Hello !

Have I ever mentioned that my dad was some kind of secret agent when I was a teen and into my twenties? I didn't know then, since ... well, turns out the stuff he was doing was quite risky.

The first real hint I had about his secret life was when I was around thirty. I'd travelled home to visit my folks and my mom wanted me to take as much of my childhood memorabilia with me as I could carry on a plane. That, of course, required providing me with an extra suitcase.

My folks lived in a 100-year-old, three-story house with an attic that was as large as most Vancouver condos. And it was packed full of all the things people don't need, but can't seem to make themselves get rid of. Including, several suitcases.

Mom and I packed one of these and loaded it into the car with my own suitcase for the hour-long drive to the Montreal airport.

All hell broke loose when I dropped that bad boy onto a trolly. That's when my dad saw it. He was enraged.

"What the hell are you doing with that suitcase?"

Thinking Mom had given me his favorite travel bag, I assured him I'd take care of it and bring it back next time I visited.

Turns out he didn't want it back and he wasn't mad at me, he was furious with Mom. The suitcase was one he'd used in his covert days when he was traveling all over the world as an "entrepreneur."

One of his entrepreneurial endeavors was to transport things that one shouldn't be taking across country borders, across country borders.

I learned what a couple of his trips entailed and yeah, there was a good reason he lied about his occupation. If he'd been caught, he'd very likely be dead. At very least, never seen again.

The second hint my dad led a secret life

A bit more than a decade later, which is about a decade ago, Dad was diagnosed with stage four cancer and given less than a year to live. He told me that one of his regrets was that he never wrote the novel he'd been planning to write once he retired.

The truth was, he had retired from his "entrepreneur" job years earlier but spent his time pursuing a different dream he'd had—to design and build a house all on his own.

He was, at that point, pretty close to finishing the house. He was living it; Mom wasn't since she was waiting for a functioning kitchen!

Dad and I set out to each write our first novels together. We were each other's beta readers, sharing new chapters every week. The book I wrote was eventually published as Mother Teresa's Advice for Jilted Lovers. It's a paranormal women's fiction in which virtually every man who appears is psychically killed. (Yeah, I was working through some emotions since my husband of 14 years had just left me!).

Dad's book was spy story. And it was very good. Too good to have been 100% fiction. And Dad was no Google master!

Like me, and virtually every writer's first book, it turned out Dad was drawing a great deal from his own experiences, which I learned because of two things:

1. Dad was cagey, but suggestive about how he was able to write such detailed scenes about smuggling across borders and the inner workings of secret societies.
2. After Dad died, Mom made me swear that I would not continue editing or publish his book, "for reasons."

The final a-ha about Dad's secret identity

The last time I visited Dad he opened a secret cubby he'd built into his dream house. (The 100-year-old house I grew up in also had several secret hiding spaces built right into walls and banisters).

Dad pulled out a handgun. 😳

"What the hell, Dad? Why do you have this?"

"Protection," he said.

I laughed, confused. And a little uncomfortable since he was waving it around like it was movie prop.

He told me of a time that the gun had very likely saved his life. Why show me? Because his plan had been to will it to me and he wanted me to know it was coming. (For the record, at least in Canada, that's a lousy final gift! It comes with a lot of rules and expenses that never go away for as long as one owns the piece).

I've learned more since Dad's death

Mom's filled in a few more details about Dad's secret life but she doesn't even know the extent of his work, she says.

For years I thought it was weird that two people can live together for 50 years and keep secrets like that. But, since joining romance writing communities and becoming close friends with dozens of romance authors, I've learned that many start their romance writing careers hiding that identity from friends and family.

And that makes me wonder whether you, a romance reader is also a romance writer—secretly or not!

Passion Project to Public

Since my royalties are not yet enough to pay a mortgage, I contribute to family bills by supporting early career romance writers to learn all the skills and steps they need to know, to take their draft love story through its paces to become a publishable book. And then, the part that's more complicated than telling a good story—how to tackle all the publishing, marketing, promotions and relationship-building skills one needs to NOT be a secret identity author!

If you've been working on a romance novel and would like to join me and nine other pre-published romance authors to build your public profile, so that when your book is ready, you are too ... I'd love to have you in the program.

You can find all the details here at Passion Project to Public.

Something special Saturday—free book!

The First Spark

by M. L. Broome

If there’s one thing Asher Hammond can’t stand, it’s an uppity and opinionated woman. 

Especially when said woman is the gatekeeper to him opening his speakeasy.

Unfortunately for Ash, Oriana Thorne is both, and it’s going to take more than some easy flirtations to melt her frosty heart.

But when he finally gets her alone, Ash realizes there is more to Ori than meets the eye, and she might be everything he never knew he was looking for. 

The First Spark is your introduction to Spark Ridge, where the views are magnificent in and out of the city.

Come fall in love with this steamy, small town romance.

Get your free copy!

I guess that's all for today!

I'd love to know if you have any secret lives or hobbies, whether that's writing romance or not. The thing is, although I promise not to share your secret as yours ... I might feel compelled to write that secret into a story!

The sun is out and this temperate rainforest is warm and dry for a change! So I'm taking Max Monroe and Accidental Attachment out on the deck to soak up some heat (while Mr. Bloom hides in the shade ... silly man!).

Love & secretstuff,

Danika

xo

PS - If you write romance and would like to have me help you get set to publish your first book, join me in Passion Project to Public!

It starts on May 22, runs for three weeks with office hours, workshops and on-demand one-to-one time. After the three weeks, you get to stay in my community for two more months to keep getting any support you need to launch like a divi, not a secret agent!