Welcome Back to Romance...

Just in time for Valentine's Day!

Many of us who write romance novels were influenced by a host of gifted authors in past decades.  These books, once beloved by many, might not be as well-received by today’s readers. The writing is loose and conversational.  Filter words and dialogue tags abound.  Plots develop slowly.  The stories are rife with internal monologue—and telling.  Characters require most of the novel to learn, change, and grow.

Here are three of my favorites, with gratitude to the authors—for hours of reading pleasure and for inspiring the writer within us.

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Years (1986)

LaVyrle Spencer

Linnea Bradenborg expects to find culture and excitement in Alamo, North Dakota, where she's recently been hired as the new schoolteacher.  Instead, she finds a sparse little town in the middle of nowhere.  Better yet, her train is met by a cantankerous wheat farmer named Theodore Westgaard who doesn't bother to hide his displeasure when he discovers that L.I. Brandenborg is a woman and not the man he was expecting.  Westgaard thinks twice about bringing Linnea home to live with him, but he soon realizes that he has no choice.  All of the town's past schoolteachers have lived with the Westgaard family--made up of Theodore, his mother, and his teenaged son--due to their farm being located very near the schoolhouse, and so Theodore allows Linnea into his home.  But who could have guessed that this young, independent woman would soon find her way into the handsome farmer's heart?  A compelling classic to be read again and again, Years is a fitting tribute to the pioneer schoolteachers who braved many hardships to share the gift of knowledge with countless children. --Maudeen Wachsmith

*Available on Amazon.  Would suggest the hardcover or paperback versions; the eBook was not properly formatted.

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Lightning (1988)

Dean Koontz

*Although considered a suspense/horror novelist, this earlier work by Dean Koontz is a special love story...

                                        

A storm struck on the night Laura Shane was born, and there was a strangeness about the weather that people would remember for years.  But even more mysterious was the blond-haired stranger who appeared out of nowhere—the man who save Laura from a fatal delivery.  Years later—another bolt of lightning—and the stranger returned, again, to save Laura from tragedy.  Was he the guardian angel he seemed?  The devil in disguise?  Or the master of a haunting destiny beyond time and space?

*Available on Amazon

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A Knight in Shining Armor

(1989 - new edition 2002)

Jude Deveraux

Once upon a time...as a fair maiden lay weeping upon a cold tombstone, her heartfelt desire was suddenly made real before her: tall, broad of shoulder, attired in gleaming silver and gold, her knight in shining armor had come to rescue his damsel in distress…

Abandoned by her lover, thoroughly modern Dougless Montgomery finds herself alone and brokenhearted in an old English church. She never dreamed that a love more powerful than time awaited her there...until Nicholas Stafford, Earl of Thornwyck, a sixteenth-century knight, appeared. Drawn to him by a bond so sudden and compelling that it defied reason, Dougless knew that Nicholas was nothing less than a miracle: a man who would not seek to change her, who found her perfect just as she was. But she could not know how strong were the chains that tied them to the past—or the grand adventure that lay before them.

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Have you read any of these novels?  If so, please share your comments.  If not, then pick up a copy in the format of your choice...and enjoy!

Happy reading and happy writing~

Linda