What a treat to have J. Arlene Culiner on Discover... again. She always has the most interesting posts. Today is no exception. So get ready for some wicked fun.
Am I wicked? I suppose so. And that’s why I love creating wicked romance heroines.
Okay… I can’t say that I’m truly wicked. My heroines aren’t either—or at least, we aren’t wicked in the sense of evil, or nasty. We’re mischievously wicked. We provoke, we needle people until we get a reaction, we refuse to accept anything at face value, and we question everyone’s ideas.
For example, Rose Badger, the heroine of Desert Rose, is the village flirt, and she wants all men to adore her. However, that’s only on the surface. Rose is careful to hide her rather louche past (which includes living in squats, and stealing from supermarkets). These days, she seems to be the friendly owner of a second-hand clothes shop in a semi-ghost town in Nevada. In reality, she’s a secretive person, and she makes sure no one knows what she really does in life, or what her real interests are.
Secretive folks like Rose often have a wealth of knowledge that they keep hidden, and it’s hard to know what they’re thinking, or feeling. That does make life difficult, and forming close, trusting relationships is a definite challenge… which is what the very delicious half-Paiute Jonah Livingstone discovers.
And when Jonah appears to be neglecting her, what does Rose do? Her wicked streak takes over. Dressed in a black bodysuit and stretch leopard leggings, she sets out to seduce Lance Potter, Jonah’s one serious rival.
Another deliciously wicked character is Lucy Barnes from A Room in Blake’s Folly. Outspoken and brash, Lucy’s outrageous opinions often clash with accepted values. For example, she loves spiders, photographs them, becomes enraged if anyone hurts them, and she is scathing to those who fear them:
Lance stared at her. “You aren’t afraid of
spiders?”
Any trace of amusement was replaced by disgust. “Because I’m a woman? Because every single woman on earth is idiotic? Because as soon as any of us see a spider, we have to run and grab a male who will rescue us from something smaller than a fingernail?” Lucy’s eyes glinted naughtily. “What’s definitely true, is that half of all women but only ten percent of men are afraid of spiders. Now try and work that fact into a discussion about sexual equality.”
Lucy is equally unyielding when it comes to television:
“You have a television?”
Lance nodded. “You don’t approve.”
“What does my approval have to do with
it?”
“Okay, why are you against television?”
“Don’t you know that passively watching
television greatly reduces our capacity for critical thought? The images change
so rapidly our brains can’t process them, so we end up not thinking things
through, but ready to accept any form of propaganda, buy any product, and feel
miserable or diminished if we don’t.”
Lance was grinning. “That’s pretty
radical.”
“Yeah.” Lucy admitted. “But it’s true, too. Besides, nobody has to subscribe to my point of view, and I don’t mind at all.”
Let’s get back to very secretive Rose. At the moment, she’s in the Mizpah Saloon with Jonah and Lance, and both men are trying to discover what she does on Saturday nights:
Rose approached
the little group slowly, still peeking carefully into the shadows of booths
lining the wall.
Jonah was watching
her every movement. “You’re looking strangely furtive.”
“I’m avoiding my
mother.”
Lance laughed;
Jonah chuckled.
She scrunched up
her face with mock pain. “Okay, okay. I know how infantile that sounds, but I
just got rid of the woman. She staggered over to the shop about fifteen minutes
ago.”
“Staggered?”
“Four sheets to
the wind, as usual. She does make a habit of it.” Rose wrinkled her nose. “Now,
she wants to drive into Reno with me on Saturday.”
“On Saturday? I
thought you didn’t do Saturdays,” said Lance laconically.
“Really?” Jonah
raised one quizzical eyebrow and turned to Lance. “What do you mean, she
doesn’t do them? She wipes them off the calendar? Crams everything into a
six-day, Sunday to Friday, week?”
“It’s her secret
day. No one knows what she gets up to on Saturdays. Only that she isn’t
available. Ever.”
“Aha. I was about
to ask her to meet me this Saturday evening.”
“She’ll say no.
She always does.”
Exasperated, Rose
threw both men the dirtiest look she could manage. “I’m not unavailable every Saturday. I intend to be here, in Blake’s Folly, for
the Get-Together, and that’s two Saturdays away. Now, would you both please
stop talking about me in the third person? I’m here, right in front of you. You
can address me directly, and I can speak for myself.”
“Except you
don’t. Not when it comes to Saturdays.” Lance’s voice was calm.
“Interesting.”
Jonah nodded. “I wonder what she gets up to. A night at the roulette table?”
“Perhaps a
rendezvous in some den of iniquity.”
“Hmm. A secret
husband and seven secret children?”
“A hidden lover?”
“A change of
identity?”
“A second life as
an investment banker?”
“Or as a lap
dancer.”
“A nude trapeze
artist.”
“Or a nude
contortionist?”
“Okay, cut it out, both of you,” Rose snapped. “You are about as much fun as my mother.”
Secrets are the best protection against love
Rose Badger is the local flirt, and if the other inhabitants of backwoods Blake’s Folly, Nevada, don’t approve, she couldn’t care less. With a disastrous marriage and a dead-end career far behind her, settling down is the last thing she intends to do. Newcomer Jonah Livingstone is intriguing, but with his complicated life, he’s off limits for anything other than friendship. Besides, Rose has a secret world of her own—one she won’t give up for any man.
The last person geologist Jonah Livingstone expected to meet in a semi-ghost town is the sparkling and lovely Rose Badger. But Rose, always surrounded by many admirers, doesn’t seem inclined to choose a favorite. So why fret? Jonah keeps his personal life well hidden…and that's the best way to avoid disappointment.
Purchase links: https://books2read.com/RosesDesert
Web:
https://www.j-arleneculiner.com/desert-rose
Trailer:
https://youtu.be/tHPrIciT0XU
A Room in Blake’s Folly
Secrets your grandparents never told you
In one hundred and fifty years, Blake's Folly, a silver boomtown notorious for its brothels, scarlet ladies, silver barons, speakeasies, and divorce ranches, has become a semi-ghost town. Although the old Mizpah Saloon is still in business, its upper floor is sheathed in dust. But in a room at a long corridor's end, an adventurer, a beautiful dance girl, and a rejected wife were once caught in a love triangle, and their secret has touched three generations. The six stories in A Room in Blake’s Folly tell the tale.
Purchase links: https://books2read.com/BlakesFollyRomance
Web site: https://www.j-arleneculiner.com/a-room-in-blake-s-folly
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wt3VkYUTVNk
Writer, photographer, social
critical artist, and impenitent teller of tall tales, J. Arlene Culiner, was
born in New York and raised in Toronto. She has crossed much of Europe on foot,
has lived in a mud house on the Great Hungarian Plain, a Bavarian castle, a
Turkish cave dwelling, a haunted house on the English moors, and on a Dutch
canal. She now resides in a 400-year-old former inn in a French village of no
interest where, much to local dismay, she protects spiders, snakes, and all
weeds. She particularly enjoys incorporating into mysteries, non-fiction, and
romances, her experiences in out-of-the-way communities, and her conversations
with very odd characters.
Author Website: http://www.j-arleneculiner.com
And here are all my links in one place: https://linktr.ee/j.arleneculiner
