Day Two: Love at First Page

U[image error]gh.  These past couple of weeks have been less than ideal in this part of the world.  I heard news about a friend, very disappointing news, and since I genuinely liked him it actually hurt.  It’s funny, we go through our world doing what we do and thinking no one cares…I do, I tend to think I am very out-of-sight-out-of-mind…but maybe, maybe people do, and maybe it all does matter.

Yes.  I tend to maunder just before bed.  ANYWAY.  The entry:

The first time I ever read a romance novel was Jude Deveraux’s A Knight in Shining Armor.  It starts out as a contemporary – Douglas is in a terrible relationship.  She and her hoped for fiancé and his bratty daughter abandon her in a cemetery.  She’s broken hearted, and her sobbing can be heard by the man whose tomb she’s crying against – Nicholas Stafford, who is a prisoner in the time of Elizabeth.  Somehow she draws him forward and they try to solve the mystery of who got him into prison.  She grows as a person – he is an Earl from the 1600’s, and she becomes stronger as she deals with him, and falls in love as he changes a bit, too.  It’s splendid.  And then he gets drawn away…and she ends up following him into the past.  These chapters, too, are delightful escapism as a modern woman tries to fit in, and tries to solve the mystery.  (One of my favorite bits is when she creates a fried chicken and potato salad picnic using things from that time.  So fun.)

I remember all this, and I’ve not read the book in at least 20 years.  Most of you are probably like, “So what?”  but I barely remember what happens in Blue Moon or Unbalanced, and I wrote those books.  XD  (OK, I probably remember them about equally well, though I do have fears that I’ll write something and someone will be like “Yes, that was a cool scene…un Unbalanced!”)

I hope with the success of Outlander, maybe this book will get on the screen, too.  It has all the elements.  It is an awesome story.

In the great book purge I got rid of a ton of my romance novels – some of them don’t work for me any longer because the various pieces of baggage in my life…but I kept my Deveraux’s, as well as the books by Medieros, Quick, Kinsale and Sutcliffe.