Steinbach author publishes first romance novel

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This article was published 31/03/2024 (396 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Oh, to be in love! How wonderful it is to find that perfect someone to spend the rest of your life with. Everyone wants to be in love and to be loved and for one local author love has become an occupation.

Steinbach author Tanya Renee has published Prairie Sky, the first of a 12-part series of romance novels set in the fictional Manitoba town of Primrose.

“I read romance. That is my favourite genre. I read basically everything but for me romance novels have always been my favourite,” she said enthusiastically.

Renee’s love affair with romance went as far back as fifth grade where she would take out Shakespeare and read Romeo and Juliet. When she was 14 she would take her mother’s Janet Dailey books and read them from cover to cover.

“Complicated relationships, I just loved to explore that. It was just meant to be with romance,” she said.

The Landmark native moved to Steinbach 12 years ago with her husband, Bart, and their children after Bart got a job with Southern Health. It took her 30 years to write Prairie Sky because she always thought about it, but never put pen to paper. It was a visit to her parent’s farm in 2022 that led Renee to write the first lines of her book and she never stopped until it was finished.

“I think sometimes you just have to go through life and you have to experience life in order to have the stories to be able to tell,” she mused.

Prairie Sky takes place in Primrose, Manitoba. A fictional town based on Landmark. Ever Walton is returning back to the family farm after 10 years. She’s estranged from her father, who has passed away and she has to decide what to do with the farm. She left the farm to pursue her dream of becoming an artist in Toronto. Her father never wanted her to go and she slowly learns why over the course of the book. When she comes back to the farm she meets farm manager Ben Hastings. The love story evolves over a summer.

“It becomes this whole thing where she has to decide, number one, what’s she going to do with the farm, but is she going to return to her dream and her life in the city or is she going to stay where it’s always been her home, this hometown…She just has to figure out where she belongs.”

Prairie Sky is currently out on Amazon, Kindle, Kobo, other electronic book platforms, and on www.tanyareneeromance.com. Renee’s next novel Prairie Nights will be out on June 30 with new titles debuting every three months.

Renee said she gets inspiration for her novels from her everyday life. She stressed it was important for her to have the novels take place in small town Manitoba.

“I wanted it to be (based in Manitoba) because you don’t see romance novels written out of Manitoba and I really wanted it to be authentic in that way. I’m inspired about the town. I’m inspired about small town life. Everybody knows everybody, which is what I love about it. Also I think so many amazing stories can come out of small places and that’s really what I wanted to write.”

She said the character of Ever was based 100 percent on her. She made the analogy of the main character’s creative block to her writer’s block of 30 years. She also semi based Ben on Bart.

“I think that people just need to realize that it’s never too late to follow what you want to do. This took me a really long time and I’m so proud of it,” she said through tears of joy. “It’s been pretty emotional because it’s something that I’ve always wanted to do and I’ve had so much support not only family and close friends but so many people championing this…It’s just so special to know that people believe in you.”