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Z is for Zap – Alphabet Challenge

couple cartoon love at first sight 27296151_sZ: Zap

How many people do you suppose get zapped by love at first sight? It’s never happened to me, but I’ve certainly met people who have experienced it. Is there something critical in eye contact that tells a person that this is the one?

In my book, The Blacksmith’s Bride (part of “The Sons of Johnny Hastings” box set), Abel and Sunny basically find love at first sight. He sees her playing Blind Man’s Bluff with a group of late-teenage girls, and he’s immediately smitten. She meets him over the punch bowl and, whammo, she’s hooked. After that, it’s only a matter of jumping through hoops and over hurdles until they’re together.

That might have been the only instance I’ve written about love at first sight for both parties. Immediate attraction from one party or another, yes, I’ve written that plenty of times. But like in the real world, I think love at first sight is a rarity and deserves an equally rare exploration.

Have you ever been zapped by love at first sight? Did it last?

Remember: One person who answers each day’s question in a comment for that day’s post will win a $26 Blushing Books gift certificate. You have to comment on all 26 posts to be eligible to win, but I’ve asked easy questions at the end of each short post, so it shouldn’t be onerous. If you’ve missed the previous posts, do a search on “Alphabet Challenge” in the search box at the bottom right of the site. All the posts will be listed for you and you can go back and participate.

TheSonsOfJohnnyHastingsBoxSet

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This concludes our alphabet series. I’d like to thank Celeste Jones for coming up with this idea and Renee Rose of Spanking Romance Reviews for running with the ball and sponsoring the project. I hope you enjoyed exploring these various topics as much as I did. I’m back from vacation now, so I’m going to get right to work on some new and fun books to round out the rest of the year.

Thank you for joining me!

Don’t miss the other participants of the Spanking Romance A-Z Challenge.

For your hopping convenience:

Y is for Yelling – Alphabet Challenge

couple arguing 9677705_sY: Yelling

Have you ever noticed how so many romance heroines (particularly spanking romance heroines) yell and carry on? I don’t mean during a spanking, but rather preceding one, or even causing one. It seems like these women can’t hold their tempers worth a darn. They yell, scream, threaten, even try to hit. Is this a consequence of the spanking romance genre, or is this part of real life?

Men can be victims of domestic violence. We often think of women in shelters but men get abused by their spouses, girlfriends, etc., regularly as well. And woe betide the man who yells back; he’s immediately accused of mental abuse. Men and boys learn early on not to be harsh with women. Some men cross the line, but women do too and society cares a lot less about that. Where does this begin? Does it start with yelling? Throwing things? What makes women turn to violence against an otherwise non-violent spouse? We can’t possibly know all the reasons, but my guess is that yelling is a big part of it.

Personally, I would never yell at my husband. I’m not a yelling sort. He would never yell at me—never has—and I want to give him the same respect. But a lot of people do get into yelling matches. Maybe it makes it that much better to make up later.

But in a spanking romance novel, a woman can get emotionally outrageous, and the result will be a spanking, sometimes tears, and a hug at the end. I do this in my novels, and in fact, one instance comes to mind quickly: Queenie’s belligerent encounter with Will, in Spanking Her Highness. She really gets her mad on, and Will’s answer is to toss her over his shoulder and take her off for a spanking. It works in the case of a fictional romance, but I think there might be other consequences if this was a real life situation.

Do we portray the effects of people yelling at each other realistically in spanking romance? Is this another case where the reader needs to suspend her disbelief rather than finding the fiction ridiculous?

Remember: One person who answers each day’s question in a comment for that day’s post will win a $26 Blushing Books gift certificate. You have to comment on all 26 posts to be eligible to win, but I’ve asked easy questions at the end of each short post, so it shouldn’t be onerous. If you’ve missed the previous posts, do a search on “Alphabet Challenge” in the search box at the bottom right of the site. All the posts will be listed for you and you can go back and participate.

For your hopping convenience:

X is for Xenophobe – Alphabet Challenge

man space aliens 13086212_sX: Xenophobes

According to Merriam-Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary (online version), a xenophobe is “one unduly fearful of what is foreign and especially of people of foreign origin.” Now, you’ll be asking me, what the heck does a xenophobe have to do with romance books?!

Well, for the purposes of this post, it mostly has to do with science fiction romance. I don’t know where it started, maybe with “little green men from Mars” or sometime even earlier than that, but along the line, folks started fearing what might come from the skies. People have always agonized over the unknown, always chafed at different cultures that they don’t understand, but in terms of space, xenophobia seems to be shared by nearly all of us. (Astronauts and astronomers might be the most obvious exceptions.)

It appears to be ingrained in our psyches, and yet science fiction writers frequently use off-worlders as creatures of interest. Sometimes they’re good guys, sometimes bad guys, but they’re all more technically advanced than we Earthers. Is that because we just can’t imagine coming into contact with people more primitive than ourselves? It reminds me of the Star Trek Prime Directive:

“No identification of self or mission. No interference with the social development of said planet. No references to space or the fact that there are other worlds or civilizations.” (ST:TOS 1968)

If we ever encountered a more primitive people, would we adhere to this stricture, or would be barrel in and have our way with them? You might not have read them, but David Brin wrote a few books about purposely pushing the evolution of creatures beyond what would have been normal in the course of time. These books started with The Uplift War, during which Earthers uplift certain Earth animals in order to get their help fighting a seemingly impossible conflict from off-worlders.

Two paradigms are explored in Brin’s series: xenophobia and interference with a less developed species. It’s interesting how science fiction has treated our fears about encountering unknown cultures. Hopefully, if we actually meet a space-faring species, it will be on good terms.

How do you feel about possibly encountering space aliens?

Note: The alphabet challenge here will be suspended for a couple of days, due to other announcements. If you’re participating in the challenge, come back on Sunday the 29th for more alphabet posts.

Remember: One person who answers each day’s question in a comment for that day’s post will win a $26 Blushing Books gift certificate. You have to comment on all 26 posts to be eligible to win, but I’ve asked easy questions at the end of each short post, so it shouldn’t be onerous. If you’ve missed the previous posts, do a search on “Alphabet Challenge” in the search box at the bottom right of the site. All the posts will be listed for you and you can go back and participate.

For your hopping convenience:

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