Sunday, June 10, 2012

Love Like Twilight...Debra Jayne East Talks About the Concept of Love


We all have been there. One day we are having romantic dinners for two and the next day we are wandering down the frozen food aisle looking at Lean Cuisine for one. It sucks! Come on…I hear a deep sigh from the wounded…those memories haunt us and inspire us to keep looking for “ the one.”

We are the happiest when we are in love and for most it doesn’t come easy. How many times do we try to get it right? Don’t ask me because I’ll be embarrassed! Very few get it right the first time. I’m going to self diagnose here, something that I have gotten better at in my old age.

Our first concept of love comes from our family. Mine never were openly demonstrative in that department. Sure, my mother took good care of us and my dad worked hard to provide for us all. I was the oldest of six girls. That’s right, six! My parents never showed open affection to each other or to us. I never saw them hug, kiss or even hold hands. They were shy, reserved and quiet and I was also like that in my early years. I yearned though for the affection of just hearing someone say I love you.

I first found it in the form of a small wiggly puppy. Yep, my first love was dogs. Many times they were my only friends. You can always love just one more dog! Whenever I have lost a beloved pet I tell myself I don’t want another one, but have I only loved one dog? Of course not, I’ve had many and I’ve loved them all.

My second love was teen idols! I’m sorry but I have to be honest here. I grew up in the seventies. I’m talking about bell-bottoms, rock n roll music and Elvis. I fell for Dr.Kildare, the Beatles, Davey Jones and quite a few others. Of course they’re only fantasies in our minds, but it teaches us patience. We have someone to dream about until a real life person comes along.
I will still remember the hours I spent reading Tiger Beat and salivating over the full sized posters in the middle! {Admit it, you did it too!}

My third concept of love was from television shows. I Love Lucy,  Leave it to Beaver, The Dick Van Dyke Show. Everyone wanted parents like that. The ideals and concepts of family life have not been duplicated in shows today. I’m sorry but they were the best!

My fourth concept of love was books! Glorious, exciting, mesmerizing books! When I was in second grade my teacher took me to the library and I fell under the spell of The Little Princess, by Francis Hodgins Burnette, who also wrote The Secret Garden.

Later, I became totally spellbound by romance novels. It was Barbara Cartland, Grace Livingston Hill and currently Stephanie Meyers. Their words of romance and ideals of love spoke to my heart.

Barbara Cartland wrote over 700 books in her lifetime and was the most prolific writer of the 20th century. I could never get enough of her innocent uplifting stories of love and passion {without sex scenes I might add.}

Grace Livingston Hill was next. She was immensely popular during her lifetime and wrote over 100 novels and numerous short stories. Her characters were most often young female ingénues, frequently strong Christian women or those who become so within the confines of the story.

Radiance:Love after Death
Currently, I have read all of the Twilight books by Stephanie Meyers. Amazon deemed her book Twilight, the best book of the decade. Other books in her series did just as well. Breaking Dawn sold 1.3 million in the first 24 hours. New Moon, another in that same series landed 25 weeks on the best sellers list. What was all the fuss about? It was kind of weird that teenage daughters and their mothers and even grandmothers all were under the Twilight spell.


It was never about Edward or Jacob or even the actors for me. It was the concept of a forever love. It thrilled me, lifted me and gave me back my dreams of knowing that kind of love again. Coming out of a bad relationship recently, I needed to be inspired. We all want a love like Twilight!

So much so, that I wrote my own paranormal romance called Radiance:Love after Death. Marena Jacobs was not your typical kind of heroine. She was overweight, divorced and a workaholic.
Her life is about to change one night in ways she never imagined. She fell in love with the man of her dreams after she died. ~

Author Bio:
 Debra Jayne East was born the oldest of six girls in Martinsville, Virginia. For as long as she could remember, she loved to keep journals, write poetry and short stories. She researched her family tree and suddenly she understood why. Her distant relative, Violet Florence Martin was an Irish author, born in 1862, who wrote under the pen name of Martin Ross in the late 19th and early 20th
century. 
Learning about her heritage encouraged her to follow her dreams of being a writer.

Where to find me:
http://debrajayneeast.blogspot.com
http://twitter.com/juliet2cool4u
https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Debra-Jayne-East/177696055623372

3 comments:

  1. Wow, Debra! We sure have a lot in common, bellbottoms, Elvis, and all. I didn't care for teen mags tho. I was more into the Hardy Boys. I started reading romance at 15 and never stopped, although I do love a good mystery, too.

    Love the sounds of your book. Best of luck!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Another 70's fan. I also hung pages from teen magazine on my wall. Twilight was a great escape for me. I fell in love with the concept of true love forever and that there was an Edward out there somewhere for me. Oh, wait , I'm married. Your post was great, loved the walk down memory lane. Your book sounds intriquing, I'll have to put it on my list to read.
    Thanks for sharing.
    Lynda

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Linda. Yes, you never forget your first crushes and I also put pics on the wall. My mom got tired of all the scotch tape,lol.Thanks for stopping by.

      Delete