Tag Archives: happily ever after

Romance

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I love Romance.

I write Romance.

Not in the sense of genre romance, but Romance in the sense of an affirmation of the centrality of the heart in human experience. Of the perils of our alienation from nature, and because Romance gives us a break from the sheer awfulness of life (Byron: “And if I laugh at any mortal thing, Tis that I may not weep.”)

My question is: can novels help people learn better (learn again?) how to think?

Yes, reading novels is a form of escapism.

But can they draw people into stories and then use those stories to train people, not what to think (blech) but how?

I hope so.

I’m so horrified by how poorly people think …

Fo Fum Flarey by Kirsten Mortensen

Out now! Book 2 of my Marion Flarey series :)

Available on Amazon for Kindle or Print, or click here to browse other e-formats.

New novel, Fo Fum Flarey, available for preorder

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Those of you who know me personally know that this past year has been incredibly difficult. Yeah, I know I’m not alone. COVID etc. But in addition to the social upheaval, my personal life was turned upside down as well. First, my dad passed in April. And now my mom is gone, too. January 9.

Fo Fum Flarey by Kirsten Mortensen
She’s got her prince. If she can figure out how to keep him…

I am not even sure how to process it, to be honest. Looking forward to when this is all something that happened instead of something that is still happening.

In the meantime, I have been getting some writing done, although work has been a bit slower than I would have liked.

Once Upon a Flarey Tale came out last August.

Now the second book in the series, Fo Fum Flarey, is available.

Here’s the description of Fo Fum Flarey:

A tale about love, life choices — and how trusting the wisdom of old stories is sometimes the best choice of all.

Marion Flarey has finally found him. Fletcher Beal.
Her Prince.
And when you find your rich, handsome Prince, everything is settled, right? The fairy tales say so! You live happily ever after. No more questions, no more stress.
But as much as Marion loves those wise old tales, there’s a limit to their magic. How is she supposed to make her place in her new prince’s world — especially when Fletcher is always busy, flying around the country, exploring new domains and adding conquests to his kingdom?
The stories don’t say.
To make matters worse, her family is gripped by stories of their own — and Marion can’t figure out what’s going on. Her mother is distracted and unhappy. What secrets is she hiding? And then Marion’s brother, Ace, shows up in town — and Marion learns why he left.
He’s a thief.
He stole from their family.
Worse yet? He stole from Marion’s prince.
Can Marion unravel her family’s secrets?
Can she rescue her brother?
Can she put her broken family back together again?
And should she even try?
Or will her family’s crazy problems sabotage Marion’s life, robbing her of the one thing she wants most: a happy future with her sweet, rich, sexy prince?

If it feels good, read it?

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I found this via Booksquare — a Guardian story that claims people prefer books with happy endings.

Okay, I’m willing to believe that. Who wants to pay money to be made to feel miserable? (Yeah yeah that just invites a whippersnapper response, doesn’t it! Go ahead, it’s the weekend!)

But halfway through the first draft of this post, I realized that the info on the study’s methodology was a bit on the thin side, and what there is raises a flag in my Bordeaux-livened brain:

The survey of 1,740 respondents was carried out on the World Book Day website.

So this is, what, like an AOL poll? :-o

The details from the outfit that conducted the poll, Worldbookday.com, aren’t much thicker:

An online survey was carried out on the World Book Day website between January 1 and 9 February 2006. There were 1740 respondents.

The survey was commissioned by the organisers of World Book Day and analysed on their behalf by Education Direct.

Well, maybe Education Direct was able to extrapolate Reality from 1740 Internet users? Hmmmmm.

I next googled to see how other papers are presenting the survey results. Here’s how it’s framed by The Telegraph:

Book readers overwhelmingly prefer novels with happy endings . . .

and

Almost half the nation’s readers . . .

I.e., no qualification that maybe, just maybe, the poll might not be representative of the larger population.

The Mirror, otoh, spins it into a story on the Top 10 Happy Endings. How funny is that: falling back on pure fluff somehow feels the most honest of the batch :-)