Tag: time travel romance

Interview with Author Gwyn Cready on Playing with Time

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | Author Interviews> Author Q&A

Gwyn Cready is my guest today at Reading Reality. Of course, Gwyn’s not really here to talk about reality, she’s here to talk about time-travel in romance. I’ll confess that the heroine of her latest time-bending romance, Timeless Desire, has an extra-special place in my heart, because Panna is not just a heroine, she’s a librarian! What could be more awesome? (The story is terrific, too. Check out my review and see for yourself)

Now let’s hear Gwyn talk about time-travel and Pee-Wee Herman…but not, thank goodness, at the same time.

Marlene: Introduce yourself to us. Tell us a little bit about Gwyn Cready, and what she does when she’s not writing.

Gwyn: I love movies. My husband and I pop out to films all the time. One of our favorite theaters is a single-screen theater in Dormont, Pennsylvania, called the Hollywood. They pop their own popcorn, and they even have a balcony. You just don’t see that a lot anymore. We just saw the third Indiana Jones movie there. Next up: PeeWee’s Big Adventure!

Marlene: You’ve written several time-travel romances. What draws you to time-travel romances in particular?

Gwyn: I love the idea of playing with time. It opens up so many possibilities for characters. In a romance—at least a properly written one—you know the story is going to end with the characters in a happy ever after. But a time travel romance adds a whole other layer of tension for the reader by making you wonder which time period will win out for the couple and how. Moreover, you want your hero and heroine to clash. What could be more clash-inducing than coming from different eras?

Marlene: And what inspired you to choose the Scots border in the early 1700s for Timeless Desire?

Gwyn: A lot of my books have characters from or action that takes place in the borderlands of England and Scotland. The dawn of the 1700s was a very interesting time. Scotland is teetering on the edge of losing its independence. The Age of Enlightenment is pushing the men who live and die by their swords into a world where thinking and science are revered. The clans are at their peak. And, of course, the kilts.

Marlene: Libraries are gateways to magical worlds, but was there a specific library (or librarian!) that you were thinking of when you set the modern-day parts of the story in a public library?

Gwyn: To be fair, I’ve been helped by so many librarians over the years. This was a little shout-out to all of them. I know a lot of people, including me, who think librarians are among the luckiest people on earth, since they spend all their time around books. My cousin, Donna, is a librarian, and she always seems aglow when she’s at work. Another close friend, Manuel, is a music librarian at UC Berkeley. He’s my go-to person for special research needs—and not just ones involving music. Many an article that resulted in an interesting plot twist or essential character attribute have come winging their way into my in-box from him.

Marlene: What do you think about the inevitable comparisons between Timeless Desire and Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander?

Gwyn: Outlander is the book that inspired me to become a romance novelist. No writer will ever come close to creating the world and hero that Gabaldon did. That won’t stop us from trying.

 

Marlene: Who first introduced you to the love of reading?

Gwyn: My mom loved to read. Her two great joys in life were reading and playing bridge. I think I failed her on the bridge front, though. I do not have the brain for bridge. My husband, a casual player, will be watching me struggle to figure out which card to play. He’ll finally say, “For goodness sake, please play the jack. Everyone knows you have it.”

Marlene: Who influenced your decision to become a writer?

Gwyn: My younger sister, Claire. It was her unexpected death at age 31 that make me want to become a writer.  She was the artsy one in the family—a poet and photographer. I was the upright businesswoman. I wanted to do something to honor her memory. I started writing the month after she died. Eleven years later, my first book was published. It’s dedicated to her.

Marlene: What book would you recommend that everyone should read, and why?

Gwyn: Outlander, of course. Jamie Fraser is the most romantic, honorable and well-crafted romance hero ever written. The entire Patrick O’Brian Master and Commander series. The New York Times called it “the best historical fiction ever written.” I agree. I’ve read or listened to each of the twenty books at least three times.  And I’d throw The Time Traveler’s Wife on the list as well.

Marlene: Speaking of good books, there’s something in Timeless Desire that made me wonder about this. Have you read Dorothy Dunnett’s Lymond series?

Gwyn: I have not. And now I’m very curious as to what made you wonder that.

Marlene: Can you tell us a little bit about your next project? What is next on your schedule?

Gwyn: I have two next projects (ah, a writer’s life, eh?) One is a memoir about losing my sister and finding her again through her friends. The other is a time travel romance trilogy about three extraordinary women on—where else?—the borderlands of England and Scotland.

Marlene: Now can you tell us 3 reasons why people should read your books?

Gwyn: Location, location, location? Kidding. First, the heroes are always smart, wry and totally dedicated to the heroine’s happiness. Second, the heroines are real-world, kick-ass women, very much like the women who read my books (and me, might I add.) Third, there’s always that hint of Colin Firth in the air.

Marlene: Coffee or Tea?

Gwyn: Oh, coffee. Perfect cup for me: an ancho chile mocha latte. Ooh, I can almost feel my tongue tingling.

While I never did quite get Colin Firth, I’m totally behind The New York Times on Patrick O’Brian’s series, also known as the Aubrey-Maturin series. 

All I’ll say about Lymond is that Dorothy Dunnett’s Lymond Chronicles are also set in the Scots border country, and at a period a bit earlier than Timeless Desire. But the endings have something in common. And I’ll leave it at that. 

Thanks so much for answering all of my questions. Being a librarian myself, I just had to know every pesky detail!

The Sunday Post AKA What’s On My (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand? 8-19-12

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | The Sunday Post> Virtual Nightstand

It’s so hard to believe that we’re sliding down towards the end of summer, isn’t it? But we really are.

High temperatures in Atlanta seemed to have finally dropped out of the 90s. Only down into the high 80s, mind you, but out of the 90s. It’s some kind of progress. Less beastly. I love winters in the South, but the summers are probably a foretaste of Hell. (I reviewed one of Eve Langlais‘ Hell books this week, I loved it, but her Hell sounds like the U.S. Deep South for climate)

It’s good to be home. The cats missed us. They’ve mostly forgiven us for leaving them. (If you are owned by cats, you know exactly what I mean!)

 

So what’s happening at Reading Reality this week? Let’s get out the old calendar (actually Google calendar) and take a look…

 

After Monday’s Ebook Review Central feature, which is the June multi-publisher post, this week we have…drumroll please…

Tuesday I’ll be reviewing Only Scandal Will Do by Jenna Jaxon as part of a tour from Sizzling PR. Only Scandal Will Do is a terrific historical romance romp which starts with the absolutely opposite of a “meet cute”. The heroine gets sold to the hero at an auction in a whorehouse! This shouldn’t end well, and it doesn’t in the beginning, but of course it does in the end!

 

Wednesday is for The Memory of Roses. That’s not a commemorative, it’s a book by Blaire McDowell. Ms. McDowell also wrote Delighting In Your Company, a ghost/historical romance that I found, well, absolutely delightful when I reviewed it in June. So I couldn’t resist The Memory of Roses when it popped up on this Bewitching Books Tour.

 

Thursday I’ll be interviewing Gwyn Cready, the author of Timeless Desire. Since I’ve already reviewed Timeless Desire, I’ll be very interested to see what she has to say. The book was very good, a kind of Outlander-lite. And that feels right to me, after all, the subtitle is “An Outlander Love Story”.

 

Speaking of cats (well, we were a few paragraphs ago)…on Friday, I’ll have a guest post from Jacqueline M. Battisti, the author of The Guardian of Bastet as part of a tour from Bewitching. I’ll also be reviewing the book. I couldn’t resist. Bastet is the cat goddess.

And that all makes for one busy week!

But looking ahead to the next week, there’s one big event already on the calendar. Susan Wiggs’ will be here for an interview on Thursday, August 30 to celebrate her new book, Return to Willow Lake. And I’ll be doing a review. Naturally.

And then, and then, and then…it will be Labor Day. And Dragon*Con. Where did the summer go again?

Review: Timeless Desire by Gwyn Cready

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews

The Urban Dictionary defines an “outlander” as:

Any individual who does not belong in a social setting; an intruder; an interloper

But for readers of time-travel romance, using the subtitle “An Outlander Love Story” as Gwyn Cready does on the cover of Timeless Desire, and specifically setting that romance on the Scottish border in the early 1700s, is bound to invoke comparisons to Jamie Fraser and Clare Randall.

Search Google for “outlander”, and Jamie Fraser’s name comes up as a related search, along with Diana Gabaldon (duh), the unrelated 2007 movie, and the Mitsubishi SUV.

But the heroine of Timeless Desire is Panna Kennedy, not Clare Randall. She’s a librarian and not a nurse. A time-travelling librarian who is the heroine of a romance novel. Okay, I was hooked from the description right there.

Totally incapable of an unbiased opinion, mind you, but completely hooked.

Panna thinks, acts and sounds like “one of us”. Us librarians, I mean. Her budget is being slashed, her staff is under-appreciated, her library is underfunded, and as much as she loves being the head librarian in a small town, occasionally she wants to escape.

Mostly she escapes into a good book. Her husband died two years ago, and she still hasn’t gotten over it. Panna’s spirit of adventure seems to have died with him.

Until she goes searching through the under-basements of the library for something to sell. Something that might keep the budget axe from chopping quite so close to the bone. And she sticks her hand through a locked doorway and into blackness. Not darkness. Blackness like her hand has been cut off, except she can still feel it, she just can’t see it.

She pulls it back like it was on fire. But the fire is back in her soul. She has to see what’s on the other side of that formerly locked door. Was it real? Is she crazy? Why is it there?

There’s a statue in front of the service desk in her library. Colonel John Bridgewater, the founder of the library, or at least the funding angel. (One gets the distinct impression that the statue, albeit fully clothed, is nearly anatomically correct–Panna has certainly fantasized about Bridgewater often enough!)

Panna goes back to the library in the evening and steps through the door into nothingness. She finds herself in the 18th century. What’s more, she’s in England, on the Scots border. She can see Hadrian’s Wall. The library she left behind was in Carlisle, PA. In the USA.

The first person she meets is Colonel John Bridgewater. In the very warm and living flesh. And he thinks she’s a whore. Not to mention a spy. It’s not a very auspicious start to their relationship.

And what a relationship it turns out to be. Nothing on the Scots borders is ever simple. John Bridgewater is the son of two countries. His father is an English Earl and commander of the English forces on the Border. But John was forced to make his own way in the world, because his father neglected to marry his mother, who was the daughter of a Scots clan chief. John’s loyalties are divided.

Each side is sure he must be a traitor. All he wants is peace. Or at least, less pointless bloodshed.

He sees Panna as either an angel or a temptress. John makes Panna feel alive again. But as they drag each other deeper into the tangle of secrets and lies, he discovers that she is telling the truth, and that there is more danger in the knowledge she holds than he ever imagined.

Escape Rating B: There are two ways of looking at this story. One is to attempt to consider how it works on its own merits, and the other is to look at how it deals with the long shadow cast by Diana Gabaldon’s classic tale, Outlander.

Timeless Desire is a solid time-travel romance. Panna’s desperation to solve the budget crisis was very real, and rang true (Been there, done that, and I’ve known too many library folk in that same boat). Her grief over her late husband also “felt” right. Everyone grieves in their own way and time.  Going back in time, while contrived, made for a terrific adventure. It shook Panna out of her rut in every way possible. Fighting for your life will do that. And because the circumstances were extreme, falling in love happened fast and hard.

It was easy to get caught up in Panna’s story.

On the other hand, the title invokes one of the truly great stories, Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander, and that’s a dangerous comparison to make. Jamie Fraser is positively beloved. The two romance heroes whose names I wouldn’t get near with someone else’s barge-pole are Jamie Fraser and Roarke. Naming another Scots hero Jamie in a time-travel romance is simply bad juju. IMHO.

There were a few too many times when I read a scene in Timeless Desire and knew what was going to happen because either the same thing had happened in Outlander, or it happened before but with an opposite twist. (Spoiler alert) For example, the wedding was in extremely similar circumstances, although Bridgewater was not (thank heavens!) a virgin. The ending worked opposite but had a lot of similar characteristics. In this case it depended on who had a home to go to in which time.

As Outlander-lite, Timeless Desire works very well.

Stacking the Shelves (12)

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | Stacking the Shelves

This week’s edition of Stacking the Shelves (hosted as always by Tynga’s Reviews) is brought to you courtesy of Marlene’s iPad.

I say that because every title is an ebook this week. No print.

Now my husband has just re-discovered the joys of visiting a bookstore on his lunch hour, but this is not stacking HIS shelves, it’s stacking my shelves. Of course, he called me one lunch to ask if I was interested in one of the books he was thinking of buying. But I wasn’t there, so I firmly maintain that it doesn’t count. Not even if I was interested. Which I was.

These are the books I took in this week. What about you? What new books have found a home on your shelves (or in your ereader) this week?

For Review:
Timeless Desire by Gwyn Cready
Ghost Planet by Sharon Fisher
Aliens, Smith and Jones by Blaine D. Arden
Fissured (The Pipe Woman Chronicles #2) by Lynne Cantwell
Yesterday’s Heroes by Heather Long
Seducing Cinderella by Gina L. Maxwell
Demon Hunting in the Deep South (Demon Hunting #2) by Lexi George
Blaze of Winter (Star Harbor #2) by Elisabeth Barrett
Relentless Pursuit (Private Protectors #4) by Adrienne Giordano
The Guardian of Bastet by Jacqueline M. Battisti
The Last Victim by Karen Robards

Purchased from Amazon:
Demon Hunting in Dixie (Demon Hunting #1) by Lexi George

Sharing My Favorite Book Giveaway Hop

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | Blog Hops> Book Giveaway> ebook giveaway> Sharing My Favorite Book


Sharing My Favorite Read Giveaway Hop is being hosted by Reading Romances!

I never can pick just one.

As part of the Share My Favorite Read Giveaway Hop, I was supposed to pick my favorite book, and share it.

My one and only? That’s my husband’s place in my life.

When it comes to books, not remotely possible to choose.

Favorites of different types, absolutely!

After all, I love steak and I love chocolate. But is one better than the other? Is one better than the other for what? There is nothing in the universe like chocolate. Maybe sex.

But chocolate does not take the place of an excellent filet mignon. It’s what you have after an excellent filet mignon. Or after a perfectly grilled hamburger. It depends on what I’m in the mood for.

So for flavors of favorites, let’s see what Marlene has in her stacks of books. This blog hop is organized by my friend Nat at Reading Romances, so the requirement was that all the books be romances.

No problem! There are plenty of flavors of romances. I did sneak one in where the opinion varies. I think of it as having a romantic undertone. Your mileage may vary.

(I want a drumroll in here. Consider it understood)

My favorite time-travel romance, of course, is Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. If you are looking for the explanation, read my Lovestruck post.

Science fiction romance has always been a favorite, since the first dragon flew over Pern. But when it comes to authors that I recommend to people now for SFR, Two names come to mind. Well, three really, because two of them write together.

Linnea Sinclair’s Games of Command is still one of my favorite single-title SFR books. Either that or her Accidental Goddess. Everything is there, space travel, other worlds, kick-ass heroine, cyborgs, rebel alliance, evil empire. love story, the works.

 

If you like space opera sagas with mercantile empires and yummy love stories, you can’t go wrong with Sharon Lee and Steve Miller’s Liaden Universe. Start with either Local Custom or Agent of Change. I started with Local Custom, and it really brought the SFR elements to the fore.

And my sneaker. By now, readers have figured out that I’m a sucker for Sherlock Holmes books. If the current number of  Holmes projects is any indication, I’m not the only one. Not only is Robert Downey, Jr. playing the great detective on the big screen (not his best role, I much prefer him as Iron Man), but there are not one, but two 21st century adaptations. Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman have captured the essentials of Holmes and Watson in the BBC’s Sherlock, and CBS is about to bring out Elementary, with Holmes and Dr. Joan Watson in modern-day Los Angeles.

Laurie R. King re-imagined Sherlock Holmes an entirely different way. In 1915, retired at 54, on the Sussex Downs, keeping bees, bored and suicidal. With Sherlock Holmes, bored and suicidal tended to go hand in hand. Or needle in arm. But in Ms. King’s version, someone tripped over Holmes with her nose in a copy of Virgil. A 15-year-old girl in need of rescuing. A female version of himself, born with the century. Mary Russell becomes his apprentice. She gives him a reason not to be bored. Eventually, very, very eventually, she becomes his wife. The first book, the story of her apprenticeship, is fittingly titled The Beekeeper’s Apprentice.

This giveaway hop is all about Sharing Favorite Books, so this is how I’m going to share my favorite books with you. There’s a Rafflecopter below here. In it there’s a question. The question asks you to share your favorite book.

The lucky winner of the giveaway here at Reading Reality will get to choose from my favorite books. Any one of the books listed above, or any title I’ve given an A, A- or A+ Rating (under $10) since I started blogging. I want to share a book or ebook with you, so this is a US/International giveaway, as long as you can receive from Amazon or Book Depository or Baen Ebooks in the case of the Liaden Universe books)

Don’t forget to visit all the other hoppers! Everyone has lots of cool favorites to share and giveaway.
a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

Hop and enter the other giveaways!

 


Author Interview with Blair McDowell

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | Author Interviews> Author Q&A> blog tours

Today is a very special day for author Blair McDowell. June 7 is the Release Day Blitz for her delightful (sorry, couldn’t resist) time-travel ghost romance, Delighting in Your Company (review here). Blair is popping up all over the blogosphere today, but I managed to sit her down (virtually, at least) to answer a few questions about her writing and this haunting story.

Please tell us a little bit about yourself. Who is Blair McDowell when she isn’t writing about ghosts?

I run a B&B in the small fishing village of Gibsons Landing on Canada’s spectacular west coast. After the tourist season ends I go traveling—usually to Italy or Greece for a month. Then down to the Caribbean to a small island where I’ve had a house for 40 years. Then back to Gibsons to start the whole cycle again. Through all of this I try to write at least 4 hours a day. I’m retired from my day job so all of this is now possible.

Delighting In Your Company takes place on the island of St. Clement’s in the Carribean. Is there a real St. Clement’s? Or was there a particular place that served as the inspiration for the setting?

There is indeed a real island on which St. Clement’s is based. It’s St. Eustatius, and I built a house there some forty years ago. The legends and stories I heard there over the years were the inspiration for Delighting In Your Company.

It feels like a lot of research went into Delighting, about the legends of the West Indies, and about the “Triangle Trade” of rum, molasses and slaves. Would you like to share some of the interesting things that you found while you were researching the book?

I think some of the facts I discovered about the slave trade were the most interesting—and the most appalling. I made my hero, Jonathan, anti-slavery. I think one of the facts that struck me deeply was that although the slave trade was outlawed by Parliament in 1807, the actual ownership of slaves—the abolition of slavery in the British Isles — didn’t happen until some thirty years later. All the outlawing of transport did was result in a flourishing business for ships that could outrun the law.

Delighting is both a ghost-romance, and a time-travel romance. How did you decide to mix the two?

I couldn’t have done one without the other in this case. The story seemed to come from out of nowhere except my knowledge of the islands and their folk tales. It just arrived in my head, quite complete.

Who first introduced you to the love of reading?

Odd. I can’t even remember learning to read. I’ve always loved reading and read in every spare moment. When other children were playing ball, I was off in a corner reading.

Who or what most influenced your decision to become a writer?

Again, no one. It was as natural a choice as breathing. I’ve written since I was a child. Long letters to friends, short stories just for myself, then professional books in my field when I was a university professor, and now (my favorite) novels. I love writing.

And are you a plotter or a pantser? Do you plot everything out in advance, or do you just let the story flow?

I plot carefully. First I choose the setting I want to work in, then I start thinking about possible characters in that setting, then I start developing plot. The plot may change as I work on the book, but I start with a very complete story idea.

Do your characters ever want to take over the story?

Indeed. In Sonata, my book that will be coming out in the fall, one character completely turned the tables on me. I don’t know how it happened.

What book do you recommend everyone should read, and why?

There just isn’t ONE book. No two of us are alike in what we bring to the books we read. What one person enjoys another may cordially detest. My advice is to read widely and in many genres. Only in that way can we be broad enough as readers or as authors.

Can you tell us a little bit about your next project?

Sonata is the story of a world class concert artist who falls in love with a Vancouver cop. There is a jewel heist, attempted murder and general mayhem before our hero and heroine finally get together.

What about your off-writing time? Any special hobbies or interests you’d like to share?

Travel. I love to travel. I enjoy being surrounded by cultures and languages other than my own.

Coffee or Tea?

Coffee—the kind the Italians call “cappuccino oscuro” Dark Cappuccino. A Cappuccino made with a double espresso and topped with the foam of milk—not actual milk, just the foam.

Blair, thanks so much for letting us have a glimpse into your writing world!

(Photo credits: Photo of St. Eustacius: Walter Hellebrand from Wikimedia Commons, Diagram of the slave ship is from the Archives of the Library of Congress and is in the Public Domain.)

Delighting In Your Company

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> blog tours> book reviews

If the phrase “delighting in your company” sounds familiar, it should. It’s from one of the most persistent ballads in the English language. Still stumped?

It’s Greensleeves.

And the story, Delighting in Your Company, uses the tune and the words, as it is one song that is familiar to people in both the 19th and 21st centuries.

That’s important, because Blair McDowell has created a ghost story and a time-travel story that links people and events between those two centuries.

Ms McDowell interweaves the history and beliefs of the Caribbean, a stinging rebuke against the “Triangle Trade” of the 17th and 18th centuries, and a bittersweet love story that changes history. Because history needed a “cosmic kick in the pants”.

But first, the heroine needs a more localized one. Amalie Ansett’s life needs a do-over. Or at least a fresh start. Her marriage has ended in bitter divorce, and her beloved mother is dead. While packing her her childhood home, she discovers a family secret–the good kind for a change. She has family she never knew about. A cousin in the Caribbean, on the laid-back island of St. Clement’s.

One delighted phone call, and Amalie is taking a much-needed rest on a sleepy tropical island where the pace is life is slow, and time has a chance to heal her.

The one thing she doesn’t expect to find is a man. The other thing she doesn’t expect to find is a mystery.

Long ago, there was another Amalie Ansett. Her portrait hangs in the museum. And she’s a dead-ringer for 21st century Amalie. There’s something else dead about historic Amalie. Her eyes. They’re empty. Not just in the sense that the portrait was bad, but as though the artist painted her corpse.

He did. History-Amalie was catatonic while she was painted, while she was the governor’s wife. There’s a big mystery about her death. And Amalie’s cousin Julia knows it. Something went very wrong back there in the past.

Because that man Amalie has met in the here-and-now? He’s a ghost. Everyone on the island knows something haunts the old Ansett and Evans Plantations, and it’s him. Jonathan Evans. The man the original Amalie was supposed to marry.

Instead there was a slave rebellion, and history went way, way, way off track. Jonathan’s ghost thinks his Amalie has come back to him. Amalie thinks that her handsome ghost-man is using her as a substitute for the woman he really loves.

But he’s real enough to her that they manage pretty well. Until Amalie investigates that rebellion-and figures out that she might be able to go back and fix things. But if she makes things right, she’ll lose the man she loves.

Love is about making the one you love happy, not yourself, isn’t it? No matter how much it hurts?

Escape Rating A-: Usually it’s either the ghost story or the time-travel story. This time it’s both, and it SO works. Amalie has to meet the ghost of Jonathan in order to know she’s supposed to go back and fix things. And yes, it might be a little arrogant to think she’s the one who has to fix the past, but who else?

The story works on a lot of levels, the love story because Amalie knows it can’t last, but does it anyway. She’s always trying to make things right for Jonathan, aware that it’s a sacrifice for the greater good. But it only works when she builds trust with people in both the present and the past, especially her past self. That was fascinating.

The time travel angle works because Amalie goes back to herself. She’s not trying to create a new role, she’s already there. She works with what is.

The historic mystery has its roots in the Triangle Trade, and the money to be made there. Not just the slave trade itself, but also the sales of the cash crop from the Caribbean that the slaves produced. If you’re curious about the Triangle Trade, the best, and most colorful description is still the song “Molasses to Rum to Slaves” from the musical 1776. It indicts everyone involved.

Cover Reveal: My Super Sweet Sixteenth Century

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | Cover Reveal> Sneak Peak

My very first cover reveal at Reading Reality is for My Super Sweet Sixteenth Century by Rachel Harris. This YA time-travel romance from debut author Rachel Harris (no relation, unfortunately) will be published by Entangled Publishing on September 11, 2012.

Time-travel creates delicious opportunities for confusion and romance. Read the sneak-peak preview and see if this premise doesn’t make the book tease its way right into your “to-be-read” list for the fall.

 

I hear their muffled whispers and understand every Italian word. Every witty comment made at my expense.

It’s like my brain is automatically translating.

I bunch the soft fabric of the dress in my hand and then reach up to feel the ribbon in my hair. I lightly skim my fingers over my chin and feel my lack of zit. I take in the costumes of the crowd, the stench of the animals, and the Italian I can now speak and understand. And suddenly it hits me.

Reyna must have pulled some kind of gypsy mojo.

Maybe this is one of those nifty “change your life” magic scenarios like in the movies. I mean, mostly I’m still expecting to blink and be right back in the midst of overpriced, gaudy tourism, but for now, the gypsy-time-warp explanation is infinitely better than thinking I’ve lost my mind. As I decide to go with that option, I feel my frantic tension melt away.

The growing crowd seems to notice my change in demeanor and begins shooting one another amused looks, but I don’t care anymore. A smile stretches across my face. Evidently, I was wrong earlier; Reyna is a psychic mind reader, because if this is her special brand of bibbity-bobbity-boo, then she made my exact daydream from earlier in the courtyard come to life.

The long red gown, the braided hair, the Italian merchant’s daughter, the time period. I am in Renaissance Florence.

I stare dumbly at the ground, the words and reality sinking in.

I’m in Renaissance Florence!

When I think about love stories…

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | Valentine's Day

Today is Valentine’s Day and everyone is thinking about love stories.

Not necessarily romance novels, mind you, but love stories. The stories that last. The ones that endure.

We all have them, names that instantly spring to mind when someone mentions the word love.

The names “Romeo and Juliet” always invoke the image of star-crossed lovers. Shakespeare’s story lives for the ages. It’s ironic that one of the best known images of romance is about a love story that ends tragically.

I’d prefer to look at three of my favorite fictional couples whose pages I return to because they either end happily, or they show no sign of ending at all.

I’ve never made any secret of following the adventures of Eve Dallas and Roarke. One of the things I enjoy most about the series is that the stories show a strong relationship between a married couple that continues to throw off hot sexual sparks well after they tie the knot. The author has managed to make married life interesting. If this were a TV series, the wedding would have ended the show. But with Eve and Roarke, the continued influx of homicide investigations into her squad room just means more interesting cases for Eve to solve–and more peeks into Eve and Roarke’s evolving relationship. Readers still don’t know the man’s first name, but we continue to be fascinated, 33 books and counting. Celebrity in Death, book 34 is coming on February 21. I’m already planning to stay up and read it.

Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander was not initially marketed as a romance. It was sold as historical fiction, and considering the amount of research that goes into each volume of the series, that’s probably the right place for it. Yet the core of the stories (7 doorstop sized books and counting) is the century-spanning love story of Jamie Fraser and Claire Randall. Claire is the daughter of the 20th century, and Jamie the son of Scotland in the time of Bonnie Prince Charlie. Yet magic, or fate, brings them together.

While I enjoy the story of Jamie and Claire’s first romance, it’s not what draws me back. My copy of Voyager opens automatically to Part Six, Chapter 24. I’ve read over and over the part where Claire takes her courage, and her life, in both hands and risks the standing stones to go back to Jamie, back two centuries in time, knowing that he survived the disaster at Culloden, but having no idea what changes the intervening 20 years have wrought in his life. All she knows is that she must tell him that he has a daughter. But  she really wants to be his wife again, and has no clue whether he still loves her as she has never stopped loving him.

My other favorite is from Dorothy Dunnett’s Lymond Chronicles. Again, this is historical fiction of the intensely researched and amazingly complicated school. The Lymond Chronicles are about a young man named Francis Crawford of Lymond, the second son of the Earl of Midculter and his wife Lady Sybilla. Francis Crawford is many things over the course of the six books of this saga, an outlaw and a spy and a mercenary and a drug addict and a diplomat and a fool. But always he is a Scottish patriot at a time when Scotland was a small and independent country playing her chief rivals, France and England, off against each other in the hopes of retaining that independence. In the mid-1500’s, that time was running out.

Crawford commits crimes and treasons, both great and small, in the service of his country. He lives his life believing that the ends always justify the means and he never counts the cost to his own soul. Until near the end of his story, when he finally discovers that there is a woman who has grown to be his equal. Philippa Somerville set herself the task of cleaning up Crawford’s messes and tending to his victims almost ten years previously, and has been following him around Europe ever since he wrongly accused her father of betraying him.

But when they started, Philippa was a precocious 12-year-old, and Crawford was only 19. Both of them much too young for Crawford to declare at 29 that it was too late for him to love anyone. That he had seen too much and done too much for him to be worthy of love, or of being loved. Three scenes I come back to, over and over. The one in The Ringed Castle where Crawford realizes that Philippa is not the child he remembers, but a woman who has played music for kings and comforted queens, and is fully his equal, and that he loves her. Then he returns to his home and locks all his feelings away because he feels unworthy.  The night of the rooftop chase in Checkmate, when Philippa realizes that she loves Lymond, and feels rejected because she offered to share friendship, and he turns from her when she shows that she feels more. And last but not least, the conclusion at the end of Checkmate, when the prophecy from the opening of The Game of Kings is fulfilled.

Lymond was prophesied that he want two things, one he would have, and one he would not, nor was it right that he should. The answers are love, and his birthright. The story is everything.

What are your favorite love stories for Valentine’s Day?