November is Epilepsy Awareness Month. This cause became very personal to me a few years ago. Here’s my story:

On a mild January evening a few years ago, I was beginning the job of making dinner for four children, chatting with my oldest son who, at the time, was fourteen. It was when I turned my back on him to open the refrigerator that I heard the crash. I whipped around to find him on the ground, his body stiff and unyielding, eyes rolled back in his head, unresponsive to his name. The convulsions came, then his face turned blue. That’s not a figure of speech: it was blue. Terrified, I yelled for my husband and called 9-1-1.

That was his first seizure.

Over the next two years, he would be diagnosed with epilepsy, and it would take just as long to find anti-seizure medications that worked to keep them under control. I found myself panicking at the slightest noise, making sure he wasn’t left on his own, rethinking how we kept doing things like swimming or bike riding and still keep him safe.

When I was writing my second book, The Fake Out, where we meet Ali for the first time, we were in the middle of those two years of questions and worry and trauma. Seeing a loved one have a seizure is just that—traumatic. I loved Ali from the beginning and right away, she told me she had seizures too. (Yes, the characters talk to me.) Maybe it was a way for me to deal with what we were going through at home.

When I knew that Ali’s book, The Fast Lane, was next, I knew I needed to do my research. And so, with the help of an online epilepsy support group, I found two lovely women about the same age and with a similar diagnosis as Ali who were willing to share their experiences. I could not have written this book without their help. Their experiences helped me to shape Ali and how her epilepsy affects her life. I hope I’ve done Ali’s story, and in many ways, their stories, justice.

I’ve compiled a list of romance novels that feature a character with epilepsy.

The Fast Lane by Sharon M. Peterson (Closed Door)

The Match by Sarah Adams (Closed Door)

What You Wish For by Katherine Center (Closed Door)

A Not-So Holiday Paradise by Gracie Ruth Mitchell (Closed Door)

The Heiress Effect by Courtney Milan (Open Door)

A Duke in Disguise by Cat Sebastian (Open Door)

Doctor Mistake by J. Saman (Open Door)

Don’t Let Me Break by Kelsie Rae (Open Door)

Three Pucking Words by B. Celeste (Open Door)

It’s become a bit of a passion project of mine to read books with characters that have a wide variety of disabilities. I think learning from these perspectives is one of the most powerful things we can do to understand the struggles and triumphs of others. Fiction can be so amazing in this way. If you’d like to see the full list, check out THIS POST.

If you’d like to recommend any other romance novels that feature characters with epilepsy, please add your suggestions in the comments and I’ll add them to the list. Please include title, author, and whether it’s open or closed door.

Want more book recommendations… from my cat? CLICK HERE.

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