My historical romance debut novel, The Winds of Autumn, has been a labor of love for me. Little did I know, this journey would be less about me telling the story and more about my characters telling me what to write. It’s their love story after all. I just needed to pay attention and listen.
Now, I can step back and see my story from afar. To remember my characters, Mariah and Julian, and their first kiss.
One of the themes in my novel is believing the impossible is possible. It’s a theme that resonates in other parts of our lives too. Think of obstacles you’ve faced in your own life – those times when you wanted to give up on a dream or a goal – but something inside kept you believing in yourself. In my novel, that moment when all hope seems lost, the impossible happens. Mariah and Julian kiss their first kiss. And as their love story unfolds, that one kiss keeps them believing that their love is meant to be.
Looking at it in a humorous way, author William J. Locke describes this puzzling kiss in his 1921 novel, The Mountebank, where he writes, “A kiss must mean either very much or very little. There are maidens to whom it signifies a life’s consecration. There are men whose blood it fires with burning passion.”
What is it about this physical touch that has the power to move mountains?
Locke says, “A kiss may be the very devil of a thing leading to two or three dozen honourably born grandchildren…or to celebrate addiction to cats…or to the Fall of Troy…Volumes could be written on it.”
And volumes have been written, and will continue to be. Readers like you who love to read about the magic of romance give writers like me the inspiration to write about it.
