Love Overboard

It's been three months since I set sail from Romancelandia to Thriller Island. Sure, this time of year I miss the windswept coiffure and the temptation to wax nostalgic on my hero's corded forearms when I read other romance blog topics: Hump Day Hottie! Steam Up Your Valentine's Day! Hunky Cop Interview! It does not help that Fabio visits me during an episode of Cupcake Wars and says to the poor baker whose frosting slid off her too-hot cupcake, "What can I say?-a topless cupcake. I laaahhve it." Ask me if I'm kidding about this. It's as if Romancelandia has a stronger gravitational pull that I anticipated. Nevertheless, this ship's course is set for true north or true blood or true descent into-in my character's case-insanity, sweaty palms and all.

So this Valentine's Day I shall dump cargo from past satin-pillow-and-Barry-White Romancelandia-laced topics to make room for new body counts. With a well-documented tear plummeting my cheek I give you new booty. Less plunder, more psychological reaping.

Crate One: Fabio After Dark

I'm the first to admit I've probably gotten more mileage out of this than Fabio, but I can't hear things that go bump in the night if this Italian Stallion is reminding me he is a "chiiiild of laahhhve." Ciao, Fabio.

Crate Two: Romantic Gift Ideas

Gifts on Thriller Island are more likely to be a jar of human skin than a jar filled with love notes or poetry.

Crate Three: Love Letters

True, this one came packaged with well-wishes of love from Mr. Roarke and Tattoo, but on Thriller Island, they'd be from a stalker or a serial killer with an m.o. for copycatting famous lovers' deaths.

Crate Four: Vast Secrets of a Woman's Heart

Or, more specifically, how men can learn them by paying attention to romance novel heroes. Thriller Island could not exist without secrets, copious and dark, but the talent to control body functions is not one of them.

Crate Five: Those Romantic Shorts

Films, not Bermuda. Let's see, there was Notte Sento and Post-It Love and A Thousand Words and The Quiet Man scene and for heaven's sake, the entire kissing scene series I did a few years ago, but on Thriller Island, the shorts will be much more in the vein of Fragments, still my favorite.

Cargo dump aside, I hope everyone feels love this Valentine's Day. And if you don't, the Vortex is full of it (and, secretly, always will be). Shhh!