My mama had a saying…”Some days are diamonds and some
days are rocks.” For me, the past year was a mountain of rocks.
In my previous posting, so many months ago, I spoke
of my sister’s death. A few months later, my 89-year-old mother-in-law
succumbed to complications of a broken hip suffered from a fall off my front
porch. Then I had foot surgery, my husband had shoulder surgery, an incorrectly
installed humidifier in the attic created havoc in my kitchen that has taken
months to repair. My computer copped a mean streak and became utterly useless. And,
to add insult to injury, we discovered earthquake damage to my studio…like I
said, a mountain of rocks!
Amidst all of this, a diamond fell into my lap. I was
invited to be one of six authors to contribute to an anthology. I’ve
participated in over a dozen such collections and there is nothing like the
thrill of seeing hard work in print. However, this anthology had stipulations.
First, all stories were to be a light romance, each in a different genre.
My assignment was nostalgic romance. Seemed
appropriate since I’m most comfortable writing in the past. Nostalgia, after
all, is a sentimental yearning for a remembered era. Scene, props, dialogue,
situations, should stimulate memories of another time period.
Never written a romance, but I can do this, I
thought. It was the second stipulation that gave me pause. Each story was to
incorporate food in some way. Any food, central to the story or not, could be
used with a recipe to follow the story.
A romance involving food?
Visions of whipped cream and chocolate syrup swirled
in my head. Once I shook free of that apparition, I pondered all the elements
required. And, then, the proverbial light bulb clicked on. Many times, Mom
shared an incident involving food and my father, often ending the story with
another one of her sayings, “Wisdom has it that the way to a man’s heart is
through his stomach. Thank heavens for exceptions.”
Suddenly I was comfortably in the past, remembering
summer evenings lying on a quilt in the backyard and talking. Just the two of
us, me and Mama. She was warm and funny and certainly dramatic, burning her own
memories into mine.
Over the next several weeks, forgotten facts surfaced
as I sat at the computer––Mom’s favorite songs, favorite nail polish, tricks
her boy cousins played, being courted by the college Casanova, and the day the
world nearly ended.
Against the backdrop of big bands and World War II, a
mostly-true romance story with all the required elements developed. While facts
are blended with fiction in “Casanova Comes to Dinner,” by virtue of the telling, two people have been immortalized for
their descendants.
And that, above all, pleases me. It is my personal
mission to encourage others to write their ancestor stories. Eventually the
storyteller is gone. Written history ensures that personalities and events aren’t
forgotten. Hopefully, it guarantees the future will know what they owe to the
past.
To quote the book’s cover copy, “Romance – the Spice of Life is an anthology of love in all its
manifestations.” Readers are guaranteed to find something to satisfy every appetite
in this collection, because each novella encompasses a different genre –– suspense,
historical, inspirational, paranormal, contemporary, and nostalgia.
In “Casanova Comes to Dinner,” pretty Melba Kalkins
is determined to prove that Professor Dalmayer’s theories on the physical
attributes of the human body are not correct. She ignores her best friend’s
warning and sets about capturing a college Casanova’s heart.
Fellow authors are: Linda Trout, who weaves a thrilling story of suspense around a
deadly plane crash and kidnapper in “Shattered Promises”; Kathlyn Smith reveals the hand of God in affairs of the heart
proving that love the second time around is a beautiful blessing in “Sips &
Slices”; Lynn Somerville’s “Getting
it Right” encounters one very ticked-off ghost proving that even from the
grave, the dead can scheme; Nita Beshear,
sets characters, different as night and day, in an early Oklahoma Choctaw
settlement in “Muskadine Love”; and Gloria
Teague finds the only thing
worse than your daughter dating your new husband’s son is when they break up in
a story aptly titled, “Family Feud.”
As an added bonus, included at the end of every
story, is the recipe for the food element woven into each romantic tale. If you
like turning actual pages, it is available as a paperback on Amazon.com. Or, if you have
jumped into the electronic age, it can be downloaded as a Kindle. Yes, this is
shameless promotion.
Read and enjoy six very different romances; then sit
down and record your own, “How Mama met Daddy,” story. You won’t be sorry you
made the effort.
Did you know: According to a 2006 statistic, romance novels
captured 40% of all book sales. While romantic liaisons figured in early
literature (i.e. Romeo and Juliet),
the modern concept of romance novels didn’t occur until Samuel Richardson
published Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded
in 1740. This was the first popular novel to be based on a courtship as told from the perspective of the
heroine.
