Guest Author Monday

Today please welcome our Guest Author — Marcia King-Gamble

What’s love got to do with it?  Anyone remember those lyrics made famous by singer, Tina Turner?

Over the years, I’ve thought about those exact words and wondered if there was truth to them.  As a writer and a people watcher I have a tendency to look at couples while they’re out and about. Watching people interact help me create stories in my head.  Over time I’ve begun to wonder what brings people together and what makes them stay.  I want to believe that love is a powerful emotion, however I’ve come to the realization that sometimes it just isn’t so.   Based on behaviors I’m beginning to wonder if love even entered the equation.

Yes, I know it’s a strange thing for a romance writer to say. We’re supposed to believe in opposites attracting, and the powerful pull of chemistry. We’re supposed to believe in happily ever after.  And I do.  But what about the old baggage that surfaces, the stuff that prevents us from really connecting and falling in love?

If you’re like me, you need a mental and physical connection.  Pretty on the outside, though appealing, has never swayed me. I prefer prettier on the inside.  I don’t care how much money a person has or how perfect the package appears to be, I’m all about show me don’t tell me. Because I know what’s perfect for you may not be perfect for me.

This brings me to why I am here today, wondering why so many of us settle.  Disillusionment maybe or to protect our hearts?  We settle for fear of loneliness. We settle because being single means being a loser.  We settle for financial reasons and we settle because the evil that we know outweighs what we don’t know.  And perhaps if we’re not engaged emotionally, it’s easier to get out.  No wonder the current divorce rate.

When I set out to write my upcoming release, I thought about all this. I had this vague story in the back of my mind and I didn’t know where it would go. I looked around and saw kids so grossly overweight because of poor eating habits, and I thought here’s a story waiting to be told; one about childhood obesity and damaged hearts. Now how could I marry the two in a way readers would understand?

The result of this reflection culminated in my September release, titled, Baby I want you.    The story is about a retired athlete who appears to have everything.  Faced with a second chance at love, Palmer Freeman is reluctant to go there. He’s been cheated on.  Now his focus is on expanding his growing empire and certainly not on love.  He adores his two daughters, but one he doesn’t understand. His twelve year old is more interested in food than people or education. Georgia, the older, is his sensible, model child.

Set on Anastasia Island in the St. Augustine area of Florida, hero, Palmer Freeman is expanding his land holdings. He’s amassed wealth because of the products he endorses. Palmer is most passionate about fitness. Savannah, his problem child doesn’t fit his image.

What Palmer does not anticipate is the almost instant connection between, Savannah and the neighbor whose property he’s been after.  He fights his attraction to Anais, the city “girl,” but soon he realizes the attraction is much more than physical. It’s based on respect for her tenacity and her ability to hold her own.

Predictably, at the end, love does conquer all.  But to get there risks are taken and hearts placed on the line. Hero and heroine must take chances, and like the real world must do the work needed to sustain a relationship. They don’t settle and neither should you.

Love in their case is not a secondhand emotion. Nor is it a sweet old-fashioned notion.  Love is the powerful emotion that makes them risk their hearts.

Marcia King-Gamble is a national bestselling author of 27 novels and four novellas. She invites you to visit her at www.lovemarcia.com and like her Facebook page.

Thanks for joining us today, Marcia!  We’ve enjoyed having you.