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Today I am pleased to have Leslie Gould drop by and share some thoughts on love and how her new novel came about....
Becoming Bea, my latest release, is a retelling of Much Ado About Nothing, by William Shakespeare. Beatrice and Benedick, one of the couples in the play, are two of my all-time favorite characters in all of literature. Their witty banter is hilarious, and I hold three lines spoken by Benedick, after his relationship with Beatrice has been resolved, very dear.
The
first one is, “Thou and
I are too wise to woo peaceably.”
I’ve been married for thirty-one years to my soul mate and best friend so you’d
think we’d be way beyond the wooing stage—but that’s not true. We’re also not
beyond the arguing and bantering stage. We value truth and sometimes it takes
some back and forth to get to what’s bothering us or the truth about a problem
we’re working through. Often
times a false peace comes from pretending, and that’s not peace at all. I’d
much rather be wise and get to the heart of a matter than pretend.
The
second quote I really like is “For which of my bad parts didst thou first fall
in love with me?” After three decades of being together, my husband and I
certainly know each other’s bad parts. And yet, after three decades, those bad
parts make us who we are, along with the good. I’m so thankful my husband loves
my bad parts too!
This
last quote by Benedick makes my heart do a little back flip: “I do love nothing
in the world so well as you- is not that strange?” Aside from my Creator, there
isn’t anything I love as much as my husband (and I love my children beyond
reason!). My husband is my partner in this world, and he’s made sacrifice after
sacrifice for me; our children; and our country, as a member of the Army
reserve. He’s the one I love to travel with, love to explore with, and love to
spend time with. There’s no else I love as well as him.
My
characters, Bea and Ben, in Becoming Bea
go through heart-stopping moments to get to a place of—oops, I don’t want to
give anything away! But I can say, it was so fun for me to pour all of my years
of admiration of Shakespeare’s characters into my own, along with what I’ve
learned through all these years of being married to my husband.
Leslie Gould is
the bestselling author of nineteen novels, including the #1 bestseller and 2012
Christy Award winner The Amish Midwife,
co-written with Mindy Starns Clark. Leslie’s novel Beyond the Blue was the winner of the Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice Award for Best Inspirational Novel
in 2006, and Courting Cate (inspired
by The Taming of the Shrew) was a
best-seller and a finalist in the FHL Inspirational Reader’s Choice Awards for
2013.
Leslie received her master of fine arts in creative writing
from Portland State University and has taught fiction as an adjunct professor
at Multnomah University. She was the first-ever recipient of the Oregon
Christian Writers’ Trailblazer Award (2013) for her writing achievements and
for her encouragement and support of other writers. She lives in Portland,
Oregon with her husband, Peter, and four children. Visit her at www.lesliegould.com.
Isn't it wonderful how Leslie found inspiration for this story in Shakespeare and in her own life!
Well Friends, hope you enjoyed this guest post. Check back weekly for more Thursday Thoughts, Saturday Spotlight and Tuesday Treasures!
PamT
