My Most Romantic... #romance

Hi, I'm Pippa Jay - author of scifi and supernatural stories to engage your emotions. For a romance author, I wouldn't say I'm particularly romantic in real life, and not particularly good at making romantic gestures. What I personally find romantic might seem positively weird to others.

For instance, my husband's latest gesture might not seem romantic to some. I guess it depends on your point of view. Recently he bought me home three large sections of leathery looking, foam backed material he'd seen in a skip. How is that possibly romantic? Well, last year I really got into cosplay - designing, making and wearing outfits made to replicate costumes from films, particularly Star Wars. He picked up the stuff in the skip because he thought I might find a use for in in future cosplay making. That, to me, proves he's taken note of my latest passion and thought about how much I enjoy it and how something could be potentially useful to me. While I really appreciate the odd bunch of flowers (Stargazer lilies for preference), that bundle of fabric was a far more individual and thoughtful gift.

And I'm still a romantic at heart, now more than ever. Lately I've been watching a lot of dating shows. Something about watching people take their first steps into falling in love is giving me hope at a time when the current politics of the world seem very much doom and gloom. But again, some of my romantic viewing might seem a bit odd. One of my favourite romantic films is Warm Bodies, involving zombies. Not the genre that immediately conjures ideas of love and romance maybe, but trust me - one of the cutest romances I've ever seen. In the film, an odd zombie called R falls for a human, and while his initial response is to essentially kidnap her, he spends the rest of the story trying to show her zombies need love too, from giving her a bottle of beer even though he doesn't understand the need for it, to venturing into her human city just to see her, at the very literal risk of having his head blown off by the inhabitants.

To me, romance is certainly more than flowers and chocolates on one day of the year (though that certainly doesn't hurt). To quote my main hero Keir, who doesn't consider himself a man of romantic gestures either...

"To me, it is not about trying to be romantic," he assures me, very serious. "It is about being honest in your feelings when you love and care for someone. Keeping a promise. Respecting them. If that is being romantic..." He shrugs. "Then perhaps I am."