A writer friend used to say, “No one completely escapes their family.” When she was coming up with a character for a story, she always took into account how the character’s family affected his life–if the person had a happy childhood, a miserable one, if he was close to his parents and siblings or tried to escape them.

In my Karnie Cleaver series, Karnie works in her family’s butcher shop. Her mother’s sister and her two kids work part-time there, too. They all get along. Her brother, Chuck, spends most of his time in the back room, cutting the meat.

Their older brother, Porter, moved to Florida to open his own seafood store. He wasn’t satisfied being part of the family business. He often complained about living in Indiana. He wanted something bigger and more exciting. But when he runs into problems, he decides to move back home. When their dad tells Karnie and Chuck that Porter’s returning and wants to work with them, it opens old wounds.

To their parents, Porter was always the golden boy who could do no wrong. The favorite. And their dad still thinks of him that way. Porter wants to convert one section of their shop into a seafood counter for him to run, and their dad loves the idea. Anything to make Porter happy. And just like the story The Prodigal Son, it rubs Karnie and Chuck the wrong way.

It’s going to be interesting to me to write about Karnie’s family in inner turmoil. They all enjoyed each other and got along so well, they were easy to write. Their scenes will be trickier now. But that’s how families are. A lot of dynamics go into close relationships. Blood is thicker than water, though. Usually. And they love each other enough to find solutions, but some of them might be bumpy ones.

In my mystery A Cut Above, Karnie worked in her family’s butcher shop. They were all close. But by the end of the book, her family’s expanded. She moved in with Matt, a single dad with a three-year-old girl and a five-year-old boy. It might not have happened, except Chelsea took one look at Karnie, held up her arms, and begged for Karnie to hold her. Why? No one knew for sure. Maybe she wanted a woman in her life. Matt’s ex-wife, Renee, left when Chelsea was just six months old. Chelsea didn’t remember her, and when they finally DID meet, didn’t like her. The person she did like was Karnie.

In a lot of movies and stories, stepmothers are evil. Look at Cinderella and Snow White. In A Cut Above, Karnie falls in love with Matt’s kids, and they fall in love her. Even Matt’s Border Collie, Jolly, wants to keep her. But Matt and Karnie had known each other growing up. Matt thought of her as his best friend’s prickly, younger sister. Karnie saw Matt as a good-looking, football hero–someone girls threw themselves at–the guy who married the most popular cheerleader. But Matt’s kids made each of them think again. And this time, they liked what they saw.

In the Karnie mystery I’m working on now, Matt and Karnie are married, and Karnie’s adjusting to being a mom. She’s nuts about Jackson and Chelsea, and she’s selling her beloved bungalow and moving into Matt’s big farmhouse. The four of them still go to her mom and dad’s house every Sunday for supper, and her brother and his family are always there, too. For Karnie, becoming a stepmother is one of the best things that ever happened to her. She’s embracing it.