Falling in Love, Time After Time

My fellow bloggers here at Classic & Cozy have written about their conversations and tussles with their characters, especially the heroes. Writers do have the extraordinary privilege of inexhaustible companionship and playmates but I think Romance writers have the best of all possible outcomes.

We get to fall in love, over and over, time after time, as often as our imaginations create the heroes who fulfill all our heroines’ dreams. If we, as creators, don’t fall in love with that guy, how can we expect our heroine to do so?

I’m doubly fortunate in my romantic fictional writing (triply if you consider my personal, real-life romance, to be revealed in February). Not only do I have the opportunity to fall in love with men like David Gitano, Eric Wasserman, Brad Foster and most recently, the soon to be introduced, Mike Argent, I also, writing as Lily Dewaruile, have had the pleasure of meeting and forming lasting relationships with Medieval Welsh heroes such as Garmon Dolwyddlan and his younger friend, Geraint Padarn, who cross my mind and swell my heart from time to time.

However, they have the misfortune of being in competition with my first love, Jehan-Emíl deFreveille, hero and patriarch of my first Medieval romance, set in Wales, Book One of the Pendyffryn series, Invasion. But even Jehan could not stop me from falling for Christophe Maides, his closest friend, who stole my heart when I least expected to be susceptible, especially not to desperate men, adventurers, the worst and the best of their profession—9^th Century soldiers of fortune. And Christophe gave way to his father, Gilles de Maides, in the fifth book, Reconciliation, set in Armenia. 

Mike Argent, hero of my forthcoming “Americans in Love” novel, This Can’t Be Love, will soon leave me, to take his place among the other heroes I have loved and let go, to woo someone else. I don’t mind. Mike has been a delightful compagnon du coeur, during the many months we have been together, as was Bradford Foster of Nights Before fame. I’m sure others will do their best to make up to me for his loss.

I will soon be head over heels in love again. This time with Jehan-Emíl’s second son, Marshal who takes the stage in Justice. And once I have ensured that this wild young man is suitably entrenched in a relationship with the shy and studious apothecary, Tanglwystll, I will abandon him to his fate for the quiet byways of 1870s rural Maine where the kind and industrious, Evie, will encounter G. Rupert Smith, in Pavane for Miss Marcher.

No doubt Evie will entice Rupert away from me. This is as it should be since, as soon as I met her, I knew the sort of man she needed to combat the bullies in her life.  

My fickle love life is never-ending. Falling in love with heroes is as natural as breathing, ask any Romance writer. 

Can We Trust Historians?

One of my recent works in progress is an historical romance set in New England during a turbulent period of American history. 

In order to write any historical fiction, some semblance of having done one's research is critical. Last month, one of my colleagues had been asked to review a novel set in a period of history in which she is a known scholar. Her estimation of the novel was low because the historical facts were at variance with her knowledge. The author included actual historical figures who had not yet been born, wrote about events that had happened decades earlier than the era current with his story. 

These, if aware of the period in question, can halt a reader in their tracks and send the book hurling across the room. But how precise do fiction writers need to be to give the impression of verisimilitude? 

Another of my colleagues has studied the history of clothing and medicine. Fortunately, I haven't made serious mistakes in my historical novels set in Wales in the 9th and 10th centuries for her to rush at me screaming but I was dismayed that so much of what we assume to be authentic is, at best, a misunderstanding and, at worst, downright dishonest.

While undertaking research for my American historical, I've learned that the saying "History is written by the victors" is disturbingly true. History cannot be accepted without question. All history is subjective, in the hands of the person or persons doing the recording, for whatever their reasons for presenting 'facts' or presiding over the elimination of other, inconvenient, 'facts.'

The same colleague who screams when she finds errors in fashion or medical treatment, declared that there was only one 'right' side of any conflict involving mankind: the side perceived by historians to be morally correct. However, there is another saying worth remembering: "The first casualty of war is Truth."

I had the honor of editing two volumes of women's autobiographical essays of their experiences  in Wales during World War II. While these were personal experiences and written in good faith, memory is always selective and sometimes faulty. 

Any personal account of an historical event may also be self-serving or deliberately falsified in order to put the chronicler in a good light or on the politically acceptable side of history.

Surely, when we are hundreds of years distant from an historical event that shaped our lives, we owe it to ourselves to take a deeper look, to find the Truth hidden by the convenient facts.  If we perpetuate untruths for lack of research, or will, we do ourselves and our readers a disservice. 

Mistakes about who was born or what events were taking place are much lesser sins than deliberate distortion. There is one more saying that encourages us to seek answers: "The Truth shall set you free." 

Travel Makes the Heart Grow Broader

Aberglasney Gardens, © Leigh Verrill-Rhys

Some of us are born with wanderlust firmly lodged in our DNA. While we might be rooted in a village or a crowded city, our instincts are hungry for other places: faraway places or simply places we have never been.

For those of us who don’t have the opportunity to travel, there are books: history, travel guides, coffee table photography collections.

And for those of us who want more from our "armchair" wanderlust, there are novels. Charles Dickens will take us to Victorian England. Gabriel Garcia Marquez brings us to the countries of South America, as does Isabel Allende and, with Miguel Asturias, we explore Central America. If we chose, we can visit Japan in the company of Kobo Abe or Africa with Chinua Achebe. Frank Waters takes his readers to the American Southwest of Native Americans and we learn about the experiences of settlers and frontiers men in the early west from Zane Grey.

Jane Austen is our authentic source of what life was like for young women of the early 19^th Century and George Eliot gave us the women of the English country and town in the middle of the same century. Edith Wharton took us to the fashionable, constricted society of New York at the end of this century.

Novels in all genres provide the same pleasurable excursions to the exotic, the sublime and the strange. A sense of place is one of the essential elements of fiction. Without that, we flounder in the ether. Despite our desire for adventure, we want to be sure of our place in this fictional world.

For those of we wanderers who write, this allows us the exceptional opportunity to satisfy our inborn curiosity about our world under the guise of research.

Where do you like to spend your time exploring the fictional world?

We can start right here with the authors contributing to Classic & Cozy. For instance, Loretta C. Rogers writes historical fiction about the American West, including some places and events we wouldn’t consider ‘western’ at all. Sandy Cody writes mysteries, one of which takes place along the Mississippi River. Sierra Donovan writes sweet, contemporary romances set in the atmosphere of ‘small town’ America. For those who like sweet historical romances, set in the Adirondack Mountain region of New York State, Tracey Lyons is your lady.

I have selected these colleagues solely at random and if you click on any of the names to the right of this post, you’ll find some of the best in the genres of classic and cozy romance, western, fantasy and mystery novels.

Pentre Ifan Cromlech, Penfro, Cymru

If you are keen on the mysterious beaches of paradise, have a peak at Marty Ambrose’s list of books. We also have Kathye Quick’s multi-genre efforts for historical romance, urban fantasy and contemporary romance. Speaking of contemporary romance, I’ve been known to contribute a few novels to this sub-genre, as well as historical romances set in medieval Wales under my pen name, Lily Dewaruile.

Happy traveling!