I Wrote a Plus Size Romance Heroine Who Doesn't Need Fixing

I didn't set out to write a plus size romance that made a statement. I just wanted to write Cassandra—a woman who'd spent her whole life being told her body was the problem—and give her a love story where nobody tries to fix her. Not because someone finally finds her attractive enough to deserve it, but because she was always worthy. She just needed to stop believing the people who said otherwise.

That's what My Brutal Beast became. A plus size romance about a woman and a beast of a man who doesn't see her body as something to overcome—and writing it cracked something open in me I wasn't expecting.

How Plus Size Romance Can Challenge What Readers Believe About Themselves

There's a scene in My Brutal Beast that hit me harder than anything else I've written. Raven picks Cassandra up to carry her, and her reaction is instant—she tells him to put her down because she's too heavy.

"It's okay. You don't have to do that. I'm too heavy for you like this, put me down."

Raven's eyes narrow at my words, but he drops a kiss on my forehead. "You are not too heavy for me. I'm sorry you have been surrounded by nothing but weak men who didn't care about you—much less deserve you—but they are your past, not your present or future. That role belongs to me. Nothing they said was true. Do not do yourself the dishonor of believing their lies."

That reaction of hers didn't come from nowhere. It came from a lifetime of being told—directly and indirectly—that her body was too much. Too big. Too heavy. Too visible. I've watched that narrative play out in real life, in friendships, in my own head. The automatic apology for taking up space.

I wanted to write what it looks like when someone refuses to accept that narrative on your behalf.

The "Magic Fix" Problem

One thing that frustrates me about a lot of romance is when the hero magically fixes the heroine's body image by finding her attractive. Like his desire is the cure for years of internalized shame.

That's not how healing works.

It's messy. It takes time. One person telling you you're beautiful doesn't erase a decade of hearing the opposite—and pretending it does cheapens both the pain and the recovery.

I didn't want Raven to fix Cassandra. I wanted him to create space for her to start questioning the story she'd been told about herself. There's a difference between someone saying "you're beautiful" and someone saying "do not do yourself the dishonor of believing their lies." One is a compliment. The other is a challenge.

Writing Bodies That Feel Lived-In

When I write characters, I want their bodies to feel real. Not perfect. Not problems to solve. Just bodies that exist and deserve love exactly as they are.

For Cassandra, that meant showing her internalized shame without the narrative endorsing it—letting readers see where those thoughts come from without agreeing with them. It meant not glossing over how deeply society's attitudes had gotten under her skin. And it meant making her healing something she drives, not something Raven delivers.

Romance gives us this extraordinary opportunity to show readers versions of themselves being loved without conditions. Not because they changed to fit some standard, but because they were always enough.

Read My Brutal Beast

That's the story I wanted to tell with Cassandra and Raven—a plus size romance where the heroine's body isn't the obstacle and the hero isn't the solution. Sometimes we all need to be reminded that the voices tearing us down aren't telling the truth.

My Brutal Beast releases on October 1, 2023. Pre-order here.