Miranda, meet Theo . . . and Theo . . . And Leo

BRIDE BUZZ

Remember how I mentioned Miranda Weston, and her hero Theo ? if you followed the link to Anne McAllister's blog, then you will have found that, investigating Miranda , Anne found out this:

Miranda Weston is the heroine of, believe it or not (and sadly, I do believe it because I know from experience the mysterious ways that editors schedule books) another February book with the word Bridal in the title (The Greek's Bridal Purchase) by the lovely wonderful Susan Stephens.

This would not be cause for concern for either Susan or me except that my hero is called Theo Savas and hers (and this is where editorial needed to rethink the way they schedule things) is called Theo Savakis!


So there's a real coincidence there. Two Greeks, both called Theo Sava . . . something. But this had started me thinking. There was something buzzing at the back of my head, reminding me that I'd met up with one of those names somewhere else . . . And then it clicked with me. I'd read it in a book over Christmas - and the book I read over Christmas was Michelle Reid's January release The Italian's Future Bride. (There's the Bride word again!)
No, the Italian isn't the guy with the similar name - he's Rafaelle Villani - but his heroine Rachel has a sister who is married to - guess what - Leo Savakis! Obviously he's Theo Savakis's brother or cousin or something!

This is a perfect example of the way that three romance writers, all writing at slightly different times, in very different circumstances and places, can come up with things so similar that you'd think they'd all been in conatct and discussing their ideas before they wrote them down. But they haven't - none of them knew of the coincidence until the books are out and in print.

I've seen this happen before. Some years ago (way back in 1997) I wrote a book called Hers For a Night. The heroine was called Georgia. Until I wrote the book, I hadn't seen any heroines called Georgia anywhere. But as soon as I'd written it and had it accepted, suddenly there were Georgias appearing all over the place. Lots in Harlequin novels - a UK 'soap' - Brookside had one major character called Georgia. When my book appeared in sthe shops, people asked if I'd taken the name from the soap- but I'd thought of it before that character had appeared.

Sometimes I think that there's something in the air that popular fiction writers/scriptwriters/screenplay writers breathe in so that we can end up thinking on the same or very similar lines. I remember when I first met Michelle Reid, she told me that she had started an amnesia story, got several chapters into it, the she picked up my Shattered Mirror and found it was so very similar to her story - we both even had the American hero and English heroine. And that was before we became friends. Now we have to be careful not to discuss the books we are working on of we find we're following the same lines of development.

The really intriguing thing about this is that it's a sort of future prediction as well. When we write a book, we know it won't be published for at least a year. The gap between acceptance and publication is getting narrower now, but it's still about 12 months. So when we sit down and write, we are predicting what will be popular in a year's time - themes, settings, characters - names. It's all part of what the Offspring calls having your finger on the pulse - and Theo, Theo and Leo Savas/Savakis are perfect examples of that happening.