Earlier this month, I shared exciting news: I’m now a represented author. Jana Hanson from Metamorphosis Literary Agency liked my KissPitch pitches in February and saw the potential for my Christmas romance Saving the Winchester Inn. After some back and forth, we made our partnership official!
Eager to get started, I took Jana’s editorial notes and got to work. This past week, I was heads down editing my story to get it ready to submit to publishers. I haven’t touched it since November, so it was nice to dive back in and remember all the elements that warmed my heart. Since Saving the Winchester Inn isn’t available to you all yet, I wanted to give you a glimpse into my characters. Today, I’ll introduce one of the heroes.
About Logan MacDermot
Logan is a thirty-something Texan rancher who moved to the quaint town of Fraser Hills, North Carolina to take over his uncle’s role as superintendent at the Winchester Inn. For Logan, moving to the mountain town was a fresh start. A way for him to move past an old heartbreak and hopefully find a place where he can set roots and feel like he’s part of a community. With the quirky but welcoming townspeople, he started to believe he belonged.
That is until Cordelia “Lia” Winchester showed up.
A stubborn, ambitious, and cut-off woman, Lia arrived in Fraser Hills after being gone for years to help manage the inn while her parents recovered from an accident. She’s a bulldozer in business–as required to be successful in Boston–and is naturally suspicious of people’s intentions.
Including Logan’s. They butt heads a lot at the beginning of the story, but Logan won’t be pushed around. He wanted to give Fraser Hills a fair shot even if Lia made that difficult.
His Motivations
Logan uprooted his life in Texas to be with his fiancé in Charleston. But when he arrived a couple months after she moved there for grad school, he learned she’d replaced him with someone else. After the failed engagement, Logan wanted to leave Charleston and start over. His uncle was retiring from the inn, which gave Logan the perfect opportunity to explore somewhere new. As a lover of the outdoors, the cozy town nestled in a valley outside of the Great Smoky Mountains spoke to Logan. And once he met the people of Fraser Hills, he saw himself settling there.
That’s what he wanted: no messy entanglements or reminders of his failures. He wanted a place to call his own. A place of his choosing. A place where he could heal.
But when Lia showed up, she reminded him he’s an outsider, which chips away at the roots he started to set. Of course, when things heat up between Lia and Logan, there’s a whole other mess of problems he had to deal with. Was he staying for her or was it because Fraser Hills was where he was destined to be?
How He Shapes the Story
Logan worked tirelessly to support the Winchesters as they go through hard times. And in learning that the town was also struggling, he rolled up his sleeves and worked alongside the members of Fraser Hills to try to save it.
But his role doesn’t stop there.
Lia Winchester, the daughter of the inn’s owners, returned to Fraser Hills to help during their trying time. She did everything in her power to stay away for more than ten years because she wanted to forge her own future. She didn’t want the legacy of the Winchester Inn. Accepting it meant accepting she had no say in her future or what she was capable of.
She’s tough, skeptical of people, fiercely independent, and distant. But being around Logan helped her get out of her one-track-mindset and embrace the magic of Fraser Hills again. Logan was also the one who showed her that it didn’t have to be all-or-nothing and that her future can be whatever she makes it, wherever she wants.
Why I Love Him
He’s a kind-hearted man. I read a ton of books with Alpha males, and I sure do love them. Something about discovering a soft side in a tough man is alluring.
However, with Logan, the good parts of him were always front and center. His boyish grin and easy-going nature was a stark contrast from Lia when they first met. These qualities helped Lia open up again and see the possibilities for her life. Had Logan’s own heartbreak and failures hardened him, Lia may not have considered what else was out there, which would have had a direct impact on the inn and town’s fate.
When I create characters, I build out their details individually. It isn’t until I throw them into the story and have them interact with the other characters that I can really see how they can grow. It was so much fun writing this story (since I’m a Christmas romance lover), and I can’t wait to share it with you someday hopefully soon.
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