I’m very happy that the #BookTour for the re-release of the first book in the series kicked off serendipitously with La Course by Le Tour de France on June 26th. Not planned at all.
Demi Vollering of Women’s World Tour team SD Worx (formerly Boels-Dolman) took the win to mark the end of this iteration of the race. In 2022, the Women’s Tour de France Féminin returns with the full support of title sponsor, Zwift, directly following stage 21 of the men’s Tour de France.
That’s right kids, this isn’t the first time there’s been a Women’s TdF – the first was held in 1955 with five stages. The Tour de France Féminin returned again in 1984, with the women riding each stage before the men – Yes, all 21 stages (albeit shortened so they finished before the men). In 1989, the organizers decided to sell the TV rights for the men’s race but the company who bought the rights weren’t interested in the women’s race, thus ending it.
If you’d like to read more about why and how La Course came about, thanks in part to the tenacity of the amazing Kathryn Bertine, here’s an article by Outside Magazine.
Just like La Course, #WheelerNovel has experienced some revisions and iterations. Between starting the first book in the series in 2015 and publishing the third (and final!) novel, One Fire Burns Out Another’s Burning, my writing evolved, or at least I’d like to think it did. There were parts of Book 1 that never sat right with me. After picking at it for a couple of months and with the help of some beta readers, it’s been given a spit and polish.
One of the parts that bothered me was the meeting between Loren and Graham. While the story is technically a romance, it’s also Women’s fiction, where the main character is a woman on an emotional journey of discovery. There are some seriously heavy parts that a reader would not find in a traditional romance novel. But, it also involves sports, specifically women’s professional cycling.
I reckon that’s why Wheeler was runner-up for the New Apple Awards for Cross-Genre fiction.
To read how this particular scene has changed from the “Meet Cute” to a bit more organic, click HERE for the chapter 11 June.
Wheeler 