They say breakfast is the most
important meal of the day.
Allyson Cunningham, the heroine of
my new romantic comedy, Breaking All the Rules, certainly believes it. Her standard breakfast — Cheerios,
strawberries and skim milk — comes up more than once.
You see, Allyson is rather
particular and very much rules-oriented. She eats her cereal, fruit and milk
every morning before work and has brunch with her friend Nikki at IHOP every
Saturday. She only eats red meat once a week and avoids carbs whenever
possible. (Can’t tell I was doing Atkins when I drafted this story, can you?)
She and hero Donovan Marshall clash over her stubborn insistence on sticking to
her food rules.
That’s not their only point of
disagreement, of course. Van’s relaxed approach to work — and life in general —
rankles Allyson.
At the same time, it intrigues her
— as it does me. I’ve always been a bit like Allyson — set in my habits and
resistant to change. (Except with food. I love trying new restaurants and
dishes I’ve never tried before. Among the strangest: alligator and escargot.
I’m more likely to try a new flavor combination than a really weird food.)
My boyfriend is more like Van —
always ready for adventure, even if it has “DISASTER” flashing on it in
10-foot-tall neon letters. One time, we took off for Phoenix without a hotel
reservation and ended up driving home in a snowstorm because all the hotels
were booked — even the $28 a night rat-trap motel. I believe it was both the
opening weekend for spring training and NASCAR race weekend. Plus, there was a
dart or pool tourney in town. We didn’t stand a chance.
The uncertainty stressed me out,
and my headache worsened every time we struck out at a new hotel. I ended up
lying down on the backseat to sleep it off. That left the Cali boy to drive up
the mountain in the snow, and he ended up pulling off at a truck safety pullout
to wait it out. Fun times.
Back to the book: Allyson is
desperate to get Donovan to do his job (translating Klingon at the mental
health facility she runs) right — the first time — and Van makes it his mission
to prove to Ally that some rules, including food rules, are meant to be broken.
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Breaking all the Rules blurb:
Faced with compliance of a
ridiculous new Arizona law, by-the-book mental health care facility
administrator Allyson Cunningham must find an interpreter who speaks a
made-for-TV language. Prime candidate Donovan Marshall has the language skills
she so desperately needs, but shows a disturbing disregard for all rules and
restrictions. While Allyson struggles to secure another
perfect rating for her facility, convince Donovan to conform and control her
inappropriate attraction to an employee, Donovan makes it his prime directive
to persuade starchy Ally it doesn’t hurt to break a few rules.
About
Arlene: Arlene Hittle is a Midwestern transplant who now makes her home in
northern Arizona. She has her father to thank for her love of all things
sci-fi. He took her to see Star Wars
when she was six. She immediately fell in love with R2-D2, C3PO and Luke
Skywalker. (Only with the Star Wars
re-release in the ’90s did she
succumb to the bad-boy appeal of Han Solo.) Find her at arlenehittle.com, on Twitter or on Facebook.
