More Than a Love Story: The Women at the Heart of My Fiction

For a long time, I described my books as rural Australian romance. It was the simplest answer when someone asked what I wrote.

And it wasn’t wrong.

There is love in my stories. The enduring kind. The kind tested by time, distance, disappointment and the things people struggle to say aloud. Some relationships falter, some people carry wounds from their pasts, and some hearts must decide whether it is safe to trust again. But somewhere along the way, I realised I was writing about more than two people falling in love.

At the heart of my stories are women. Women who have spent years being what everyone else needed them to be. Women who have kept families together, swallowed their hurt and carried responsibilities nobody thought to ask them about. Women standing at the edge of change, wondering whether they are brave enough to choose a different life.

Their stories may contain romance, but love is only one part of the journey.

I am drawn to women who are not perfectly polished or untouched by life. They have made mistakes. They have stayed too long, left too soon or silenced parts of themselves to keep the peace. Some have forgotten what they once wanted. Others know exactly what they want but have never felt free to reach for it. These are the women who find their way onto my pages.

They are soft and strong, although they may not always recognise their strength. They can be vulnerable, uncertain, funny, stubborn and fiercely protective of the people they love.

Most importantly, they are still becoming. I believe many of us understand that.

A woman’s story does not end because she has reached a certain age, raised a family, experienced heartbreak or taken a path she now wishes had been different. There is always another choice. Another truth waiting to be spoken. Another part of herself waiting to come home.

And the land is part of their story. The rural Australian landscape is not simply a backdrop in my books. It shapes the people who live within it.

The land can be beautiful, but it doesn't pretend life is easy. There are seasons of abundance and seasons when everything feels stripped bare. There is dust, distance and the long wait for rain. There are communities that rally when someone is in trouble, but there can also be loneliness behind closed gates.

Rural women understand this contrast. They know how to keep moving when life becomes uncertain. They know that strength is often quiet—the meal left at someone’s door, the hand resting on a shoulder, the decision to get up and begin again.

That quiet strength is what I want to capture. I want readers to feel the heat rising from the paddocks, hear the stillness of a country night and recognise the women who live beneath those endless skies.

And yes, there is still love. I will always write about love.

Not because I believe love solves everything, but because I believe the right kind of love gives people room to become more fully themselves. The love in my stories is not intended to rescue a woman from her life. It stands beside her while she chooses what that life will become. It asks for honesty. It requires courage. It grows through accountability, forgiveness and the willingness to stay present when walking away might be easier. Romance is there, but it is woven through a much larger story—one about home, family, identity, healing and belonging.

That is why I now describe what I write as Australian rural women’s fiction with a touch of romance. It feels more truthful. It holds space for the love stories, but it also honours the women whose emotional journeys give those stories their heart.

Perhaps that is why I write them. Because so many women have been told that their needs should come last, that their softness is a weakness or that it is too late to choose again.

I want my stories to say something different...You are allowed to change. You are allowed to want more. And no matter how far life has carried you from the woman you once hoped to become, it is never too late to find your way home to yourself.

Until next month,

Sheryl M