{"id":6135,"date":"2018-10-30T13:23:05","date_gmt":"2018-10-30T17:23:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.penandkinkpub.com\/home\/?p=6135"},"modified":"2018-10-30T13:23:05","modified_gmt":"2018-10-30T17:23:05","slug":"inkonsolable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.penandkinkpub.com\/home\/inkonsolable\/","title":{"rendered":"INKonsolable"},"content":{"rendered":"

[et_pb_section bb_built=”1″][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text]<\/p>\n

INKonsolable<\/strong><\/h2>\n

By Mara Malins<\/p>\n

\u201cGrief, I\u2019ve learned, is really just love. It\u2019s all the love you want to give, but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

–Jamie Anderson.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Romance in fiction has always been so perfect. The storyline usually follows an enjoyable but predictable arc of two attractive people overcoming some kind of obstacle to arrive at a perfect relationship with nothing but happiness in their future. The formula\u2014and it is <\/em>a formula\u2014almost always guarantees a happy ending, a resolution, a payoff for reading to the end. There\u2019s a reason that this formula hasn\u2019t got tired; people love it. I <\/em>love it, which is why I used something similar for the previous three stories in the INKomplete <\/em>series. Afterall, who doesn\u2019t love a happy ending?<\/p>\n

But for the fourth story I wanted to tackle it in a slightly different way. It was important to me that each of these stories had a purpose, a reason for being out there, and this one was to deal with the last stage of life; grief and the loss of someone important in life. I needed to start the romance arc further down the line for this one. For it to work, Blakey needed to have already had his happy ending, his perfect partner, the love of his life, and to have lost it with no chance of getting it back. This is why his wife, Elizabeth, dies five years before this story starts.<\/p>\n

Once again I found myself in research hell. I needed to make sure that I did the theme justice. I had to make sure that I got the details right and believable. It was during my research that I came across the opening quote to this blog. I found it so perfectly perfect <\/em>for what I was going for in Blakey\u2019s story that I had it that top of my story to remind me of why I was writing about grief.<\/p>\n

Grief is just love with no place to go.<\/em><\/p>\n

Blakey still loves Elizabeth. He always will. Which is why, when he starts to fall in love with Aisleyne, he is so utterly confused and helpless. It was the \u201cmoving on\u201d aspect of their relationship\u2014the idea that you can love two people\u2014that I really wanted to tackle.<\/p>\n

But there was also another reason why I wanted this emotional arc for Blakey; he\u2019s a gruff, rough-around-the-edges, old-fashioned man\u2019s man.<\/em> He\u2019s the type of man who would find it very difficult to talk about his feelings. It\u2019s a fact\u2014and a problem\u2014that most men don\u2019t discuss or seek help for their emotional and mental health and this was something I wanted to raise, albeit in an understated way.<\/p>\n

Emotional vulnerability in men comes with a sense of stigma. During my research, I read a study where researchers from Miami University studied the pattern of grief in people recently bereaved. They found that men were twice as likely to die during the course of their study than women. Twice as likely. <\/em>This is a frightening statistic and they put it down to the fact that women are far more likely to seek help for their bereavement than men. This is a massive problem. The stigma has to end.<\/p>\n

This is why it was important that the old-fashioned patriarch in my world was going to acknowledge that he needed help. Even a gruff man like Blakey should be able to admit that he\u2019s vulnerable. It should be a strength <\/em>to admit weakness. So, Blakey seeks out Pete mid-story and recognises that he hasn\u2019t been grieving healthily. It\u2019s a turning point in the story that leads to acceptance, and from there he can start to think about moving on.<\/p>\n

Again, I\u2019d like to think that these efforts come through in the story, but I also hope that it isn\u2019t so on-the-nose that the narration becomes a sermon. If there is one important thing I learned during my research it\u2019s that there is no right way to grieve. Everyone does it their own way. Blakey\u2019s story is just his way.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image admin_label=”INKonsolable Cover 200×300″ _builder_version=”3.12.1″ saved_tabs=”all” src=”http:\/\/www.penandkinkpub.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/200×300-2.jpg” url=”http:\/\/www.penandkinkpub.com\/home\/books\/inkomplete\/4-inkonsolable\/” align=”center” global_module=”5935″ \/][et_pb_text admin_label=”INKonsolable Buy Links” _builder_version=”3.12.1″ saved_tabs=”all” global_module=”5941″]<\/p>\n

Reserve Your Copy Now<\/strong><\/p>\n

Amazon (US<\/a>) (CA<\/a>) (UK<\/a>)<\/p>\n

iBooks<\/a><\/p>\n

Kobo<\/a><\/p>\n

Or\u00a0go here now<\/a>\u00a0to read more<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.17.2″]<\/p>\n

As a sweet, sweet bonus, Mara is offering anyone who pre-orders\u00a0INKapable<\/em>\u00a0(or any of the final three INKomplete titles) a chance to win this lovely necklace:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nClick here now<\/a>\u00a0to get all the details and enter to win!<\/strong><\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.0.105″ background_layout=”light” saved_tabs=”all”]<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Mara Malins writes romantic fiction using words that your grandmother doesn\u2019t know. An avid gamer, she battles spreadsheets by day and fiction by night. She lives in Manchester, England with her menagerie of three cats, two turtles, a social media loving partner, and a disobedient garden. If you want to know when her next fiction is released, or see thousands of pictures of her cats sleeping in a variety of different poses, find her on Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Goodreads<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/div>
\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/div> INKonsolable By Mara Malins \u201cGrief, I\u2019ve learned, is really just love. It\u2019s all the love you want to give, but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"

INKonsolable<\/strong><\/h2>

By Mara Malins<\/p>

\u201cGrief, I\u2019ve learned, is really just love. It\u2019s all the love you want to give, but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go.\u201d<\/em><\/p>

--Jamie Anderson.<\/p><\/blockquote>

Romance in fiction has always been so perfect. The storyline usually follows an enjoyable but predictable arc of two attractive people overcoming some kind of obstacle to arrive at a perfect relationship with nothing but happiness in their future. The formula\u2014and it is <\/em>a formula\u2014almost always guarantees a happy ending, a resolution, a payoff for reading to the end. There\u2019s a reason that this formula hasn\u2019t got tired; people love it. I <\/em>love it, which is why I used something similar for the previous three stories in the INKomplete <\/em>series. Afterall, who doesn\u2019t love a happy ending?<\/p>

But for the fourth story I wanted to tackle it in a slightly different way. It was important to me that each of these stories had a purpose, a reason for being out there, and this one was to deal with the last stage of life; grief and the loss of someone important in life. I needed to start the romance arc further down the line for this one. For it to work, Blakey needed to have already had his happy ending, his perfect partner, the love of his life, and to have lost it with no chance of getting it back. This is why his wife, Elizabeth, dies five years before this story starts.<\/p>

Once again I found myself in research hell. I needed to make sure that I did the theme justice. I had to make sure that I got the details right and believable. It was during my research that I came across the opening quote to this blog. I found it so perfectly perfect <\/em>for what I was going for in Blakey\u2019s story that I had it that top of my story to remind me of why I was writing about grief.<\/p>

Grief is just love with no place to go.<\/em><\/p>

Blakey still loves Elizabeth. He always will. Which is why, when he starts to fall in love with Aisleyne, he is so utterly confused and helpless. It was the \u201cmoving on\u201d aspect of their relationship\u2014the idea that you can love two people\u2014that I really wanted to tackle.<\/p>

But there was also another reason why I wanted this emotional arc for Blakey; he\u2019s a gruff, rough-around-the-edges, old-fashioned man\u2019s man.<\/em> He\u2019s the type of man who would find it very difficult to talk about his feelings. It\u2019s a fact\u2014and a problem\u2014that most men don\u2019t discuss or seek help for their emotional and mental health and this was something I wanted to raise, albeit in an understated way.<\/p>

Emotional vulnerability in men comes with a sense of stigma. During my research, I read a study where researchers from Miami University studied the pattern of grief in people recently bereaved. They found that men were twice as likely to die during the course of their study than women. Twice as likely. <\/em>This is a frightening statistic and they put it down to the fact that women are far more likely to seek help for their bereavement than men. This is a massive problem. The stigma has to end.<\/p>

This is why it was important that the old-fashioned patriarch in my world was going to acknowledge that he needed help. Even a gruff man like Blakey should be able to admit that he\u2019s vulnerable. It should be a strength <\/em>to admit weakness. So, Blakey seeks out Pete mid-story and recognises that he hasn\u2019t been grieving healthily. It\u2019s a turning point in the story that leads to acceptance, and from there he can start to think about moving on.<\/p>

Again, I\u2019d like to think that these efforts come through in the story, but I also hope that it isn\u2019t so on-the-nose that the narration becomes a sermon. If there is one important thing I learned during my research it\u2019s that there is no right way to grieve. Everyone does it their own way. Blakey\u2019s story is just his way.<\/p>","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[158],"tags":[189,163,164],"class_list":["post-6135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inkonsolable","tag-inkomplete-series","tag-inkonsolable","tag-mara-malins"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.penandkinkpub.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.penandkinkpub.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.penandkinkpub.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.penandkinkpub.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.penandkinkpub.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6135"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.penandkinkpub.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6136,"href":"http:\/\/www.penandkinkpub.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6135\/revisions\/6136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.penandkinkpub.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.penandkinkpub.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.penandkinkpub.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}