No woman is an island, although if I were, I’d kinda like to be Sicily. Very Happy My gelato/canoli addictions aside, I knew when I sat down to write Too Wicked To Kiss, if I wanted to create the best manuscript I was capable of writing, I would need to call a lifeline–my critique partners.

Not all writers have critique partners (CPs) for various reasons, but I find mine to be invaluable. They support me in a myriad of ways, from encouraging me when things get frustrating to telling me things like “This ending sucks… Write a new one.” They are friends and professionals, and I respect their opinions completely.

I asked my CP Darcy (who has read countless iterations of Too Wicked To Kiss) how she knew that it was a story worth telling and a manuscript that would sell, and this is what she had to say:

Too Wicked to Kiss fills a subgenre as a truly gothic Regency. I’d never read anything like it–a classic whodunnit set in my favorite historical romance world. A delicious hero and strong heroine lead a fabulous cast of characters that made me laugh, swear, and either root or boo for. As a critique partner, you sometimes feel a sense of jealousy over your CP’s writing and this was definitely a book I started reading and said, “man, I wish I’d written this!”

See why she’s so awesome??? 🙂

How about you? Whether you write or not, who are your go-to people in your support network? For those of you who are writers, (aspiring or otherwise,) do you have a critique partner, or someone you run pages or ideas by?