The journey to writing Pippa and Edouard’s story is different than my usual process. Typically, when I create side characters, I know what story I want to tell for them (and with whom) when they finally get to be main characters. However, when I created Pippa and Edouard’s budding courtship in The Enchanted Bird, I never intended to tell their story. Neither of them possess magic, and their courtship was going smoothly, so there wasn’t a fantasy romance story there.

But while thinking about books after the ones I had planned while writing The Nightmara Affair, I suddenly thought—what if Pippa was kidnapped by a cursed beast after she was already in love with Edouard? That would be a fun twist on Beauty and the Beast. I could start Pippa and Edouard’s story with his proposal then her being kidnapped soon after.

So I thought about it some more, but by the time I began writing The Secret Soulbond, I realized that there wasn’t a lot to tell for Pippa and Edouard after she was kidnapped by the beast. They were already in love, and they’d be apart for most of the book. So I decided the true story was between the beast and the lady actually meant to break his curse (whom Edouard brings with him to rescue Pippa.) Pippa and Edouard had been returned to side characters again.

Yet when I began plotting The Beast Curse after finishing the first draft of The Goddess’s Illusion, I discovered I really wanted to tell Pippa and Edouard’s story after all. The hints I’d planted in The Goddess’s Illusion about their quarrel were just too intriguing. I thought about it further, then it struck me—I’d been trying to start their story at the wrong time. I needed to start back when they first met at Aragon and Selena’s wedding. And then I cursed myself because I’d decided I wasn’t going to write more books that took place at the same time as The Enchanted Bird, The Nightmara Affair, and The Secret Soulbond since it was complicated to keep track of everything.

However, I was so excited to tell Pippa and Edouard’s story that I switched to plotting it instead of The Beast Curse. And after I finished editing The Goddess’s Illusion, I immediately began writing The Sun-Nymph Bride, even though I usually write background book extras and the book’s short story first to get to know the characters better beforehand. But Pippa and Edouard had been side characters for a while, so I knew them pretty well already. Yet that did make figuring out their short story difficult—there was nothing to tell before they met. Fortunately, midway through writing The Sun-Nymph Bride, I realized telling Edouard’s father’s reaction to their meeting would be interesting, so The Loving Father was born.