Heather McCoubrey | Author

About the Author

Heather McCoubrey began writing in middle school after a teacher showed her that instead of simply disappearing into other people’s stories, she could create worlds of her own. Her first poems appeared in her school magazine, and before long she had graduated from poetry to writing her first full-length novel.

She is the independently published author of To Love Twice, Back to December, Emily’s Choice, and True Love’s Kiss. Her short fiction has also appeared in The First Line.

Heather writes emotional, character-driven stories about love, healing, family, friendship, and the choices that can change a life. Her characters have a longstanding habit of ignoring her outlines, developing opinions of their own, and occasionally turning what was supposed to be a straightforward romance into something considerably more complicated.

A native of Maine who moved throughout the United States while growing up, Heather now lives in Pennsylvania with her family and their ever-changing menagerie of pets. When she isn’t writing, she can usually be found reading, traveling, watching football, daydreaming about tropical islands, practicing her terrible British accent, or wondering why the people she invented refuse to listen to her.

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Meet Heather

Where were you born?
Calais, Maine — way up there near the Canadian border.

Favorite color?
Purple. Always purple.

Coffee or tea?
Chai. Iced, frozen, or hot — I’m equal-opportunity chai.

Early bird or night owl?
Night owl. Absolutely no contest.

Dog or cat?
Cats, full stop. I’ve always loved their independence, their attitude, and their uncanny ability to make you feel like a guest in your own home. But when you have kids, you don’t always get a say in which animals join the family. Somewhere along the way, my household turned into a full-blown menagerie.

Do you listen to music while you write?
Sometimes. It depends entirely on the scene, the mood, and whether my characters have decided music is allowed that day.

Do you outline your novels before you write them?
Very loosely. I usually know who the main characters are, where the story is starting, and roughly where I think it might end.

Then the characters laugh at me.

I’m definitely more of a discovery writer than a strict plotter. Some of my favorite moments happen because a character takes the story somewhere I didn’t expect.

How much do you write every day?
I don’t have a daily word-count rule anymore. Some days I write thousands of words. Other days I edit, brainstorm, research, or stare suspiciously at a character who refuses to cooperate.

I’ve learned that writing a book is still writing even when the word counter isn’t moving.

Favorite character you’ve created?
This is an unfair question.

Every time I think I have a favorite, another character shows up and demands attention. I have a soft spot for Anna from Back to December because of everything she survives and becomes, but Flynn and Libby from True Love’s Kiss gave me an entirely different kind of story to love.

Ask me again while I’m deep into another manuscript and I’ll probably give you a completely different answer.

What kind of stories do you love to write?
Stories about people making hard choices.

Love stories, yes — but also stories about healing, family, friendship, identity, second chances, and figuring out what you want when everyone else seems to have an opinion about what your life should look like.

I have a weakness for characters carrying enough emotional baggage to require their own airline.

Where do your story ideas come from?
Everywhere.

A place. A line of dialogue. A strange historical fact. A news story. A dream. Something someone says in passing.

The actual problem has never been finding ideas. It’s convincing all of them to wait their turn.

What is your writing process like?
Chaotic but effective. 😂

I usually start with a character or situation that won’t leave me alone. I write until I understand the people better, occasionally discover I’ve gone twenty thousand words in the wrong direction, and then complain loudly while I figure out what they were trying to tell me.

My characters are opinionated. I’ve accepted it. Mostly.

What do you read?
Mostly fiction, especially romance, romantic suspense, mysteries, historical fiction, and anything that makes me care deeply about the characters.

I also love discovering the kind of book that makes me resent real life for interrupting my reading time.

Favorite place to read?
A lounge chair on the beach, under a huge shade umbrella, a delicious tropical drink in hand, and absolutely nobody asking me where anything is.

If you could travel anywhere right now, where would you go?
Somewhere I haven’t been yet — preferably beautiful, full of history, and near water. I’m always ready for another adventure.

What’s something readers might not know about you?
Short stories were actually where I first learned to love writing. Give me a prompt, a strange first line, or a ridiculous constraint and my brain immediately wants to turn it into a story.

What are you working on now?
I’m currently working on Caldwell House, the first book in my planned Dock Square Mysteries series. Set in coastal Maine, it follows Natalie Caldwell, an innkeeper whose life gets considerably more complicated when murder disrupts her picturesque hometown—and the detective investigating it happens to be her childhood friend and ex-boyfriend.

There’s mystery, small-town charm, plenty of complicated relationships, and, because my characters rarely cooperate with my outlines, a little romance that refuses to stay in the background.

I’m also juggling several other works in progress across romance, suspense, and women’s fiction. One fictional world at a time has never been enough for me.