Yesterday, Tomorrow, Forever

Some things survive the test of time. They don't decay. What they do is change.

Love is like that.

In the course of writing, I've seen the romance market change drastically. Like love, it has gotten past the fervor of discovery, the raging passions and heartrending angst of youthful desire and grown into something more stable, more lasting, less exhausting. (Okay, so that last may sound out of place to some, but those who enjoy long loving relationships will not only understand but smile at the memories it evokes.)

I still believe true love CAN conquer all--and not just between the covers of the books I read. Perhaps it is that belief, in and of itself, that makes love work, that makes romance, in all its incarnations, more than adult fairy tales.

I married the man I love more than three decades ago. I feared my heart would burst with the love I felt. Silly me. The children came. Seeing my love on the floor playing with the babies made me do something I thought impossible; I loved him even more. Watching him under the car hood with our son talking about "the meaning of life" stuff that plagues every kid, holding our daughters when they had their hearts broken, standing strong when our youngest's fiance was killed even though his heart, too, had broken, all these things and a thousand others found room in a heart I thought already full. And so it has played out through the years.

That's the secret of love. There is always room for more.

Romance shares that secret. The number of genres continues to expand. Romance authors recognize no boundaries writing in every conceivable age, era, epoch and beyond. That is the power of love. And while the literati will never give romance authors the credit they deserve, those who read the genre understand that there are no limits anywhere when we believe true love does, indeed, conquer all.