The Story Behind Screwball by Eva Haining

By Eva Haining

When asked to say a little something about Screwball, it took me back a few years. For those of you who haven’t read my work before, I was born and raised in Glasgow, Scotland. I moved to Texas in 2014 with my husband and two kids. By 2017 I had fallen in love with baseball. I remember it so vividly, as it was the year Hurricane Harvey hit our city hard. The baseball team, collectively and individually, did so much to help the community. That definitely reinforced my love for the game.

I’ve been wanting to write a baseball romance for a while, and when I started writing romantic comedies, I knew this would be the perfect opportunity to have some fun with a sport I love.

I’m a natural, walking, talking, comedy of errors, and still wonder after twenty-two years, how I snagged my husband. It would seem he finds my fumbling attempts at romance endearing. My own journey has taught me that there is beauty in the mistakes, and love in laughter.

I branched out into writing romantic comedies during the lockdown in 2020, and it has been such a great release for me. I love every subgenre I write in, but that first rom-com, Fumble, was so outside my comfort zone. As a writer, I believe pushing yourself to explore and push the boundaries, makes you a better author. This was definitely the case for me.
Screwball is a double baseball romance. Yankees pitcher, Anders Verbeck, meets the top batter for the women’s USA team, Brooke Lexington, and hilarity ensues. Brooke is a real ballbuster with a big heart. I strive for all my female characters to be strong, independent women, with a huge capacity for love.

These two build from the ground up, and the reader gets to see the progression of their relationship as they navigate the evolution from friends to lovers, and from lovers to forever. They were a joy to write, so fun and flirty with some real tender moments along the way. I can only hope that readers have as great an experience reading this one, as I had writing it.
As much as I love baseball, I still had to buy Baseball for Dummies and make numerous phone calls to my husband to make sure I did the game justice and give an authentic representation of America’s national pastime!

Screwball is a standalone novel, and a great introduction to my writing if you’re a first-time reader.

Eva Haining is the author of the new book Screwball

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