A true story about overlapping tropes, somewhat relevant to current romance goings on. In 2011, Kate Noble ( @noblerorick) released FOLLOW MY LEAD, a Regency about a woman historian who wants to work her way into a men-only academic society via a road trip with a charming rake.

At the time, I had *just* turned in my manuscript for A WEEK TO BE WICKED, which is about a woman geologist who wants to work her way into a men-only academic society via a road trip with a charming rake. There were SO MANY similarities.

She’s nerdy, he’s charming. I think they both have scenes where they go to country fairs, and the hero does some manual labor to keep their journey going... SO MANY. For God’s sake, our heroes were the Duke of Rayne and Lord Payne. I was *panicked*. I wrote to Kate immediately.

I told her I had a book coming out next spring that was so similar, swore it was already done and I didn’t copy her. Kate was extremely cool about it & pointed out that it just means we share the same good taste in romcoms, from Romancing the Stone to ... every road romance ever?

I will forever be grateful that Kate was so cool about it, and I’m honestly surprised no readers accused me of copying FML when AWTBW came out the following year. Similar stories happen—a lot—particularly in romance where there are something like 10 standard tropes.

Often what it means is that we’re all drawing inspiration from the same pool of archetypal source material. Eerie coincidences really do happen.

Of course, purposeful copying also happens. But determining from the outside which is which can be pretty difficult. A lot of weight has to be given as to how original the overlapping plot points are to start with.

Oh hey, and if you’ve read and enjoyed A WEEK TO BE WICKED, definitely get your hands on a copy of FOLLOW MY LEAD, if you haven’t yet!