Happy Thursday! Today's guest is author LM Brown. Enjoy!
Welcome to the fifth and final day of my
blog tour in celebration of Valentine’s Day and also my newly released
Valentine’s Day themed short story.
During this short tour I have blogged about
the origins of Valentine’s Day, Lupercalia, how the tradition of the first man
a woman sees being her husband might work in the modern world, and all about
the birds.
But that is barely touching the tip of the
iceberg of Valentine’s Day traditions.
Of course we all know the obvious ones – sending flowers (often roses),
cards signed from Your Valentine, etc.
But what about some of the less obvious ones?
If you see someone doing something
remarkably odd or unusual at this time of year, there’s a small chance they may
just be trying to find their Valentine in a more unusual way.
See that girl walking round the church at
midnight on the Eve of Valentine’s Day?
Maybe she’s looking for a lost piece of jewellery or perhaps she is
lost? If she walks round the church
twelve times though, she is probably hoping it will make her dream of her
future husband that night.
No, it’s not very late Christmas
Carollers. In the 18th and 19th
centuries children singing door to door on Valentine’s Day was not
unusual. Some sang songs of romance,
others not so much.
Putting five bay leaves on a pillow (one in
each corner and one in the centre) is another way of dreaming of your true
love, provided you recite one of several rhymes before you sleep. Of course, there are so many variations on
the rhymes and the number of times you should say them, you may not get to
sleep at all that night.
Despite the popularity of birds in
Valentine’s traditions, eggs are not so popular. If you feed your would be sweetheart eggs on
Valentine’s Day you are saying no to them.
Best to stick to apples and pears, as they are said to mean yes.
Of course, you may not believe in all of
this at all, or you may decide to make up your own tradition instead, just like
the friend of one of the heroes of my new release did with her Anti-Valentine’s
Party.
Blurb
Can a wrong number lead to Mr Right? Nick Davis’s life takes an
unexpected turn when a stranger starts leaving messages on his answer machine.
Is there hope Nick can become more to Connor Hayes than just a wrong number?
Excerpt
Nick Davis stumbled from his bedroom into
the kitchen, cringing at the bright sunlight of the January morning. He snapped
the blinds down, causing him to simultaneously sigh with relief at the more
subdued light and groan at the sound, which echoed far too loudly for his
liking. Every step he took was careful and measured, so as not to make his
aching head pound any more than necessary. He spared a glance at the blinking
red light on the answering machine: a new message. Suspecting it to be a
slightly belated Happy New Year greeting, and probably a loud one, Nick left it
for the moment. He headed for the fridge and a hangover cure in the form of
hair of the dog, also known as a nice cold beer.
Damn, what did I do last night? He
remembered meeting his mates at The Red Lion for a night out on the town.
They'd had a few drinks there before moving on to The Royal Oak. Then they'd
headed out to the city, where things started to get a little hazy. He did
recall Marc screaming Happy New Year down the phone at least an hour early, but
midnight itself was a complete blank. He supposed he should be thankful he'd
made it home in one piece, and hadn't woken up to find a strange man in his bed
this morning.
After nursing his hangover until mid-afternoon
Nick finally remembered the message and hit the play button.
"Hey, baby! Happy New Year! Missing
you already. I can't wait to see you again. Give me a call to let me know you
got back safely. Love you."
Nick frowned at the answer machine. He
didn't recognise the voice of the soft-spoken man on the other end of the
phone. Chalking it up to someone too inebriated to dial correctly, he deleted
the message and promptly forgot about it.
Available from Silver Publishing
Where to find L.M. Brown
Website – http://lmbrownauthor.webs.com/
Goodreads – http://www.goodreads.com/lmbrown
5 comments:
Interesting. No eggs then. Not sure i was romantic this year. I bought my hubby a sander, card and a cake from Diary Queen.
Hi Cinders
At least you bought him something and I bet he loved it. Most people I know didn't bother doing anything at all! No romance around here. LOL
I'd heard of the church tradition but, not the others. Thanks for the fun facts. Also, I love the excerpt.
menina.iscrazy @ yahoo.com
Being egged is never a good thing. Never heard of the church tradition either. Great blog.
Please enter me in the contest. Book sounds wonderful.
melaniem54atmsndotcom
Hi Menina and Melanine
Sorry for the delay in responding. It has been a rather manic week all round and I am playing catch up.
I'm glad you liked the fun facts about Valentine traditions. I had a great time researching these and found a lot of new ones I had never heard of too. I was hard pressed to keep the blog to a reasonable length there were so many.
I am afraid the contest finished a couple of days before I blogged here with Lindsay (it ran from 11th to 14th February) but I am sure there will be more opportunities to win prizes from me in the future - I think I am becoming addicted to blog hops and have already signed up for another two!
Thanks for stopping by and commenting.
LM
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