Deep Dive—How To: Con Finn Woodhouse

My book How To: Con Finn Woodhouse debuts June 23, 2026. I am so excited to introduce everyone to my beloved Flora Fairchild. She is truly so… Flora.

While you can read the back cover for yourself, I wanted to give you a little background to the story, my inspiration, and, of course, what it was like writing a literary fiction/romance novel after writing Camp.

Whiplash. That’s what it was like.

Flora Fairchild

It is said that writers break themselves into pieces and hand out parts of themselves to their characters. If that’s truth…

—then Flora is the part of me that had to overcome what people told me I was. She is the fight I went through to remain true to myself, to come out of my shell, and not be led by others’ words and expectations. And also the part of me that loves wandering and flowers.

Let me expound.

In terms of all the literary main characters I’ve written, Flora is near and dear to my heart for several reasons. The main reason being that I was a very late bloomer and I got made fun of a lot growing up for not being a conformist and for not being very pretty. Yes, pretty is a relative term and it’s very silly to define people by their looks (one of the most unimportant things!), but in middle school and high school there was a wide consensus that I was not very cute! And some of those words stuck with me for a long time.

So when I wrote Flora and parts of her childhood and adulthood, it felt very real to me. In fact, it was easy to write. Well, I was never falling out of trees (ahem… first chapter) but you get what I mean. Flora blooms late in life but at that point, she’s developed who she is. Yes, she needs an adventure to shake her up a little and make her more confident, but she doesn’t get talked out of being herself by anyone.

Long story short, it sounds corny, but don’t let others dull who you are.

They will try. Make sure they fail.

Flora inspo (post Paris)

Literary fiction/romance

Y’all this was NOT easy. Now, to be fair, I wrote this in 2019, but I’ve been editing it for over a year now and I’m not kidding when I say that going from YA Adventure Fiction to Literary Fiction/Clean Romance is a tall order. Mostly because the tone changes and the goals shift. There’s no action (er… not as much as Camp) in HTCFW and we follow a plot that moves very differently. It was a test for me. Especially because this is my only Mirror Garden book that really focuses on the relationship between my two main characters without a major side plot. The romance is the entire story.

However, I do love my two main characters and my side characters so this ended up being fun. I hope you guys love it and can vibe with… well, a new vibe.

Finn Woodhouse

I’ve been writing for a long time, as you guys know, and have written TONS of male leads, and Finn Woodhouse is still one of my favorites. Why? Because Finn is still likeable despite… everything. At least in my humble opinion. Too often, modern stories either write male leads we all hate for obvious reasons, boring one-note male leads, male leads that fall into tropes, or male leads that just feel flat. What I like about Finn is that he is flawed, repressed, emotionally complex, exhausted, sometimes amoral, while also being loving, caring, responsible, and cunning. He walks a line. Whether you like him or not depends on your read of the story, but I do hope I made him interesting enough to not cause everyone to lean to “he is the worst!” — in fact, I hope it’s the opposite.

I’ll also say, just for kicks, that my inspiration looks wise for Finn was Richard Madden in his early years as Prince Charming in Cinderella (2015) and there are some references made to this in the book.

Richard Madden as my Finn inspo.

Honestly, there is so much more to this book! Maybe I’ll post again soon about it, but we’ll have to wait until the book comes out so I don’t spoil it!

Also! Keep your eyes peeled for some Camp Easter Eggs. If you spot them, comment below!

xx RJ