What about Boys?

People often ask us, “Do guys read your books?”

The short answer is, we don’t know. Probably not too many, judging by the fact that we’ve never received an e-mail from a male reader.

Yvonne’s husband tried and failed, succumbing to estrogen poisoning at approximately page 200 of Speechless, our first novel. (He is hugely supportive in other ways!)

But there is definitely one guy who has read our entire body of work, and today is his birthday. My brother is two years younger than me, which makes him 27—again.

So, 27 years ago, my parents, in their wisdom, named the new arrival Randall, fully intending to call him Randy. “How cute,” they thought: “Randy and Sandy.” Maybe it was cute when we were toddlers, but by the time we were going to parties together in university, it wasn’t cute anymore. “This is Sandy,” Yvonne would say, “And her brother Randy, and his friend Andy.”

Skinny little Randy grew up to be quite a bruiser, although I didn’t fully process that until I got a call from a guy who works with me. Let’s call him “Dean.”

Dean: “Hi Sandy. I’m calling about your brother.”

Sandy: “My brother? How do you know my brother?”

Dean: “We play on a recreational hockey league together. He, uh, plays pretty rough.”

Sandy: “Randy? But he’s not a big guy.”

Dean: “Have you seen your brother lately? He’s six-two and lethal.”

ASIDE: This is how I still think of my brother.












Sandy: “Lethal?! Are you sure you’ve got the right guy?”

Dean: “Sandy and Randy... You don’t forget that.”

Sandy: “Humph. Well, my brother’s never picked a fight in his life.”

Dean: “Maybe not off the rink. On the rink he’s a brute. So I was thinking…”

Sandy: “Dean. Tell me you’re not asking me to call off my brother. It’s sports. You guys have a system for working it out, right? A secret guy code?”

Dean: “If I end up with a dislocated shoulder…”

Sandy: “I’ll help you type your press releases. Bye, now.”

It’s crucial to observe the family code of honour:

Stage one: Defend from outsiders.

Stage two: Attack from within.

I called my brother immediately.

Sandy: “Are you trying to kill my colleagues?”

Randy: “What, that Dean guy? Did he come running to you for help?”

S: “Is he right? Are you a brute on the rink?”

R: “Hockey’s a contact sport. If he doesn’t like it, he should try archery or something.”

S: “Well, I have to see him in meetings. If my boss asks how he got a black eye, you know what he’s going to say.”

R: “He’s a wimp.”

S: “Vent your testosterone on your own colleagues.”

R: “Fine. I’ll go out of my way to check everyone except Dean.”

S: “Wait a second… I know how you operate. You’ll make a BIG SHOW of avoiding Dean on the ice, thereby emasculating him completely. No. You’ve gotta check him once in awhile, just not as hard. Then he can keep his pride.”

R: Sigh…

S: “No visible bruising. Do you hear me?”

R: “Blah blah spare-the-whiner blah.”

So there you have it, folks: a snapshot of the guy who sits down and churns through each and every one of our books.

After reading Introducing Vivien Leigh Reid: Daughter of the Diva, he e-mailed: “I don't want to sound surprised or anything but it was quite enjoyable. While certainly the subject matter was different than my usual blood-and-guts, all-action reading, it was a pleasure to read.”

Yvonne, who’s known Randy since he was only five-foot-six, frequently says, “That scene with [insert name of any of our bratty male characters] sounded just like Randy.”

It’s a good thing we write teen fiction, because this particular source of inspiration permanently topped out age 27.

Happy birthday, bro!