Guest Blog: Raven McAllan: A Rose by Any Other Name...

A rose by any other name… or take that peal of wisdom and use it wisely.

They say a rose is the flower for beauty and love. Okay, but what about when it fades and dies? Can you still say it's beautiful and lovable?

I can. I remember how it came to life, grew into itself and gave me pleasure.

Ad I do like those rose petals to use in a Regency book…you know to scent a bath and strewn on a bed.

I guess a lot of people wouldn't agree. They only see the here and now. Get rid of it. It's had its day.

(A bit like I feel after a long walk and too much chocolate)

Some will nip the bud off… others toss it altogether.

Over and done with.

But you know, I do wonder why. That rose has given us so much joy. Now it's time for it to move on.

But… think about it for a moment.

Stop, think, and yes as my mum used to say, take a second to smell the roses, and then remember, we all bloom and fade in one way or another. It happens with everything. It (or we) are created, grow, and bloom, and eventually fade and die. But something (someone) else takes over.

That’s the beautiful circle of life.

And hopefully, it is something positive that will come from it.

Yes, we all know there's not always a happy ever after, but it's worth trying, isn't it?

From the rose? A chance of a second bloom or another bud next year.

From one level of love? Another, deeper level.

That's it, a second chance.

From an oyster. If you're very lucky a pearl. Not every time and not all as perfect as the next one. Like people and roses, they differ.

But wouldn't it be boring if every pearl, every rose, and yes every person was the same.

For instance, let's start with one little part of life.

Think of the love part and add it to the beauty bit. Each one is important, but together, they make something special.

When one beauty fades, another takes its place. It's like love.

Even the happy ever after for this lifetime love.

I guess that's at the basis of our romance stories. Love, how it blooms, changes and hopefully gets stronger.

And snigger yeah, if those pesky characters are in an ornery mood, you get the opposite, and it’s a slanging, shouting, dead rose moment.

You just can't please everyone eh? Ah well, I'm still a believer in love. It evolves and changes for us?

Oh and I'm a believer in roses…and pearls… and I'm not averse to oysters either…

What do you think?

BLURB:
If someone steals your identity and marries a sex god and that sex god husband shows up at your door…do you get to keep him?

Jules has no memory of marrying a sex god—and no woman is that forgetful.

So when the devastatingly handsome Gray turned up on her doorstep looking for his wife and calling said wife by Jules’ name, Jules wondered briefly if she’d landed in an alternative universe. She knows she’s not his wife and so does he, but apparently someone with her name and history is. Is it a case of coincidence or did his missing wife ‘borrow’ Jules’ life?

Even though the dominant Gray sends her knickers aflame with just one look, with a missing wife in the equation, Jules knows there’s no chance of finding out what else he could achieve.

There’s only one thing to do—unravel the mystery and try to keep their hands off each other in the meantime. The first may well prove far easier than the latter.

Reader Advisory: This book contains scenes of light bondage and BDSM.
Publisher's Note: This book was previously published elsewhere. It has been revised and re-edited for release with Totally Bound.

https://www.totallybound.com/taken-identity

BIO:
Raven lives in Scotland, along with her husband—their children having flown the nest—surrounded by beautiful scenery, which inspires a lot of the settings in her books.

She is used to sharing her life with the occasional deer, red squirrel, and lost tourist, to say nothing of the scourge of Scotland—the midge.

A lover of reading, she appreciates the history inside a book, and the chance to peek into the lives of those from years ago. Raven admits that she enjoys the research for her books almost as much as the writing; so much so, that sometimes she realizes she's strayed way past the information she needs to know, and not a paragraph has been added to her WIP.

She admits she's no domestic goddess, and wonders why tourists think she might run the local bed and breakfast. She doesn't.

Her lovely long-suffering husband is learning to love the dust bunnies, work the Aga, and be on stand-by with a glass of wine.