Don’t adjust your web browser. There’s nothing wrong with your computer. You haven’t dropped into the Twilight Zone, but Her Grace’s blog has come under temporary new management. She’s very graciously allowed me to fill in for her today. (Thanks, Grace!)
Since we just celebrated Valentine’s Day, I’ve been thinking about romantic love and how we identify the ONE. This is actually a fairly recent predicament. In times past, when marriages were often arranged with an eye to economic or social gain rather than love, couples didn’t have to angst over whether their intended was the ONE. As one of my fictional heroine’s mother advised, “Passion is a dish that flares hot, but then goes cold as a tomb often as not. An arranged match is like a cauldron set to simmer over a low fire. A nourishing broth heated evenly warms a body from the inside out.” (Sins of the Highlander, Jan 2012)
Love was something that might grow during the course of a long relationship. At least that was the hope.
Now we stand that process on its head, determined to discover that other ONE out of all the world whose crooks and wrinkles fit neatly with the flaws in our own soul. Someone to “complete” us before we commit to them.
What an impossibly tall order. Either way.
I’m reminded of the hero and heroine from Guys & Dolls. She’d imagined every bit of the man she’d someday marry even down to the “homey aroma of his pipe.” The hero, by contrast, was willing to leave matters to “chance and chemistry.” In the end, they were both surprised to discover that sense of oneness with someone entirely different than they’d imagined or hoped.
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What do you think? Is love something we fall into accidentally or grow into over time? Share your thoughts (and/or experience!) and you’ll be entered to win an ARC of my upcoming release Touch of a Rogue. (Publishers Weekly named this book one of its TOP TEN BEST ROMANCES for SPRING 2012!)
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Mia Marlowe writes historical romance with a pinch of magic for Sourcebooks and Kensington. She loves to connect with readers and invites you to visit her cyber-home MiaMarlowe.com. While you’re there, be sure to enter her contest! You can also find her on Twitter and Facebook.
