My Valentine’s Day Trifecta
Valentine’s Day is my kind of day. I was a romantic before I ever wrote a single romance, and once I did that – and discovered that people loved reading what I wrote – there was no end to my hearts-and-flowers imagination. All told, I wrote fifty romances, sometimes eight a year, I was that into it. But being a romance writer wasn’t, in fact, entirely hearts and flowers. There were friends who politely told me that they didn’t read “that kind of book.” Worse, there was the family member who actually told me she didn’t read “that kind of trash.” There were booksellers who hid me in a back corner when I came for a signing, rather than up front, where other visiting authors sat. And then there were people (male, usually, like the one selling me my first computer) who blithely said, “So now all you have to do is cut-and-paste different names, and you have a new book.”
People like this are ignorant. They’re also hypocrites, if the attention they give to Valentine’s Day means anything. Valentine’s Day is a huge commercial event, a day when even the emotionally squeamish are allowed to indulge in red roses and chocolate kisses. How appropriate it is, then, that the first of my two romance trilogies has just debuted in e-book form!
Trilogies are commonplace now, but when I wrote these in the early ‘90s they were not. I was at a stage in my career when the 200-page restriction of the romance genre was starting to chafe. Three books would give me a whopping 600 pages in which to tell my story. I had no problem with that story being divided into thirds.
So I conceived of a seaside book involving a gorgeous old Colonial home on a hill that its owner could no longer support, expansive acreage that included a pine grove, meadow, and duck pond, and a conglomerate willing to build homes, condos, and harbor shops in the tasteful way the owner wanted. Picture together (in Valentine’s Day mode) that owner and an architect with a tie to the land, the builder and interior designer for the project, and its realtor and a fellow-consortium member whose bookstore will be one of the first of the harbor shops.
There you have it – the Crosslyn Rise Trilogy — three separate stories woven around a single breathtaking piece of property. Each book stands on its own, but if you read them in the order in which they were written, i.e., The Dream, The Dream Unfolds, and The Dream Comes True, you’ll more satisfyingly follow the progress of the project and the characters.
Rereading the trilogy in advance of this reissue, I was intrigued. These books were among the last of my romances and, in that, are more sophisticated in style than their forebears. Hence, they are my Valentine’s Day gift to you all. They also embody my love of romance. Let’s face it – the real world can be brutally painful, and much as we want it to, hope doesn’t always win out. In a romance, it does! These books capture a fantasy, much as red roses and chocolate kisses do.
So, on or around Valentine’s Day, here’s to strong – strong heroines, heroes strong enough to bend, and a strong happily ever after.
Oh oh oh. I did mention having written two trilogies. The second, the Matchmaker Trilogy, will make its e-book-debut on April 1. I kid you not!
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Hi Barbara, well all I can say is if you take you precious time and labor over one of your books, I will buy it, read and re-read it, and then put it on my bookshelf I consider keepers (all your books reside there) and I will remember many of the facts and romance included in those wonderful books, and consider myself a smarter and more well read person. So if this one person feels this way, and I know there are millions more like me out there, we can say to heck with the negative folks!! Thank goodness we have evolved, aye?
Barbara, I LOVE reading Escape! It always amazes me that you are the thriller writer of relationships and how you appeal to all ages and genders.
There are some romance novels that are pure trash— with that said, i will also say—I have read waaaay too many of your novels to call any of them trash—I have loved every one i have read. I turned one of my sisters on to your novels and she has also been delighted—waiting for the next novel—sadly, my least fav of all your books, that i have read so far, is the
Crosslyn Rise Trilogy—it just didn’t strike me, but then, you can;t win em all 🙂
Dear Barbara, You have been without doubt my favorite writer since I discovered you years ago. I love your intelligent, descriptive style of story development and your lush love scenes. I think anyone who doesn’t ‘get’ your romantic beauty must be on that list of lovers who think that 2-5 minutes of contact is what the physical expression of love is all there is. I was blessed with more in my life, and at the age 0f 77 now, and a widow, I absolutely love reliving the spice of my life through your words. Thanks for that!!!
As I read about your ebooks though, I panic a bit, since I am a techno idiot and love the feel of a hard bound book in my hands to enjoy reading. Please tell me that you are still going to be in print form. (Smile)
I look forward to many more of your stories, and promise to enjoy the hearts and flowers with you.
Much love and appreciation, Lori Dunbar
I have loved Barbara Delinsky’s books since I started reading them in the late 1980’s early 1990’s. I read everyone I could find and at the Waldenbooks in the Meadowood Mall they would save me a copy as soon as they came in because I was always bought her stories in hard cover when she started publishing them that way or paperback. I would reread my copies when I need to be uplifted and taken away to her character’s world. I wanted to live in these stories. One of my all time favorites was “Shades of Grace” about three generations of women in a family who had to face the grandmothers loss of memory and how it affected everyone around her who loved her. I had to face this same thing with my own Mother in the last ten years and it broke my heart watching her lose her personality and passion for life to dementia. I will always read and love Barbara Delinsky’s books because they give me great pleasure and intelligent women do love romance novels and women’s stories.