Gail McFarland

Gail McFarland writes contemporary relationship fiction centred on ambitious Black protagonists whose professional goals intersect with family and emotional commitments. Her novels include All For Love, Dream Runner, and its companion Dream Keeper. Dream Runner was published by Genesis Press in 2008 and brings together Marlea Kellogg, a runner pursuing Olympic competition, and A. J. Yarborough, a former professional football player rebuilding his life after an injury ended his career. Their connection grows through rehabilitation, training, and the different pressures attached to elite sport. McFarland uses physical recovery as more than a plot device, showing how identity can shift when a long-planned future changes abruptly. The athletic setting also allows discipline and vulnerability to appear side by side as both characters reconsider what achievement means. Dream Runner reflects McFarland’s wider interest in romance shaped by work, community, and personal reinvention. Its later sequel extends the world around the central couple rather than treating their encounter as an isolated story.