Dr Pepper, Dinosaurs & Plot Twists
Meet the girl behind Taylor A. Stories 🤍
Hi. I'm Taylor A. 👋🏻
Writer. Photographer. Wife. Mom. Horse girl. Professional overthinker of fictional people's lives.
And these are a few of my favorite things.
🦖 Dinosaurs. Yes, Dinosaurs.
Let's just get this one out of the way.
I LOVE dinosaurs.
Not in a "yeah, Jurassic Park is pretty cool" kind of way.
I mean genuinely love them. 😂
Take me somewhere with dinosaur fossils and I'm happy. Give me random dinosaur facts and I'll listen. Put a dinosaur on something and there's a decent chance I suddenly need it.
And yes, I absolutely believe being an adult with a dinosaur obsession is perfectly acceptable.
Will dinosaurs eventually sneak their way into one of my books?
Honestly, knowing me...
Probably.
🥤 Dr Pepper Is Basically a Personality Trait
Some authors require coffee to write.
I require Dr Pepper.
Okay, require might be slightly dramatic.
But only slightly.
There's usually one nearby while I'm writing, editing, plotting, questioning every decision I've ever made, deleting an entire paragraph, putting the paragraph back, and then deciding it was fine the first time.
It's part of the process at this point. 😂
🐴 Horses Will Always Have My Heart
This one probably isn't surprising.
I've loved horses for as long as I can remember, and horses are a huge part of our family's life.
There's something about them that's difficult to explain unless you've experienced it yourself.
They're powerful and frustrating and ridiculously expensive. 😂 They're also incredibly intuitive, forgiving, and capable of becoming such an important part of your life that calling them just a horse never feels quite right.
And, of course, there's Arrow.
If you read my last blog post, you know that the Arrow in Beneath a Broken Sky was inspired by our real-life Arrow.
So when horses appear in my books, that love isn't something I have to imagine.
That part is very, very real.
🐶 Give Me ALL the Animals
Honestly, it would probably be easier to list the animals I don't like.
Dogs? Love them.
Horses? Obviously.
Alligators?
YES. ALLIGATORS. 😂🐊
I realize that one may require some explaining.
There's just something about them. They're basically living dinosaurs, which means this obsession probably circles right back around to the first one.
Actually...
Yeah.
That checks out.
I've always been an animal person, and you'll probably notice animals finding their way into my stories pretty often because of it.
Sometimes they're important to the plot.
Sometimes they're there because I apparently can't create an entire fictional world without giving somebody a pet.
🌲 I'd Rather Be Outside
Give me woods, mountains, fields, horses, water, back roads, or somewhere I can wander around outside and I'm pretty happy.
But if we're talking about my real happy place?
Take me to the beach. 🌊🤍
Give me salty air, bare feet in the sand, sunshine, and the sound of waves, and I could stay there forever. There's just something about the ocean that makes everything feel a little quieter and the world seem a little less complicated.
I'm definitely an outdoors girl at heart, and I think that sneaks into my writing, too.
I love settings that feel like they're part of the story.
The fields and back roads of Virginia.
The horse country of Florida.
The mountains of Tennessee.
A quiet barn at the end of a long day.
A road stretching toward somewhere you've never been.
And, of course, the ocean—because the beach will always be my happy place.
Those are the kinds of places that make me want to tell stories.
📚 And, Obviously... Books
I LOVE stories.
But I'm especially drawn to stories that make me feel something.
Give me complicated friendships.
Found family.
Enemies to lovers.
Brother's best friend.
Sports romance.
A little danger.
Characters carrying things they don't know how to talk about.
People finding their way back to each other.
Faith when everything feels hopeless.
And please give me a character who is absolutely convinced they're fine when everyone—including the reader—knows they most certainly are not. 😂
But there's one thing you'll notice about the stories I write:
I write clean romance--
I want readers—especially younger girls—to be able to experience all those butterflies, favorite tropes, tension, first kisses, heartbreak, and JUST KISS ALREADY moments without needing all the extra stuff.
I want to write stories I would happily hand to my own daughters.
Stories can have romance without being explicit.
They can tackle difficult things without losing hope.
And characters can walk through incredibly dark seasons while still discovering that God hasn't left them there.
That's the kind of story I want to tell.
✍🏻 Pieces of Me Are Hidden Everywhere
This might be my favorite part about writing.
Every book I write contains little pieces of me.
Not necessarily the big things.
Usually it's the tiny ones.
A character orders something I love.
Someone makes a joke I would absolutely make.
A horse is inspired by one I know.
A character loves something completely random because I love something completely random.
Sometimes it's a place I've been.
Sometimes it's a conversation I've had.
Sometimes it's a feeling I've carried.
Sometimes it's something one of my kids has said that was way too funny not to use. 😂
And sometimes it's deeper than that.
My faith finds its way into my stories because it's part of who I am.
My belief that people deserve second chances is there.
My love for complicated, imperfect people is there.
My belief that even when life doesn't turn out the way we planned, hope is still worth holding onto is woven into everything I write.
Maybe that's why these characters become so real to me.
They're fictional.
Their stories are fictional.
But hidden between the pages are little pieces of a very real life.
🤍 A Few More Taylor Favorites
Because apparently we're friends now, so you should probably know the important stuff:
Favorite drink: Dr Pepper 🥤
Favorite animals: Horses, Elephants, Dogs & ALLIGATORS 🐴🐶🐊
Random lifelong obsession: Dinosaurs 🦖
Happy place: Outside—preferably somewhere on a beach.
Favorite romance trope: Enemies to lovers. Give me ALL the banter.
Other tropes I love: Brother's best friend, sports romance & military romance
Book requirement: Give me characters I can become emotionally attached to and then worry about as if they're actual people. 😂
Things you'll find in my books: Faith, friendship, grief, love, horses, messy people, complicated relationships, second chances, clean romance, and a whole lot of hope.
Writing fuel: Dr Pepper. Obviously.
Probability of me adding an animal to a story that didn't originally need an animal: Extremely high.
Probability of me getting emotionally attached to said fictional animal: 100%.
So, Hi. I'm Taylor. 🤍
I'm a mom who loves horses and dinosaurs.
A writer fueled by Dr Pepper and fictional drama.
An animal lover who thinks alligators are adorable despite everyone else's perfectly reasonable concerns.
An outdoors girl who would rather be wandering through a field than sitting somewhere fancy.
And an author who can't seem to write a story without leaving a few pieces of herself tucked between the pages.
So the next time you're reading one of my books and come across a strangely specific detail, you might find yourself wondering...
Is this one of those Taylor things?
And honestly?
There's a pretty good chance it is. 😂
Thanks for being here, for reading my stories, and for getting to know the girl behind them.
Now I want to know about YOU.
What's one random thing you absolutely love that has basically become part of your personality?
Dinosaurs? Dr Pepper? Horses? Something completely different?
Tell me—I want to know. 🤍
— Taylor A.
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