Special Guest Post: Life on the Edge of Crazy, by Katie O’Sullivan @OkatieO

Climate scientist Chase Anderson races from one project to the next, unwilling to slow down in his quest to save the world’s oceans. He has no time for family or relationships until he crashes into an impetuous blonde with a quirky sense of humor. One sizzling kiss makes him seriously reevaluate his priorities. And his sanity. Emma Maguire left her small Cape Cod hometown years ago, seeking the fast pace and anonymity of New York City. She’s not sure what she’s searching for, but when a family crisis brings her home to Provincetown she’s caught in a crazy tangle of half-truths and mistaken identity… and falls for the handsome stranger who broke her cell phone. Will untangling the web of lies drive them crazy, or lead to something even crazier – like love?

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My novel CRAZY ABOUT YOU is about small towns and second chances, learning to trust others and also believing in yourself. I live year-round on Cape Cod, and when I started writing fiction I decided to use the beautiful settings of the Cape as backdrops to my stories. They say “Write what you know,” right? And while Cape Cod has been a prime tourist destination for a few hundred years, there aren’t an overabundance of books set here…and some that do take place here just get it wrong. I try hard to infuse my novels with a sense of place, and lots of real details about what makes Cape Cod such a unique setting.

Summertime in Provincetown is every bit as flamboyant and colorful as portrayed in my story. The other nine months of the year it’s a quiet live-and-let-live community of families, fishermen, ocean researchers and artists. My kids attend a regional high school and have best friends who live in P-town year round. The place has a small-town, hometown feel to it where everyone knows and cares about each other.

But for the three months of summer, the population swells from under 3,000 to over 60,000 and the party never ends. Especially during Carnival Week in August, which is kind of like Mardi Gras with a rainbow-striped feather boa wrapped tightly around its neck.

Since the main character of CRAZY ABOUT YOU, Emma Maguire, grew up in P-town, she’s unfazed by much of the circus swirling around her. Like my kids, she went to high school with these shop owners and waitresses, and has learned to ignore most of the craziness that accompanies life in a tourist town and go with the flow. The other main character, Chase Anderson, is a climate scientist who studies the world’s oceans, too focused on saving the planet to slow down and enjoy life of any kind, let alone one as crazy as you find on the streets of P-town.

There really is a Center for Coastal Studies located in Provincetown. The Atlantic garbage gyre Chase is studying? That’s real, too. The “Plastisphere” of plastic debris so thick that it’s forming its own biosphere in the middle of the Atlantic, complete with yet-undiscovered bacteria? Also real. I read a fascinating article in Scientific American about the discovery of the “plastisphere” and the scientists collecting the varieties of new bacterial strains, and that part of my novel grew from there. Funny where we find inspiration!

Should we be scared of looming environmental disaster? Probably. Climate change is a serious threat to our world, and people need to be aware that these dangers are real. Slipping a bit of eco-knowledge into a romance novel isn’t going to solve the world’s problems, but might help introduce terms and concepts to readers who don’t know what’s going on in the oceans.

Like my character Chase, I want to make sure Cape Cod remains a beautiful place to live and to visit for generations to come. I’m not going to stop anyone from throwing plastic beads off the Carnival parade floats driving down the main streets in August, but I’m hoping in some small way to make people a little more aware of the problems facing our oceans and coastlines. And appreciate the unique beauty that is Cape Cod.

Katie O’Sullivan

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About the Author

Katie O’Sullivan lives with her family and big dogs on Cape Cod, drinking way too much coffee and inventing new excuses not to dust. Living next to the Atlantic influences everything she writes, from her YA mermaid series to her crazy contemporary romances set along the Cape’s sandy shores. A recovering English major, she earned her degree at Colgate University and writes romance and adventure for young adults and something steamier for the young at heart. Find out more at Katie's Website and Blog, and find her on Facebook and Twitter @OkatieO.