When I first started
reading my mum’s Mills and Boon, the stories were so tame that it amazes me
they were considered for adults only. Apart from rapidly beating hearts and the
odd tummy flutter, there wasn’t a hint of sex. A lot didn’t even have kissing!
Today clean romance
sales are surging and while it’s fun to write for that genre, changes in
society means it’s more of a challenge to come up with a storyline and
characters that are authentic.
For instance, in my
mum’s time, nice girls just didn’t go to bed unless they were married. Well,
they did, but they pretended they didn’t.
As sex was taboo, wanting it and not doing it was perfectly believable
and provided authors with a neat method for promoting sexual tension.
Also, back in those
days, class was a lot more important. A secretary really was a step down or two
from her boss. And a girl who’d taken a course at a little college, was way
below a man who went to university. Again,
very simple, very understandable Obstacles To True Love.
The challenge for
writing clean romance therefore is not so much leaving out the sex scene but
explaining why you’re leaving it out.
If you have an office
situation, like Curtis and Emma in His Competent Woman, you can incorporate
modern values. At one point, Curtis is nervous about his interest in Emma being
perceived as inappropriate or perhaps even harassment. That is, I think, a very
real concern for modern men who fall for their colleagues.
For Love, Laughter andLots of Dogs, I wanted to explore how an old fashioned courtship might work in
modern times. So Kelly is a bit worried about the gossiping cats who destroy
reputations in her little village, and Cory had a very bad time with a previous
whirlwind romance. That was enough to provide them both with authentic reasons
to keep it vertical for a few months.
In Harvest Moon Homecoming by Jessie Gussman, Principal Calvin “Fink” Finkenbinder and Ellie
Bright are living in a small rural town where social standards mirror are very
definitely last century. Fink’s bosses look down on Ellie because she doesn’t
have a lot of formal education and as this might impact on Fink’s career, that
becomes an Obstacle To True Love.
It’s a fun idea that
works because of the setting. It would not have worked if Fink and Ellie were
living in New York or Los Angeles but in a small town, values are more likely
to be old-fashioned and as everyone is living on top of each other, gossip is
concentrated.
In real life those situations
would be heartbreaking but in novels, you know you can count on a Happily Ever
After. And that’s what matters, right?
My review of Harvest Moon Homecoming on Amazon UK:
I’ve had a bad couple
of months and so I was looking for a light, cheerful novel with nice people and
no angst. This hit the spot. Fink and Ellie are very nice people, getting on in
life, and discovering that they’re not too old for romance. It’s a clean
romance, so apart from a few kisses, it’s all about the relationship that develops.
I must say, I liked the farm details and the plot revolving around the American
tradition of having parades with floats was also a lot of fun.
Harvest Moon Homecoming
By Jessie Gussman
ASIN: B076HP2L1K
132 pages
Price:99 cents
By Jessie Gussman
ASIN: B076HP2L1K
132 pages
Price:99 cents
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