What A Woman Really Wants in Romance

WINNERS! WINNERS!

Okay...my hubby reached into the hat of names and pulled out more than one. So . . . here's my winners:

TerryS

Kristi

Plarson

CherylS/cas2ajs

Email me at christie (@) christie (-) craig.com and give me your snail mail address and I'll get you an ARC of Gotcha. By the way...this ARC is extra special. It's written by Christie Graig. GRAIG! Yup...they got my name wrong in the header of the book. Let's hope it's fixed in the real book.

Thanks to everyone who played along and visited Barbara Vey's party. The party is still going on, too. So pop over there. And I swear...some of you really know how to party. I won't name names, but there was someone frisking all the guys. Hmmm?

Today’s the day I’m giving away an ARC, an advanced reader copy, of Gotcha! my June release. So make sure you post a comment. Plus read below about an opportunity to win other great books over at Barbara Vey’s anniversary party going on all week long.

What a Woman Really Wants in Romance

(Previously published as a guest blog over at TJ Bennett’s blog land.)

I remember being in first grade and coming home and asking my mom if she’d put my hair up in pigtails the next day for school. She rolled her eyes at me in disbelief because that very morning I’d thrown a hissy fit because I hadn’t wanted to wear my hair up in pigtails. But I had good reasons for my change of heart. And you can bet it involved matters of the heart, too. You see, I’d watched a neighborhood boy named Calvin, whom I liked, pull on the pigtails of another little girl named Mary. Surely, if I wore my hair like hers, he would pull my pigtails instead of Mary’s.

At age six, I didn’t care if that boy had a six pack or a sexy gait. His toothless smile and freckles made my stomach flutter. I didn’t care that his mode of transportation, an old paint-chipped bike that had belonged to his brother, wasn’t the hottest on the block. Frankly, I didn’t really care, or even want, to get my hair pulled, either. What I wanted was . . . his attention.

As I grew older, like most girls, what I looked for in a man changed a bit. Don’t judge me, but I’ll confess, I got to that place where I preferred my men with teeth. And when I got to high school, freckles weren’t a plus either. And yes, in time I started noticing six packs and sexy bad-boy smiles, and I’ll admit it, I wouldn’t have been happy with a man whose mode of transportation was a paint-chipped bike.

My point isn’t that love, or our search for it, is superficial. I think the whole attraction thing is somewhat physiological. We are instinctively looking for a mate with good genes, and how he fits into his jeans is sure to catch our eyes. We are looking for a mate who can help us feed and clothe ourselves and our children and that paint-chipped bike may lead us to believe he won’t be a good provider.

But you know, when I look deep into romance, at what a woman really wants and what my romance heroine’s want, I can tell you that some things are the same as they were on that playground years ago. Women want to know that of all the girls pumping their legs on the swing set, going up and down on the seesaw, that you are the one he wants. It’s your pigtails he wants to pull. Women want a man’s full attention; they want to be the thing he’ll do anything to attain--even if it means spending his whole recess chasing you around the school’s backyard.

As I write my novels, I try to remember this about romance. Sure, I add plenty of hard abs and bedroom smiles. Hey, sex is part of a good romance. And you can bet your bottom dollar that my heroes have all their teeth. Nevertheless, these two people get together because there just isn’t anyone else whom they would choose to share their lives with. Like most romances, my characters may not know this in the beginning, but while playing on life’s playground, (which for my heroine in my book, Divorced, Desperate and Dating, means avoiding a killer, resisting a bad-boy’s charm, and using a tampon to defend herself) they suddenly realize that this other person is the one.

Today, after twenty-four years of marriage, when I look over at my husband, I’m kind of glad I didn’t hook up with Calvin. I won’t lie, my hubby no longer has a six pack—not that it’s all gone to pot, mind you. His bedroom smile still makes my stomach flutter, and of course he still has all his teeth. But more importantly, he still somehow makes me feel like the prettiest girl on the playground.

And isn’t that what a woman really wants? To be made to feel beautiful and desirable—to know you are his one and only.

So now it’s your turn. How do you define romance? What is it that you really want? The garbage taken out, roses, or a sexy bad-boy smile. Or how about all of the above?

Remember…post a comment to be entered in my drawing for an autographed copy of Gotcha! And . . . if you want your name entered twice for my drawing, all you have to do is jump over to Barbara’s Vey’s blog and say you read about her blog at Killer Fiction. Plus, this week Barbara is giving away over 200 books, one of which is a copy of Gotcha!, as well as copies of my other novels and two copies of The Everything Guide to Writing A Romance Novel. So make sure you post. See ya at the party!