When the Siren Calls
In my romantic suspense novel When the Siren Calls, a woman with high ideals falls in love with a man with low morals. Wealthy but neglected Isobel, feeling trapped in a stagnant marriage, believes that suave and sophisticated Jay can bring the excitement and passion that she yearns for. She pursues him to Tuscany and abandons herself in a passionate affair, as the controlling Jay encourages conservative Isobel to continually push beyond her sexual boundaries.
Isobel does not try to change Jay; she recognises that he has been a lothario in the past, but seems to rely on the idea that by giving herself completely to Jay, he will respond in kind. And isn’t it generally true that we get back in life what we give out, that what we radiate we attract?
Isobel cannot help her feelings for Jay. Although the reader is privy to his dark side in his relationship with his mistress Lucy, when Jay is with Isobel he is warm, attentive, and generous. And, also, he is an accomplished lover in the bedroom. A heady cocktail for a woman starved of emotional fulfilment.
It is easy to dismiss Isobel as naive. Yet something like 50% of us, those of us who have been divorced, presumably stood at the altar (or whatever) very much in love and at the time believed that love could conquer all. I say this because in all likelihood we tied the knot, made a commitment to be bound until death, despite plenty of evidence that ours was not a match made in heaven. Maybe we believed our parents, that marriages were relationships like any other that needed to be nourished and worked on if they were to endure. But despite all the work and all the nourishing, many more marriages fail than succeed, because the divorce rate only measures those broken partnerships that have been legally dissolved.
Does this prove that love cannot conquer all? I’m afraid so. But we must not despair; this is why god and authors have given us romance stories with dashing heroes and determined damsels, where a beauty can come to love a beast, and a handsome millionaire can fall for a street hooker. So we can all live in hope that one day we too will fall in love with someone who truly deserves us 