Monday, June 17, 2013

In Honor of Loving Day


As a wife and mother of three it amazes me that only 46 years ago, my family wouldn't have been legal! 

On June 12, Alexa Day and I participated in the Loving Day Blog Hop to celebrate the anniversary of the  Supreme Court decision, Loving v. Virginia, which invalidated laws that prohibited interracial marriage. 

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Why I write interracial romance
I read my first Harlequin when I was 11 years old-- and I was hooked. [Click here to read my blog post about my introduction to romance novels.] I'm not going to lie, those explicit love scenes were titillating. :-) But it wasn't long before I was swept away in the romance, the glamour, the relationships! I couldn't get enough. They sold boxes of Harlequin Presents at flea markets for $2.00 and before long, my room was full of every category trope you can imagine.

I carried a book with me everywhere, like an asthma inhaler or an EpiPen.

In school: instead of reading great lit-tra-chure, I was reading about the handsome boss and his plain jane secretary.

In church: I was thrilled when it was my turn to usher; my mom couldn't see what I was hiding in my hymnal!

At home: weekends were my favorite; nowhere to be and a book under my pillow.

But it didn't take long to notice that none of the heroines looked like  me. One of the cornerstones of a romance novel is when the hero first "sees" the heroine. Pages were spent rhapsodizing about the heroine's beauty; her long silken blond, or red, hair; her large blue, or green, eyes and her silky soft pale skin. Yeah, none of that described me. And to a girl of 12, it almost felt like women who looked like me weren't worthy of a love story.

That all changed as more and more books about relationships between African American men and women were made available and I could finally read stories where sexy powerful heroes found big brown eyes, full lips and smooth cocoa skin desirable. I even wrote my own novellas for my friends so they could have their own fictional HEAs.

But 18 years ago I met the love of my life... and he was white. When the time came for me to pursue a career in romantic fiction, there was no question about the type of stories I would write. I would write stories that reflected my love journey and experience. Stories where men who looked like my husband fell in love with women who looked like me. When you read a Tracey Livesay novel you'll find powerful men, smart women, drama, passion and excitement. The fact that the hero and heroine are different races is a beautiful bonus.

True Love... in black & white.
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Tracey Livesay's debut novel, The Billionaire's Socialite Bride, will be published by Entangled Publishing in January 2014.  She blogs here on the third Monday of every month. If you like the flavor she's bringing, you can check out her blog, Mimosas at Midnight or Like her Facebook page.

2 comments:

  1. That is so cool that you used to write novellas for your friends!

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  2. Thanks, Leah! This was before everyone had personal computers, but the school had a computer lab. So when the urge hit, I would interview a friend: what names did she like, what career did she want them to have, etc. And then I would spend hours writing these dramatic stories. LOL All I read were Harlequin & Silhouettes, so of course there was an evil woman who tried to break up my friend and the hero. I still have some of them in a little folder in my office. :-)

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