The Nurse and the Soldier – Writing about love and lust in a war zone

Characters – Pete and “Mayday”

It was a while since I’d done an interracial romance (the last one was The Maid and the Billionaire Prince) and, being of the opinion that love is color blind, I wanted to do another one. I’m not sure where the idea of an Asian nurse in a war zone came from, but I absolutely loved writing Mei “Mayday” Li’s character. I sometimes get hooked on a HWMP story and want to write a whole series based on it and that was absolutely the case with The Nurse and the Soldier. I’d happily write a M*A*S*H-style series about Francesca, Mei Li and the rest of the camp (Pete’s commanding officer was good fun). What makes an interracial romance–or indeed any romance–work is when the characters really spark off each other and with Mei Li and Pete it was a pleasure to write.

Plot and Theme

The idea of the breeding set up for The Nurse and the Soldier was there right from the start–it went hand in hand with writing a military themed one. I think facing our own mortality (to get all deep for a moment) is one of those big life moments that can trigger people to do crazy things, and having an otherwise pretty sensible couple do something so out there felt right–at least to me. I knew it was going to be a tearjerker right from the start, too. I did actually consider going for a sad ending but…well, I couldn’t do that to you.

I am not a military expert. I probably got all sorts of things wrong in terms of terminology and military camp life in The Nurse and the Soldier. I was deliberately vague about a few things–we never find out which country they’re stationed in, for example–because I didn’t want to trivialize any real world conflict. Any other errors are just down to my own stupidity 🙂 I don’t often dedicate my stories, but I dedicated this one to the brave men and women around the world who risk their lives for their countries. We could all do with some more love in our lives.

So: I hope you enjoyed The Nurse and the Soldier and maybe blinked back a tear, and I hope doing breeding erotica mixed with this sort of romance worked for you. I like to think that Mei Li and Pete were very happy in that apartment in Chicago, before moving to Oklahoma and living under a big slice of sky 🙂