Before I was lucky enough to find blogs and other resources that I could rely on for book recommendations, I would troll Amazon. If a description caught my eye, I would look at the sample pages. In doing so I discovered a disturbing trend in romance novel plots. Two books still stick out in my mind. One started with a drunken man stumbling into what he thinks is his room at an Inn. He then assumes that the girl sleeping in the bed must be a prostitute and he treats her as such. The second book started with a ‘gentleman’ (it was a regency, I believe) coming upon a lady in a garden. He only sees her from behind and mistakes her for someone he was supposed to be meeting for a romantic rendezvous. He ends up assaulting the poor girl before realizing she’s not who he thought she was. When he does realize, there is no apology. He just turns on the charm, brushes it off as no big deal, and they part ways. Later, during the social gathering they are attending, he winks at her from across the room.
I went back and read the descriptions of these books and realized that, yes, in both cases I had just met the hero and heroine of the book. These were the two people that were going to fall in love and live happily ever after.
What the crap??!! Are you kidding me?
When I started writing Missing Lily, my only objective was to tell Lylin’s story. I started my brainstorming by sticking her in a bunch of random (and usually uncomfortable) situations to see how she would react. I ended up coming up with several different ideas that involved some sort of a hidden identity theme. I think the reason I enjoy that idea so much is that the first meeting between hero and heroine starts with a blank slate. It sets aside any preconceived notions they might have and allows them to meet each other without that filter.
