Valentine’s Day is but a week away. Any plans? If they involve reading, then I have a list of suggestions for you at the bottom of this post.
As for me, I expect we shan’t be going to a fancy restaurant or the cinema, ice skating or laughing in the park because we don’t have any of those things on the island. If we do go out, it will either be to the bar where two TVs play at once, or to the café by the playground where there’s always a children’s party to go with your onion rings, or we’ll go to our taverna for some chips, which is about all they cook at this time of year. Chips and liver.
I am wondering, though, if and how I could use Valentine’s Day as a background theme to one of my mysteries. (Let’s shorten it to VD; it’s easier to type.) It’s been done before, as you will see from the list below, but there’s no reason VD can’t be used as a theme/background/plot device in an original way.
I went to have a look at the National Newspaper Archive to see what the nation’s thoughts were on VD in 1894. By then, the sending of cards was very popular, and VD was celebrated. There are articles in the papers telling us that it is not as well observed as it used to be, in a religious sense, but the exchange of fancy, anonymous cards and greetings on VD was popular. Poems were much involved, too, especially in Britain.
I found this, then, current thought in the Aberdeen Express, on February 14th, 1894, and it made me smile.
To-day (sic) is St Valentine’s Day, and we notice, with great regret, that here, there and everywhere in print, ancient and very superstitious doings are advocated, by means of which the gentle saint is to aid and abet lovers and other foolish folks. We need not point out to our readers that all these things betoken vanity and gross ignorance, and that the only correct way of invoking the aid of the “holy blessed martyr” is to place two bay leaves, after sprinkling them with rose-water, across a pillow, and repeat the formula:
Good Valentine be kind to me,
In dream let me my true love see.
I imagined that was written by a strict and dour Scotsman of some cloth or other (we notice with great regret… superstitious doings… vanity and gross ignorance). Lots of bluster and fear of God behind the voice. But then, he made me laugh by cutting his dour tone and telling us how to cast a spell. Maybe he wasn’t a man of the church after all.
What he gives us is an idea for something you could do on Valentine’s Day, and if you don’t have a special someone whose pillows you could sprinkle, then surprise a neighbour, or even a stranger. I am sure it would lighten their day.
Enough silliness. I am away to beaver away on Delamere Eleven, but I will leave you with the list – the promo list of 30 titles where Valentines come in the guise of murderers and assassins.
Click, browse and share, and I’ll get back to chapter ten…
Killer Valentines: MM Assassins and Murderers
Genres: General Fiction / LGBT and Romance / LGBT
There are 30 titles, including Deviant Desire, which is one of only a few historical fiction-themed covers, as far as I can see. It’s hard to see what with so much naked flesh also going on… Looks like there’s a mix of genres within the MM murderings.
https://books.bookfunnel.com/killervalentines/2g4p3u3ub1
