Did you all enjoy yesterday's post? If you haven't checked it out, please do so by clicking here.
Today I welcome author Marie Hall to Write By Bethany. Marie is
Take away, Marie Hall...
I
first picked up Pride and Prejudice in high school. It was a school assignment
and I wasn’t too keen on the idea. My idea of a period romance was going to be
a book full of big words I couldn’t understand, completely unrelatable
characters, the ultimate snooze fest. Four hours after opening the book I was
done and my world was forever changed. How could a woman who lived so long ago
perfectly capture the spirit of love, desire, jealousy, and betrayal?
Realizing
I may have just stumbled across a new genre of books never before read to me I
picked up Northanger Abbey, Mansfield Park, Sense and Sensibility. Though none
of them quite captured my attention the way Mr. Darcy had, they were all very
good. On a quest now to search out new authors I picked up the Bronte’s. I’ll
be the first to say that I hated Wuthering Heights. To me that was most
definitely not a romance, but a tragedy. As I’ve grown older I’ve come to
appreciate the complexities and psychology of the story but I would still
hesitate to call it a romance. That said, Jane Eyre stole my breath away. Mr.
Rochester specifically. Wow, what an anti-hero. He was brusque, MARRIED, and
just downright nasty. But I loved him. Loved everything about him. I loved the
dark edge to him, how he could put on a show for others, but how with Jane he
dared to be his true self.
Mr.
Darcy and Mr. Rochester shaped my idea of what a wonderful hero could actually
be. Someone who on the surface seemed so wrong and just horrid, but who in the
end, you couldn’t help but root for. It is that archetype, more than any other
that I love writing to this day. In a lot of ways Rumpelstiltskin is an amalgam
of the two. Haughty, disdainful, and yet there’s something in him that calls to
the heroine because she can see beyond the mask to the wounded man beneath.
Thanks to two ladies who lived centuries ago I feel like I’ve found my true
calling in life and I could not be happier. After all, isn’t that what romance
is all about? Happily ever after.
Marie didn't mention it, but she has a brand-new release out in the Alphas After Dark anthology. Her story is entitled Rumpel's Prize (which I reviewed in this post) and is a part of her Kingdom series. You can get your copy of Alphas After Dark on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
