Marriages of True Minds
Chatting with Miranda Neville yesterday about her new historical romance, The Wild Marquis , I became reminded of what's in some way dearest to me about writing romance fiction -- the pleasures of participating in a genre that loves female wit and of imagining lovers as hot for each other's minds as for their bodies. I'm not sure when I first encountered such a couple in my youthful reading. Certainly there were elements in Jo March and her professor, in Darcy's admiration of Lizzy Bennet's wit and smarts (though for Austen heroes, my favorite has always been Henry Tilney, who's man enough to joke about muslin). For me, the fantasy probably found its fullest, most delicious embodiment in the sexy, brainy pairing of Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane. And when I came to write romantic fiction myself, it was because I'd found myself in the clutches of just such a fantasy: of Marie-Laure, the eponymous bookseller's very bookish, rationally-minded daughter...