rooms where I apologized for my body. Into relationships where I felt lucky to be chosen rather than genuinely desired. Into a constant, exhausting sense that I was taking up too much space—literally and figuratively.

When I started writing romance, I didn't set out to make a statement. I just wrote the heroines I wished I'd seen. Women with soft bellies and thick thighs. Women who wore size 16 or 22 or 28 and didn't spend the whole book trying to shrink. Women who walked into a room and the hero's breath caught—not despite their body, but because of it.

That's the heart of everything I write. It's baked into my Sugar Promise—the guarantee I make to every reader: high heat, low drama, and a happily ever after where the heroine is loved exactly as she is. No transformation montage required.

I get messages from readers that make me cry at my desk. Women who tell me they'd never seen themselves as the romantic lead before. Women who say my books helped them feel desirable for the first time. One reader told me she finally stopped apologizing to her husband for how she looked naked. Another said she wore a bikini for the first time in fifteen years.

I didn't write those words. But somehow, seeing a heroine who looked like her get the epic love story gave her permission to believe she deserved one too.

That's why I do this.

Not because plus-size romance is a trend or a niche to fill. Because representation isn't just about seeing yourself on the page—it's about what that seeing does to you. It rewires something. It plants a seed that says: maybe the stories I've been told about my body aren't true.

I write billionaires who are obsessed with their curvy assistants. Mountain men who worship every inch. Grumpy heroes who melt the moment she walks into the room. And in every single book, the heroine's body is not a problem to be solved. It's not the obstacle. It's not even a topic of extended discussion.

She just... exists. In her body. Being loved.

That shouldn't feel revolutionary. But for a lot of readers, it still does.

I'll keep writing until it doesn't.