I'll Be Seeing You...

No, I'm not going anywhere. When some of the authors from Romance Books ‘4’ Us decided to put together an anthology, I started searching for a new story idea that would make me enthusiastic enough to chain myself to the computer for eight hours a day and need to be reminded to eat.

I knew I wanted to write something romantic, set in a historical period that romance readers didn't usually associate with romance and give it a paranormal twist. I do love a challenge. That’s when this particular song popped into my head and refused to leave. Of course I started surfing You Tube and found Jo Stafford’s version of I’ll Be Seeing You, and everything started falling into place. My characters didn’t so much tap me on the shoulder as dance their way into my heart.

The first scene that came to me was a USO dance given in one of the many clubs located wherever a community might provide enough room for the venue. World War II was a very patriotic time. Everyone volunteered time, resources and materials so that our servicemen would be comfortable and appreciated while away from their loved ones. Call me sappy but I still get choked up over that period in our history. I know there were many awful things that happened in the country during this time that can be attributed to fear and paranoia but romance wasn’t one of them.

I visited the Jo Stafford video many times during the course of writing this story and I happened to stumble onto one version of the song that she recorded live during a radio performance in 1944 that was later distributed among our servicemen. How many people, over the years have listened to I’ll Be Seeing You and remembered just who they were dancing with or what was happening when they heard it and associated it with someone they loved?

I think we all have songs that we associate with something or someone from our past that were just too special to forget. That was the foundation for the story I contributed to the Entice Me anthology coming from Romance Books ‘4’ Us, October 10, 2015. Here’s the blurb…

Blurb:

Jack Howland, part of an elite group of special OSS agents can’t resist the pull of the moon or widowed USO hostess, Lulu Lane. Their paths cross again after the war but will the truth about what he is send her screaming into the night or back into his arms?

I’m going to leave a link to the Jo Stafford, You Tube video that inspired me… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swV5t-9GQMg

Has anyone else ever started a story because of a song that just kept rattling around inside their head?

Until next month,

Happy Reading!

Paris Brandon

http://parisbrandon.com

http://twitter.com/#!/ParisBrandon

https://www.facebook.com/paris.brandon.author

***I’ll Be Seeing You: Music by Sammy Fain, Lyrics by Irving Kahal.