Jennifer Ryan: On Unraveling What Makes Family in Fiction

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Jennifer Ryan writes suspenseful contemporary romances about everyday people who do extraordinary things. Her deeply emotional love stories are filled with high stakes and higher drama, love, family, friendship, and the happily-ever-after we all hope to find.

Jennifer lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and three children. When she finally leaves those fictional worlds, you’ll find her in the garden, playing in the dirt, and daydreaming about people who live only in her head, until she puts them on paper. Follow her on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

In this post, Jennifer shares how her own family dynamic inspired her most recent novel about finding family.

Name: Jennifer Ryan
Literary agent: Suzie Townsend, New Leaf Literary
Book title: Summer’s Gift
Publisher: Avon
Release date: June 20, 2023
Genre/category: Women’s Fiction
Previous titles: The Me I Used To Be, Sisters and Secrets, Lost and Found Family, The One You Want
Elevator pitch for the book: A young woman takes a DNA test on a whim and discovers the birth father—and half-sisters—she never knew. But being a family is more than sharing DNA, and Summer wants to fit in, but it’s not always easy finding the place where you belong.

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I come from a dysfunctional family. Maybe we all do in some ways. People on the outside saw a very different family from the one I actually lived with. Just because things look a certain way doesn’t always mean that it’s real. I wanted to give readers a glimpse into two families that seemingly appear normal. Happy. But in reality, everyone has issues. Big or small, they can erode the family—or bring them together.

In Summer’s Gift, Summer is the definition of success. She’s rich, has a great job, she’s beautiful and well liked. But what she wants is the one thing she’s never had. A stable, loving family, who always has her back. She’s been lied to her whole life by the people closest to her.

Nate is the father she dreamed about but never knew. A DNA test brings them together. But fitting into a tightknit family you’ve never been a part of isn’t easy. Especially with a jealous half-sister, a stepmother who wants to protect her kids, and a father trying to make up for missing 25 years of her life. Will she finally have the family she always wanted, or discover that without all the history they already share she’s simply an outsider and always will be?

I started this book more than a decade ago. I had written several books already but wasn’t published yet. While the idea for this story was that of a young woman returning home to a family she barely knew, when I went back to the rough draft I changed the premise and added in that Summer didn’t actually know her father and finds him through the DNA test. A much more modern version of how separated families find each other again.

Once I updated the synopsis for the novel and shared it with my editor at Avon, she loved the idea and bought the book. I had about a third of the book written, but that meant I needed to edit the beginning and finish the rest. Because I write three to four books a year, that gave me two months to finish and edit the book. I turned the book in on 9/1/2022 and it releases on 6/20/23.

Taking an old manuscript, one started a decade ago, let me see how far I’d come in my writing. Those pages I’d written needed a heavy handed edit. Not just because I’d changed the story, but because I’d written at least 20 books since this one and worked with professional editors. I had become a much better writer—and it showed.

With over 30 titles published in romance and women’s fiction combined, the process is very familiar. But with the storyline came an education in how at home DNA test kits work and what they can tell someone. I found it fascinating that not only could you learn who your ancestors were, but also where in the world you came from, down to the region of the country. Maybe you know you’re Italian, but the DNA test can tell you what region of Italy your ancestors were from.

My editor suggested I cut Lucy—Summer’s stepsister—from the story. The way she was originally written in as Summer’s employee didn’t add anything to the story or reveal anything new about Summer.

I liked Lucy and discovered that what I liked most about her wasn’t on the page, but still in my head. Lucy is Summer’s confidant. Like Summer, she comes from a broken home. They have the bond of sisters, but not the blood tie. I wanted readers to see that while Summer struggled to connect with her half-sisters, she already had forged that bond with Lucy. Sometimes family are the people you choose.

Instead of taking Lucy out of the book, I made her much more present in Summer’s life and expanded on simply saying they were step-sisters to showing they were sisters of the heart. My editor loved the much stronger relationship between the two contrasted with the struggling relationship she had with her “real” sister.

I hope readers feel a connection to Summer and her family and see that nothing is easy, everyone has problems, but it’s how you deal with it that can make or break a relationship. It takes work. I also hope readers see that some relationships are toxic and you have to stand up for yourself, even when it’s family. Especially when it’s family, because the people closest to you are the ones who can hurt you the most.

Just because you’re family doesn’t mean they get to hurt you and you have to accept it and try to move on while the bitterness and pain stacks up. Everyone deserves to be loved and treated with kindness. If you ask for it and don’t get it, maybe you have to walk away, like Summer does from her mom. It’s only then that Summer gains perspective and can see her mother for who she is. It’s only when Summer’s mother apologizes and takes responsibility for her actions that Summer can begin to heal her past and embrace her future.

Write what makes you feel and readers will feel it, too.

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