Romance Around the World: Wales

Wales: A Country of Majesty and Tradition
 

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Wales is a country with incredible scenery, culture and history. It is an ancient land with rugged coastlines, soaring mountains and beautiful National Parks. Inhabited by modern humans for more than 29 000 years, it is known for its medieval castles, Welsh language and Celtic culture. The Welsh people have distinct romantic traditions such as lovespoons which young men would carve for women as a sign of their affection.


Some beautiful romantic novels have been written about this special country. Here are the details of three books, I especially enjoyed.

After Forever Ends by Melodie Ramone

This beautifully constructed novel tells of a love to last a lifetime. Sylvia is from Scotland. She lost her mother at a young age, and her father is somewhat preoccupied. She goes to boarding school in Wales where she meets and falls in love with Oliver Dickinson, a rebellious young man and a twin. The story is told from the viewpoint of Sylvia, now widowed and a grandmother. She decides to return to the Welsh cottage in the woods where she lived most of her life. There is magic in the woods.

The Tides Between by Elizabeth Jane Corbett

 

This young adult novel with elements of romance introduces us to Bridie, a creative and imaginative young woman, migrating to Port Phillip Bay with her stressed mother and practical stepfather. She befriends a Welsh couple, Rhys and Sian. Rhys, a musician who suffers from agoraphobia, was regarded as a coward in his home town. Sian has special healing powers. We follow Bridie’s journey to adulthood and growing realisation of her love for Rhys.

Thunder and Roses by Mary Jo Putney

 

When Nikki is a young boy, he is taken by his gypsy mother to live with his wealthy, titled Welsh grandfather. Feeling abandoned by his mother and scorned by his grandfather, he grows up, inherits the earldom and totally neglects the estate. Clare Morgan, the orphaned daughter of an impoverished Methodist minister confronts Nikki about the starving people in the village and the dangerous mine on his estate. She asks for his assistance. He counteroffers. What he wants is her reputation. If she will live with him platonically for three months, he will give her what she asks.



Have you been to Wales? Which part of the country did you like best? What is your favourite romance novel, set in this beautiful country?

I love to love: I went out to dinner the other night with my father, sister and husband. A very special evening.

I love to laugh: I saw 'Crazy, Rich Asians' at the cinema yesterday. This film is so much fun.

I love to learn: We visited some of the monasteries in Meteora, Greece on our recent overseas trip. The meaning behind the artworks and the ancient traditions of the monks are absolutely fascinating.

The TBR Mountain - How I'm Taking Back Control

by Enisa Haines

Image courtesy of: giphy.com

Back in the days when life was simpler, a mix of school/university and leisure time, I hadn't met the TBR pile. I was always reading, devouring in a few days the ten romance novels Harlequin Mills & Boon published every month. Yes, ten novels. Soon a new publisher appeared, Silhouette Books, and the ten books per month grew to twenty. I could cope with that.

Then an explosion happened in the romance novel publishing industry. New publishers emerged, offering sub-genres never before published: romantic suspense, futuristic, fantasy, paranormal and Gothic. Harlequin Mills & Boon introduced new category lines. So many books vying for my attention but life was no longer simple, family and work obligations and using spare moments to write hacking away at my reading time. And the TBR pile took up residence in my home. Five books stacked on my bedside table.

Then the bedside table morphed into one bookcase, then two, then three, the shelves overflowing as the five books unread multiplied to 1500. Add the 1000+ eBooks waiting to be read on my Amazon Kindle app (eReader News Today daily bargain deals sure are tempting) and my stack is now a mountain!

How did my TBR pile get so out of control? I love books. Too much, I now admit. I'll see a promo for a new book release or I'll read a review and I'm purchasing, so I know I won't ever stop buying, but I have to take control of my unread books and work through that mountain. How?

Image courtesy of: giphy.com

I've come up with a plan:

• Resist buying more books to replace the ones read or donated (most important)
• Read the back cover blurb and the first page. Does it grab my attention? 
• Read the first chapter. Do I want to read on?                                                                                   (if the answer to either question is 'no', the book goes in the 'Donate to charity' box)

Am I being too ruthless? Sure, but ruthless I have to be to cull my TBR mountain.

Do you have a TBR pile? Is it out of control? How do you deal with it?


Love to love: reading romance novels

Love to laugh: at the funny gifs I find as I search the internet

Love to learn: all the ways how to tame my TBR pile

The Ethics of Writing

by Tory Hayward

Ethics and writing seems straightforward enough at first. Do not plagiarise, and that is about it. Don't take the work of others and pass it off as your own.

But if we dig a little deeper it becomes much less simple. Writing a story produces a 'truth,' or as Judy Nunn said in an interview on the Morning Show on the ABC the other week, "Reading is always a learning experience." Even when the reader knows they are reading fiction, they still learn from what you have written.

So does that then behoove writers to write meticulously researched novels? To produce some educational tome? Well of course not. It's fiction. Real facts can be woven into our stories, but in some instances there are no real facts. Our stories are imaginary worlds, and it's perfectly acceptable that our facts are imaginary too. How can the writer who has her romance set on a planet in a distant galaxy be writing something based on an accepted fact? Neither she nor her reader expect it.

Which brings us to the issue of context. Can the Aussie-born writer with no Asian heritage write an Asian heroine? And if not, where is the line that a writer cannot cross? Can an erotica writer write a story that romanticises a taboo relationship?

As we all know, a writer can write whatever they like, and in these days of self-publishing can find somewhere to publish it. And this is how it should be. Imagine for a moment a world where there were rules about who could write what. It would be a grey, dictatorial world at the very least.

I like to subscribe to Oscar Wilde's view:

Books are well written or badly written. That is all.

So go forth, my writerly friends. Leap into our uncensored world where it is ethical to write unethically. Twist facts, push the status quo, and let truth in your writing simply be your truth.  Everything is possible.