Love That Scene!

What book rocked your world? Changed it forever?

For me, there have been two romances that I have never let go of no matter how many others I've read over the years. They're the kind you remember, the ones you tell your friends to read.

The first one is Janet Daily's This Calder Sky. I started reading Daily's Calder series, and liked them, but it was the third in the series, Chase Calder and Maggie O'Rourke's story, that touched me. Their unlikely love story, one of a rich rancher's son and the poor girl next door, touched a cord in me that I've always wanted to recapture in my own books.

The love scene in that book, on a riverbed, between 21-yr-old Chase and 16-yr-old virgin Maggie is one of the ones I go back to over and over for inspiration for my stories. Not particularly romantic at first, Chase has his way with Maggie out in the open, next to the river. But by the end of the scene you know they are destined.

There are some real harsh scenes in that book. Daily kills a horse, hangs him, and for me that is normally a wall-banger. Also, her father is killed. Ruthlessly.

But I can get past that for the love story between these two characters.

The second book I've read and loved a thousand times is For My Lady's Heart by Laura Kinsale. She is a master of writing broken heroes, and hers in this one is to die for. A vowed celibate, the hero cannot withstand the advances of the lady he agrees to protect and accompany across the country.

When she finally has her way with him, it is fast, furious. Not your typical love scene. She is disappointed by him. Not flying high on cloud nine because she has never been loved like that before.

The love scenes in these two books have something in common--neither are particularly flowery, or even romantic at first glance, but both have that "something" that sets them apart from the rest.

I aspire to write a book like that. One that is tough and tender, too.