Romantic Fiction, Reality Shaping and The Work

Je viens de commencer : Une lady à épouser dans la série les archanges du diable - 3 d'Anne Gracie.
Je viens de commander : La robe écarlate et L'inaccessible d'Anna Campbell réception 20/30 novembre

I have just started: A lady to marry in the series Archangels of the Devil - 3 by Anne Gracie.
I have just ordered : The Scarlet Dress and The Unattainable by Anna Campbell reception November 20/30
 
I have been wanting to share this with the forum for a while and didn't know how, so perhaps an update on the fact that I am finding it hard to read and work through the romantic fiction material without it getting or feeling a little too overwhelming (in a good way). My sister says I am flipped - that's a new term to me.

So, perhaps another area of the forum is better to discuss that development. Any idea where might be appropriate?
You can open a thread in the Swamp, or post in one of your existing threads there.
 
I would like to add to your thoughts on this iamthatis by directing you, and anyone interested, to a book called Cupid's Poisoned Arrow by Marnia Robinson, which after reading your excerpt from Bennett almost feels like a layman's version, or a practical manual, for developing relationships based on the emotional/spiritual plane by transforming sexual energy through the heart.
I began reading this book whilst in the midst of reading Balogh's the Survivors Club Series and it added some depth to the characters as I could sense/understand their sexual energy opening their hearts, and it added to my own self understanding of my personal history. Of course the Romance novels are fiction, and things do not happen this way so often in real life, but they are a wonderful metaphor for the creation of internal friction and our centres, and channeling sexual energy to the heart, which Marnia Robinson deals with in more realistic practical ways.

Thanks @anartist, I will take you up on that! I have the book on the shelf. Looks like a fertile time to get it off the shelf and find some cross-pollination of Robinson's work and the Romance Novels. Here's to the flowering of some good friction!
 
In the midst of a hectic conjunction of family life and work life I'm managing to get through the audiobook of Mary Balogh's Silent Melody after finishing Heartless which was, as many have said, a truly harrowing listen. At the same time I've started reading Courting Julia as well which is not available on audiobook. I got to download quite a few of Balogh's books before audible stopped their Romance subscription service, so I have quite a few lined up though I may not be able to listen to one author for too long, would like to mix it up a bit and am eyeing Scarlett Scott next.

Interesting that you mentioned anger coming up with Balogh's books, Adaryn - that's exactly what came up for me today as I was driving home from a dinner with some family members. There have been a string of events this week related to family and I have felt compelled to participate and it feels different to be with them now - I'm starting to see that maybe I need to find a new way of relating with them that is not based on materialism but more on a heart level? I find myself not able to connect with people whom I used to be able to based on our shared interests, like a male relative whom I used to discuss stuff related to computers and tech, now I find that it's not really something I'm interested in as much as I was before.

It's also interesting that my relations with my family now are coming up again in connection to the Hindu Diwali/Deepavali festival of lights which relates to triumph of knowledge over ignorance.
 
Reading "My Once and Future Duke" and "An Earl Like You" of Caroline Linden was quite painful for me. They were great, but I was tense throughout the books. I felt stressed and couldn't wait to get to the end. None of the other books I have read so far has given me so much tension reading them.

I return with Balogh to start Westcott series.
 
After sharing earlier today, I feel like I can get back to the romantic fiction reading without it getting too complicated and intense for me to continue.

I won't have time until maybe Saturday afternoon or Sunday in between calls to do it, but I can do it - or rather I am more looking forward and feeling able to doing it, because my feelings aren't just these things that I alone (among the network and forum) know and it's less of a big question and just are what they are. FWIW.

In response to @Adaryn's suggestion:

I want to post more on this in The Swamp tonight, however that's unrealistic to expect of myself by tonight. I am on a time schedule tonight to get out, get to the gym before close and see my sister for the first time since my birthday a month ago.

I also have an article on sleep to finish and edit, a presentation on sleep in preparation for a Zoom event to start, and other business-related tasks to be completed by tomorrow.

Then I am working 4 hours Saturday. It'll be either Saturday afternoon, or more likely Sunday afternoon, before I can get to writing and posting in The Swamp.

But seriously, reading all your posts in this thread has me looking forward to reading more... and planning to read more sooner than I expected.
 
Just finished Balogh's novella The Suitor. It ties in with The Arrangement, so it's baffling why the paperback publisher put it in the same volume as The Escape rather than The Arrangement.
Anyway, it was a good read. A real romance story of young love. It makes me think of Romeo and Juliet with a happy ending. Lots of tension and intrigue at the opening to grab the reader's interest. The way Balogh constructs the events leading up to the conclusion really shows her ability to construct her characters' personalities to grab her readers' emotions,, cheering Julian and Philippa on to their ultimate destiny.
 
Just a little update. I finished reading "The Many Sins of Lord Cameron" the other day and had an interesting reaction that I don't think I've ever had before. At some point in the middle of reading the book (I don't remember at which part it occurred) I just started crying about an image that popped into my mind. In the image I was moving into a new home and there was a voice in my head that said, "this is my home" several times and I promptly just started crying! I've always wanted my own home and have thought about it much even though it is rather unrealistic for me to achieve at the moment but I've never felt emotionally moved anywhere near what occurred to me while reading the book. I wasn't thinking about anything in particular before the outburst occurred, it just happened. Furthermore, I don't cry particularly easy so I thought it was a rather significant occurrence.

So just a little warm, fuzzy and, lovely-dovey pick-me-update.
 
Hey @placematt - last year I read a little book by J.G. Bennett called 'Sex'....Quote "There is a union even beyond this. In the Sufi terminology we have been using it is called Beit-ul-Ma'mour, or the Abode of the Lord. In this union, God enters the soul..."

Had started in on IBN 'ARABI's The Alchemy of Human Happiness translated by Stephen Hirtenstein, and as discussed on the two MindMatters shows here and here are the delicate and transformative root Arabic words - a whole world I'm only starting to delve into. Anyway (name recognition and such), you have Bennett referencing the Arabic word Beit-ul-Ma'mour: Abode of the Lord - God entering the soul, and you have the French word Amour (tied with 'Ma', mother) and those meanings around it. Etymology has it "Middle English had it, translated, as proper love "self-love"' (the Arabic 'Beit' can be reviewed here "literally a "house"'). Something about God entering the soul, the house - this union, and 'proper love', and these stories exemplify (or that is too strong a word) the search within each to develop this union (recognize it, feel it and allow it in) within the self and the other (and others).

One thing that connected and stayed with me while reading many of the Romantic books was Homer's The Odyssey - looking at the degrees of Theoxeny in the architecture around 'Hospitality'. Laura, primarily, and others have capture much of this here, and there is much being said by Laura looking at Louden's thesis therein. The Romance books may well contain many of the inner workings of the theme 'Hospitality' - the errors and the fruits of it. Our times now are to the former, and yet deep inside is the longing for the latter of [H]ospitality and all that that means.




 
N'ayant plus que deux livres d'avance chez moi sans compter les deux autres en commande, je me suis offert le tome 1 de la série "Les fils du péché, Le château des miroirs d'Anna Campbell", c'est le seul de la série que je n'avais pas...

Having only two books in advance at home without counting the two others on order, I offered myself volume 1 of the series "The Sons of Sin, Anna Campbell's Castle of Mirrors", it is the only one of the series that I didn't have ...
 
A couple of days ago I've finished reading the Devil Riders by Anne Gracie. I must say that I was very fond of the main characters of each story while reading being flooded by a full spectrum of emotions. It's a beautiful and wonderful sensation I'm beginning to get used to. ;-D

Now I'm reading the first volume of the 1797 Club series by Jess Michaels, can't take my eyes away from the book. I love it. :-)
 
This fourth book of the "Huxtable' series is possibly the best one I've read so far! I remember Mari was not too fond of it, but it's really engaging me on multiple levels. Maybe it was the fairly long break between books. It seems that reading so many of these books in succession makes the 'formula' a little obvious. But whatever the reason, this one seems to me a 'tour de force!'
 
Web trilogy by Mary Balogh was my favourite read by now but I have only read by her first two books of Survival's club and those books starting with Courting Julia. With Survival club the thing is I've read them on Croatian and as Mari stated it is totaly different thing reading on English. I don't know is it something with our weird language ...:-D. So I'll have to kindle the books and start all over.
Reading Dancing with Clara threw me in a depression, it made me cry so hard, I can't remember when I cried like that if ever (if we don't count last friday).I can't believe there are people who behave like Frederic and that they can miraculously transform. Thank God if is. Another thing is I'm from such family where guys weren't fidel to their wives. My grandpa the WWII veteran had another wife along grandma but closer to the bar and I have family members I don't know. I was one some family gathering 25y ago hanging out with a cute boy I met there and he asked me if I know why we're not going to get married. Weird conversation for kids but I didn't know he's my relative. My parents were torturing us with their love problems. When I was a child I had to listen to each side of a story and tell them to calm down. Maybe that's why I'm so the way I am. I had to be their therapist since I've learned how to whipe my butt. I think that's the reason I don't care about myself and have such low standards of dating. I also had to take care of grandpa and listen to his war stories so everybody can have whatever they wanted when we came for visit. I had to drink beer in a tiny beer cup, he would put a spoon of sugar inside. Jesus. But it was a form of bonding. I think I saw a side of him no one had. I tend to see a beauty and everything that can be summon up as good in others mostly. I remember when I started dating blond dude over 13 y ago I thought that he has some potential. But that was the idea I got from his apparent interest in Ouspensky's work that we studied on college. Right. Some people don't change. My grandpa changed, but I can imagine how it was for my grandma to endure the transformation. Other grandpa kicked us out of a house we lived to go on our own because grandma told him he should sold the house and give her some money. They were divorced at least 15 years then but my grandpa had to pay her all of his life the reparation for the fact he got her pregnant before she finished highschool and ruined her life. This is what my parents grew up with. So I had to grow up and wipe their tushies and everybody elses.
Tempting Harriet, my thoughts about it, I don't like the fact someone lowers their partner to a position of a somebody they like to -flick- because they're not exactly clear with their emotions. Those things hurt. But this was my favourite book.
Coming to Web books, I loved the first one the most I think because I grown up with girls who resemble Alex, although I don't know much guys like Edmund, maybe why most of my friends are still single. Putting the religious pathology and rigid tradition aside, I think we see in Alex, in a strong and independent character, this whole woke feminist culture of today. What those girls need? Read the book.;-) The Ellen from the second book went through great ordeal because of what her parents put her through kind of like me, I spend hours on a rain, and have military like life although such comparison insults real soldiers. Marrying old dude to step in for a dad and give her finally some love and security in life, made me think I should have brought my dates home to my parents and rub them in their face, you see what you made me date:lol:? I should have brought Erik home, 17 y ago when I had to give up my trip in Prague because my sister got child I thought my parents should need that money. Still don't have a passport.
The last book, I usually reed all of the books couple of time, especially the marriage proposals, this is my best part. This one I couldn't same with Dancing with Clara. It has really dark romance. I don't have any experiences with violence, I was never treated wrongly by my dates. I grown up with uncles and grandpapas and they called me little Martin, maybe that's why I wasn't attracting bullies, I don't know but after I read this book last weekend I went to my friend's home, that was my refugee when I was a kid and her parents were the most normal couple I've meet, like the Universe sent them. We meet in the kindergarten wearing the same dresses with dots, she asked me if I can come over after for a play and we stayed the friends for the next 30 y. So I went for a coffee and I stayed there almost all night, her mum telling me a story of a guy she dated before she got the courage to leave the bastard before the wedding and started to date my friend's dad. We were talking for 5 hours! I never said anybody the whole story what I went through, she couldn't believe it. She told me, why are you doing this to yourself? Just leave it for someone else to care. I went home crying and I can't believe how this exercise had a profound impact not only on me but on the whole surroundings. Thanks.
I hope there wasn't too much spoilers.
 
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