“A glorious love story that spans centuries, worlds, and souls…. Enchanting and extraordinary.”
—Chicago Daily Herald
Part One
1
New York City
1994
You can’t be happy in this life because of what happened in your past lives.
What would you think if someone said that to you? You’d think, “It’s hopeless, why bother trying.” Right? Or would you think, “The woman telling me this is crazy and I’d better get me and all my worldly goods out of here?”
Or would you be like me and think, “A story! Everyone’s into time travel now and nobody’s doing past lives, so maybe I can ask a lot of questions and make a story from this lady’s answers.”
This last is what I thought when I first met Nora because I am a writer inside and out. There isn’t one molecule of me that isn’t geared toward, How can I use this in a story?
People are always asking me how I came to be a writer. I’d like to have an answer that would please them. I’d like to say that I was walking through a meadow full of tiny blue flowers when a beautiful woman in a silver dress appeared and bopped me on the head with her wand. She had a golden voice and said, “I am giving you the gift of writing. Go forth and write.”
Sometimes I think that people want to hear that I was “chosen,” rather like a prophet. But you know, whenever you read about prophets, they always cry to God, “Oh Lord, why me?” Sometimes I think being “chosen” isn’t a gift, it’s a curse.
At any rate, I have just told you why I became a writer. I make up stories about everything. Absolutely everything on earth. I see something, hear something, read something, and my mind starts creating a story.
Storytelling is natural to me. When people ask me how I came to be a writer, what I want to ask in return is, What is in your head in place of stories? What do you think about while listening to a terminally boring speech? While driving a car? While putting the sixth load of wash in the machine? To me, this is the real mystery of life. I already know what’s inside my head, but what is inside other people’s heads if not stories?
Well, anyway, now that I am a full-fledged writer (that means I need no outside job to pay the bills) I find that we writers have a little club that we’re all supposed to be loyal to. The Hippocratic oath is nothing compared to this.
Since I don’t want to lose my writing membership, I’ll say what I’m supposed to. It’s bloody hard work writing. What is that thing someone said about opening a vein and spilling your blood onto the paper? Well, it’s true. Writing is really, really hard work. By golly, I bet I sit on my fanny six to ten hours a day. I pace the floor thinking about “what happens next.” I have a publishing house that sends me flowers and money every time I turn in a book.
Now, really, does it sound like a writer suffers more than, say, a secretary? She has to be awakened by an alarm clock (I wake when I want to), get the kids and hubby off, work for a boss who never praises her, then do another shift of work when she gets home. And no one ever says, “Wow, you’re a secretary. How did you get to be one?”
I guess we all do whatever we can. If you can drive a truck, you do that. If you can hassle people without conscience, you become a lawyer. If you have stories in your head you write them down. To me being a writer isn’t any different—and not nearly as important—as most other professions. But it seems that the world doesn’t agree with me. The world at large has decided that writers are smarter, more astute, more enlightened, more whatever than other people, so they treat them with awe and reverence.
My opinion is that we should have a National Profession Lottery and every year about ten professions would be drawn from a hat, and for that year all the praise would go to the people in those professions. They should have best-seller lists, receive fan letters, have autographing parties, and have something like a publishing house to praise them and give them gifts.
See? There I go again with a story. Give me a keyboard and I can’t stop.
However, about these ten professions to be chosen, I want to make it clear that there is one “profession” that is too evil to be included in this lottery. Book reviewers. Specifically, romance book reviewers.
Maybe I should tell you right now so, if you are offended, you can stop reading this book. I write romances.
There, I’ve said it. It’s out in the open.
For all the joy of my life, there
is one aspect of it that is really and truly quite awful. Shockingly awful. And that is the way the world looks at romance novels, at romance readers, and above all, at romance writers!
Isn’t the world a weird place? I saw a man on Oprah who was admitting that he’d had sex with his daughter several times when she was a child. Nearly every actor/singer tells the world he/she has done every drug known and hurt or driven away most of the people in their lives.
And how are all these people greeted? With love, that’s how. With love and understanding and sympathy.
But here I am and what do I do? I write funny little romantic stories about men and women who fall in love with each other. The wildest thing they do is make a baby or two. No drugs. No incest. No one boiling anyone and doing heaven only knows what else to them. I don’t even have people plotting clever ways to kill someone. I just invent stories about what we all dream about: having someone to love who loves us in return.
You’d think that the very thought of a romance writer would bring a smile to people’s lips. Ah, how nice. Love. Making love. Laughter. Kissing.
But no, the world is upside down as far as I can see, and romances and their writers are ridiculed, hissed, and generally spat upon.
And for what reasons? One of my favorites is that women who read them might get mixed up about reality and imagine a man is going to rescue them from Life. According to this theory, women are so stupid that they can’t tell a story from reality. Is anyone worried that the men who read spy thrillers are going to go after their neighbors with an automatic weapon? No, I don’t remember anyone thinking that. Nor do I remember anyone worrying about murder mysteries or science fiction. It just seems to be dumb ol’ women who might think some gorgeous, thoughtful, giving hunk is going to rescue them.
Honey, if any woman thought a gorgeous hunk was going to rescue her, romance novels wouldn’t be forty percent of the publishing industry.
Anyway, back to the reviewers. These smart young people graduate from college with dreams of working on some magazine of intellectual merit, and what happens to them? Some old man who no longer has stars in his eyes decides to teach the young whippersnapper a lesson about life so he gives this child the lowest job in all the industry: reviewing romance novels!
Guess who bears the brunt of the newly graduated person’s rage? Eighty grand spent on education and they are given a book to read that has a nursing mother cover (so called because of the size of the you-know-whats and the obviously about-to-be-lowered bodice [Quiz: do you think a man or a woman invented these covers?]).
Anyway, this person takes her/his rage out on me, the romance writer. The lowest creature on earth. A housewife with a bank account.
Rule number one for reviewing a romance novel: compare the book to the best book you’ve ever read. If it does not live up to Jane Austen, then use about sixty grand of your education to cut this writer down in the nastiest way possible. If, however, you should make the error of liking the book, write that “Readers of Hayden Lane should like this one.” Whatever you do, don’t stick your neck out and actually say you liked the book. If you allow anyone to think you like romances, you’ll never get promoted to reviewing the “good” books.