Guest post written by In The Long Run author Emma Mugglestone
Emma Mugglestone lives in Melbourne, Australia, with her family and dogs in a house that never stays clean and is always noisy but she wouldn’t have it any other way. When she’s not writing contemporary romances filled with charming settings and swoony characters who will steal your heart, she can be found chasing sunrises on early morning runs, reading romances like it’s an Olympic sport and trying to remember her passwords.
About In The Long Run: Love is a marathon, not a sprint in this fake-dating meets friends-to-lovers romance for fans of Tessa Bailey, Ali Hazelwood and Elle Kennedy. Published by Penguin Random House Australia. Available wherever you buy your books, also available in eBook and Audiobook.
There’s something magical happens between the pages of every romance novel. It doesn’t matter if the main characters are billionaires, cowboys, princesses or even orcs. The story could be set in a quaint small town where the reader can picture themselves living or in a fantastical world filled with mythical creatures and complex magical systems and laws. Or it could be in a city where everything looks the way you’d expect it to. You can put any combination of characters or settings or storylines together and it’s still always there. At the heart of every romance is the power of showing up and it’s my favourite thing about the genre. Toss in some undeniably crackling chemistry, sassy banter and some only one bed action and well, let’s just say, it’s a bad news day for my already overflowing TBR pile.
When I say, ‘showing up’, I’m not just talking about the power of being there for other characters. That’s very important and as a reader, I will always cheer for a protective hero or a heroine who stands their ground, refusing to let anything stop them from choosing their partner. And when the characters admit that they’re all in? I’d better be sitting down so I don’t hurt myself swooning. But the kind of showing up that fills my romance-novel-loving-heart with the most joy? It’s when the character chooses themself and even better, does the work to make their dreams come true. Just take my money already, would you?
It’s one of the reasons I wanted the characters in my newest release, In the Long Run, to be runners. Because showing up for yourself is something that often takes most of us some time. It doesn’t usually just happen overnight (although, wouldn’t it be great if it could?). It can be hard and scary to admit that you want to challenge yourself or try something new or attempt to reconnect with a different version of yourself. Which I know from personal experience has a lot of similarities to being a runner and falling in love.
In fact, the only way to get better at running—whether you choose to measure improvement by distance or pace or how you feel during or after, or something else, all are very valid—is to keep doing it. And to accept that progress will always ebb and flow. (Side bar: this is also very similar to writing a book). There will be big wins. On other days, they’ll be smaller, potentially almost even insignificant. And annoyingly, there will be setbacks. You might get injured or catch the flu before an important training run or event. But if you don’t keep showing up, you won’t get anywhere. The same can be said about falling in love.
Showing up for themselves and each other is something Knox and Gen, the main characters in In the Long Run, learn. And let me tell you, their lives are so much better for it.
