Happy Valentines Day! I thought long and hard about the topic of this post. I felt like I should pay homage to the one day where Cupid has free reign to wreak romantic havoc, but wasn't quite sure how. I started to think about defining love, or discussing the importance of romance in literature.
I couldn't quite find the words. So I decided to get some help - I turned to a few of the authors whose books have recently inspired and impressed me. I asked them to help me define the meaning of true love. Here's what they had to say:
True love is caring for someone through their worst moments with the same tenderness as their best. It's loving "because of" rather than "in spite of".
~ Betsy Schow
(Betsy's book Finished Being Fat has become a nationwide phenomenon. For more information, read her post here...)
True love is the last soldier standing on the battlefield of your life. It is the person who leads the charge against your foes, and when everyone else has retreated or fallen, still flies your colors.
Friends and acquaintances flee, hopes vanish, one by one,people disappoint or disappear.
And when you look over the battlefield of your life, the casualties and the costs, you see the silhouette of one person who will not surrender your dreams, or accept defeat. You see one person who will always believe you are worth the fight.
That is true love.
~ Regina Sirois
(Regina won the 2012 YA Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award for her book On Little Wings, which is being released late May, and can be pre-ordered on Amazon)
February is a good time for love stories (but really, is there ever a bad time? I will have to test that hypothesis). There are your own, of course, but fiction is usually more reliable--who doesn't have at least one dismal Valentine's day in the chapters of their life? And even though I am exceedingly happy with my own Dearest Love, sometimes I still like to escape to Thornfield. Dearest Love doesn't quite understand why I love Edward Rochester. "He's horrible! He lies, he's always sulking--what's wrong with St John Rivers? He's a nice guy."
Don't get me started. I suppose there are many reasons why one shouldn't fall in love with Edward Rochester, least of all that he isn't real (I can't believe I just said that. Is it pathetic, that the words seem to sting just a little?)
Yes it is. But I'd rather be pathetic than deny myself Jane Eyre. It is a Book with a capital B, the kind I can open it at any place and tumble into without a backward glance. I have a small stash of books like this, with dog eared pages and shredding covers. (Quite a number of them are romances).
Love is a wonderful thing, whether it's your own, or pressed onto pages. Scarlet and Rhett, Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy, Maxim de Winter and his unnamed wife, Anne and Gilbert . . . I have loved reading them all. But I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks true love means Theo and Mickle, Harriet and Rom, or Freddy and Kit. Who means true love to you?
~ Jaima Fixsen
(Jaima's debut YA novel Fairchild is a Regency Era retelling of the classic fairytale The Princess and the Pea. You can find it here on Amazon).
I'd love to hear from all of you! Leave a comment on this post, and tell us what you think.
True Love Is....
Also.... Before I forget....
Last week, I announced a giveaway for an Ebook of Fairchild. Jaima handpicked a name, and the winner is....
Christie Wright Wild!
Congratulations! Leave a comment letting me know how I can get in contact with you.
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