Love Is a Magic Elixer

When Rapunzel’s tears of love fell on the blinded prince’s eyes, his vision was restored. Beauty’s love transformed a beast into his true, handsome form. Both Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, cursed into a death-like sleep, were awakened by true love’s kiss. In stories, the magic of love is the most powerful spell of all.

In our world, love has a different kind of magic.

I’m currently curled up on the couch, looking like a Snot Hag who’s recently crawled out of the Ancient Swamp of Eternal Suffering—greasy hair, one inflamed, reddened nostril (the other is still weighing its options and hasn’t committed to the war yet), and a greatly lowered IQ due to my need to breathe through my mouth. The noises coming out of my face are hideous and repulsive.

My husband is out at the store buying me tissues, juice, cold pills, and ice cream. There’s a good chance he’ll pick up a book or magazine for me, and an even greater likelihood he’ll come home with coloring books, a Pez dispenser, or a bottle of bubbles. No. Probably not that last one. He never lets me blow bubbles in the house.

The magic here is not that love will cure the common cold. It’s more like the magic in Demerol when you’re giving birth. It can’t cure you or even speed things up. The pain is still there, but you don’t care so much anymore. That’s how love treats the common cold, the pain of a rejection letter, or the hopelessness of a pile of overdue bills. It can’t take the problems away, but it can hold you up until you’re ready to face things again. Or you know, until your cold goes away.

There’s something else love does that’s so magical, it takes my breath away—or maybe that’s the congestion causing it.

My husband doesn’t see a Snot Hag with a low IQ sniffling on his couch. He sees a beautiful princess under a terrible enchantment.

And that's the most powerful spell of all.

Defining Love

Yesterday I did a video chat on writing erotica.

Yes, I know this is the Here Be Magic blog, but even my fantasy novel, Rogue's Pawn, which comes out from Carina in July, has a great deal of sensuality in it. Hot sensuality in places. Verging on erotic, though I don't know how one draws the line.

That was the question that came up during the chat - someone asked if I write erotica or erotic romance.

I really had to think about that question.

Carina is calling Rogue's Pawn a fantasy with romantic elements. It's not really a romance because the main story isn't about a romance. It's about the adventure my heroine embarks on in Faerie. Now, her sexual waltz with Rogue is a big part of that story, but it's not the only story. And they don't tumble into hearts and flowers love, with trembling sighs and dewy gazes. (Though there's nothing wrong with that. I love me a trembling sigh/dewy gaze romance - this just isn't one.) In many ways, Rogue and Gwynn's relationship is more combative, with each trying to gain the upper hand.

But....

But there is a hugely strong emotional tie between them. They can't escape each other. They're intertwined on so many levels that they have no choice but to find a way through it.

Is this love?

"Love" is a word that gets thrown around so easily. It's really an umbrella term for a huge range of human emotion. We love our pets, our kids, our sports cars, our grandparents, our lovers, a good book and the perfect dessert. It's a way of saying that we connect with something or someone, that it pleases us, supports us, invigorates and delights us.

My answer to the question of whether I write erotica or erotic romance was, it depends on how you define them. If erotica is sex without love, then I don't think I write that. My stories don't usually end with declarations of love, engagements or weddings. But, for me, sex is always about the emotional connection. That magical, mystical, beyond physical interplay of people. Skin to skin leads to soul to soul for me every time.

Is that love? I don't know.

But it is magic.