I’m a romance writer, which means I would be remiss if I ignored Valentine’s Day.

Right?

I have to be completely, straight-up honest. Hubby and I don’t really get into Valentine’s Day. We don’t do cards or chocolate or cute little teddy bears. It’s not because we’re not romantic people. It’s more because we’re not holiday people.

Before anyone gasps in shock and horror, let me assure you.

We enjoy holidays. We really do. 

I’m  just saying, there are two types of people in this world.

There are those who go balls to the wall with decorations and festive hats and holiday traditions. Like my aunt Marlene, who has earrings and sweaters and funny head apparel for every holiday known to man. Reindeer antlers and glittery Fourth of July top hats and fuzzy black cat ears. 

Then there are those like me and the hubs. Sometimes we watch fireworks on the Fourth of July. We hardly ever stay up until midnight on New Year’s Eve. We don’t hand out candy on Halloween because we’re too lazy to keep going to the door every other minute. And we don’t exchange cards on Valentine’s Day.

I will admit though. Our son had a Valentine’s Day party at preschool and everyone exchanged cards. It was incredibly cute watching Brogan choose the Valentine’s he wanted to give his little friends. He picked dinosaurs. When I got them out, he kept trying to play Memory with them.  

But I digress.

The point of this post is to talk about Valentine’s Day. 

And although I just admitted I don’t get into the holiday that much, I do have one Valentine’s Day in particular that I will always, always remember.

Four years ago. New York City.

Hubby and I decided to go for a long weekend.

On the last night, I had a dream that I took a pregnancy test and it was positive. I woke up in our hotel, The Wellington (sounds fancy, doesn’t it?), and was super bummed. I wanted to be pregnant.  So I decided to take a pregnancy test.

And guess what? It was positive!

Four years ago, I found out I was pregnant on Valentine’s Day in New York City with my husband. For the rest of the trip, we joked that if we had a boy, we should name him Wellington. We could call him Wells for short. It didn’t stick.  

By far, my favorite Valentine’s Day ever.

Let’s Talk: What do you think about Valentine’s Day? Tell me about your favorite Valentine’s Day memory. 

*photo by tashalynn0708

What say you?

Are they found or are they made?

Boy meets girl.

Boy chases girl.

Boy gets girl. 

Or switch the boy and girl, if you so please.

It’s a common plot for many a romance.

What’s not common is the age of the boy and the girl.

We’ve got Twilight, where the boy and the girl are in high school. (Granted, the boy is actually incredibly old…but let’s put that aside for the moment.)

We’ve got Remember Me, where the boy and the girl are somewhere in their 20s. 

We’ve got my most recent (and wonderful) read, When Sparrows Fall by Meg Moseley, where the boy and the girl are in their 40′s and upper 30′s.

We’ve got Letters to Juliette, where the boy and the girl have gray hair and wrinkled skin.

We’ve got The Notebook, where the boy and the girl go from high school, to young adult, to a nursing home. 

My question to you is….

Do you have a preference? Or does a good romance transcend age?

Let’s Talk: When you read or watch a romance, do you have an age you prefer the hero and heroine to be? If you write romance, do you find yourself gravitating to a certain age?

When the hubbers and I got married, the very first book we read together was The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman.

Great stuff. Seriously. Great, great stuff.

Even now, seven and a half years later, when either one of us is feeling unloved or unappreciated, we will say to each other, “My love tank is feeling empty.” And we know what’s up. We know how to fill it. 

Basically, there are five popular ways people express love. And often, how we express love is also how we receive it.

The five languages are:

• Acts of service
• Gift-giving
• Words of affirmation
• Quality time
• Physical touch

I’m an affectionate mom. My son has grown up with a mother who gives him too many hugs and too many kisses and too many cuddles and too many pinches. I can’t help it.

Have you seen little-boy underwear? I think it might be the cutest thing in the world. So when he’s walking up the steps in front of me with Mater on his tiny hiney, I really have no control over my pinches. 

Not to worry. He laughs and giggles and races up the stairs. 

And I promise I won’t continue when the little boy underwear turns into boxer briefs. I’m determined to give my child as few complexes as possible.

Anyway, I’m digressing.

This post is about affection.

It’s about how I grew up in a very affectionate home, where hugs and kisses were never lacking. It’s about how much I love to lavish that same affection on my wild-child of a son. And how precious our cuddle times are before bedtime, when he whispers, “I love you, Mommy” into my ear. And how sad I get when I think that someday, he won’t want to cuddle anymore. And how this last thought makes me want to treasure every single cuddle he gives me between now and then.

Let’s Talk: Did you grow up in an affectionate home? Are you an affectionate person? If your kids are older, at what point did they stop wanting to cuddle?  

What say you?

Does it exist or does it not?

I say no. It doesn’t.

And I might get absolutely slaughtered by the comment I’m about to make. Like, totally clobbered. So imagine me saying this from behind my couch.

But for me, love at first sight didn’t even exist with my child. Unlike the movies you see in Hollywood, I was not a teary-eyed mother overcome with emotion and love for my wee little babe. I was more like, “Thank you Lord that this kid is out of me and holy crow, he looks like my brother.”

I was enamored by my little one. And excited for what was to come. But I don’t think I fell in love with him the first time I saw his squishy, Elmer Fudd nose. He still felt like such a stranger.

It was over the course of sleepless nights and bare-skinned cuddles and his little fist wrapping around my finger and first smiles and all the other million things a mother experiences in that first month of motherhood that made me fall in love with my son.

So I’ll ask it again.

Let’s Talk: What say you? Does love at first sight exist?

*photo by Maxybonremovetweetmeme

Sometimes, I get funny reactions when I tell people I write Christian romance. They look at me like I’m nuts. Like the two terms are completely contradictory. Christian romance? Isn’t that some sort of oxymoron?

This reaction makes me sad. Oh so very sad. Because God invented romance. Jesus Christ’s sacrificial love for His Bride is the most romantic tale of all time.

So how did we get here?

To this place where romance novels elicit images of bodice rippers and half-naked Fabios? To this place where Christian and romance don’t fit in the same sentence?

Let’s Talk: What images come to mind when you hear “romance novel”? What’s the best romance novel you’ve ever read? What made it so good? And for the love of all that is holy, are there really women out there who think Fabio is cute?

Those words aren’t paired together too often. Yet whether you know it or not, the Bible is filled with romantic tales. And some of those tales are downright steamy.

We’ve got…

Adam and Eve
God created Eve for Adam. If that isn’t the definition of soul mates, I don’t know what is.

Rebecca and Isaac
A beautiful story of love at first sight.

Jacob, Leah, Rachel
One of history’s oldest recorded love triangles. With a twist. Instead of a woman choosing between two men, we have a man torn between two women.

Samson and Delilah
A story of deception and betrayal.

David and Bathsheba
The epitome of forbidden lust. With devastating consequences.

Ruth and Boaz
Ruth would get along well in our modern-day world. Because in this story, she’s the one who does the pursuing. And guess what? God blesses her boldness.

Esther and King Ahasuerus
Think Prince William and Kate’s story, only on steroids. A commoner marries royalty, but instead of happily ever after, she must use the king’s favor to rescue her people from death.

Hosea and Gomer
The Biblical version of Pretty Woman. A story of a man burdened with love for a fallen woman. The prophet and the prostitute.

Joseph and Mary
They fall in love. Get engaged. Mary gets pregnant. Only it’s not Joseph’s child. Then an angel appears and the story goes all paranormal.

Song of Songs
An entire book of the Bible written between two lovers. It drips with passion. In fact, anyone who thinks Christianity is a prude religion must have skipped this book.

Jesus and His Bride
Battered. Bruised. Broken. Marred with scars. Covered in filth. Yet Jesus looks upon her with so much love, so much yearning, so much passion, He lays down His life to rescue her.

Let’s Talk: Do you think of the Bible as romantic? Why or why not? Did I leave out some stories that should be included in the list?removetweetmeme

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The fun continues! Or at least I hope you’re having fun with me. This question is from Esther and includes a sneak peek into a scene from my upcoming novel, Wishing on Willows (releasing April, 2013).

So you see, my love-affair with romance started at a young age.

If you have any questions you’d like me to answer via vlog, please either write them in the comments section or shoot me an email. And if you’d like to see previous vlogs, you can subscribe to my youtube channel.

Let’s Talk: What genre do you read or write? What is it about this genre that draws you in?removetweetmeme