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| Scanned of cover picture on novel, Crimson Roses |
Because romance novels in my mind are soft porn and there is
a concern for a lack of character development this book I am writing about,
Crimson Roses by Grace Livingston Hill as a romance is a book I am not normally
drawn to read. This is the first romance
novel I have ever read. I was going on a
trip in September, and I needed paperback books for air plane reading. I was at a local book fair, two books I had
already selected were male writers, and I decided to be balanced I must find
one from a female writer. Granted, I
didn’t choose anything. There were
aspects that had to draw me in. I read
the first few lines, and felt I could read more without being frustrated. “THE
ROOM WAS very still except for the ticking of the little clock, which stood on
the table in the hall and seemed to Marion Warren to be tolling out the seconds
one by one. She sat by her father’s bedside, where she had been all day…” I
also had checked the copyright date.
Although this was published in 1968 the original was published in 1928,
so I knew it was fairly in the clear as to whether the book was classy or smut.
Here are a few more points I’d like to share. The cover that I scanned is very interesting
to look at. The style made me think
1970s. After reading the novel I know it
is rainy in that picture. I am referring
to the painted lines. The painted lines
that over lay the image are rain. One
could guess it is raining because the gentleman is holding his umbrella
up. I was studying the picture from the
details. When I read the scene to where picture
is actually taking place in it is all of a sudden I get it moment in terms of
the cover. This has happened more than
once for me when trying to decipher a cover image on a novel.
I got to page 65 and no romance took place yet. This is good.
It built up characters and situation of story line.
I did an Internet search on this author and not much is
written about her. Her Wikipedia post is
very short though there are some interesting facts such as she primarily
started writing books to make ends meet.
There is a modern website that is selling her books with her full name
as the domain. I am not linking because
I do not know if I have the right to link here, but you can easily do an
Internet search to find it.
This book also stands out for its dominance of
Christianity. The protagonist Marion is
a devout Christian. I thought today a
book like this would fall under the Christian genre and that since Christianity
was very mainstream literature that in 1928 it could fall under Romance. That is wasn’t there laws against smut
literature or if not laws it was not generally accepted as printable? Because
the romance novel of 1980s on ward conjures something else to mind.
What do you know about this area?
Maybe I don’t understand the romance novel structure.
