Why the Movie Titanic Made Me a Romance Writer

by Lauren Smith

The short answer? I attempted to rewrite the ending to the Titanic movie.

The long answer? Writing is in my blood, in my heart in my soul. When I was eleven years old I watched the movie Titanic and was spellbound by the love story between Jack and Rose. To my utter horror, Rose doesn’t try to share the floating door with Jack at the end and he dies in the cold water and sinks below the surface never to be seen again. After I watched that ending I felt cheated out of my HEA or Happily Ever After.

So naturally I went straight home after the movie and got out a fat notebook and started to rewrite the entire Titanic story. My mother bought me the VHS tape of the movie when it came out and I diligently watched scene after scene and started to write what I later learned was called a “novelization” of a movie, which is the reverse of a screenplay.

I only got halfway through my attempt to change Jack’s fateful destiny in Titanic but I learned I wanted to write my own stories, ones about love. As I grew older I never knew I was writing romances and it wasn’t until I got to law school where I read my first actual romance novel. My best friend Amanda handed me a Christina Dodd book which changed my life!

After that it was all handsome dukes, sexy werewolves, brooding vampires, snowy cottages in small sleepy New England towns. I wanted to write any and every kind of romance (as long as it was the steamy kind of course!) I now write for Hachette and Samhain and love working with those publishers. I spend every day trying to write a story that will heal the wounded hearts like me who feel cheated by Jack’s tragic lack of a happily ever after in Titanic

Tempted By A Rogue

The rogue’s temptation would be her undoing…

Gemma Haverford knows exactly who she will marry: James Randolph, the man she’s had a secret understanding with for the last eleven years. With every letter written between them while he’s been off at sea, their love has grown. Now they will be reunited with his return to England.

 

There’s just one problem. The man whose words she’d fallen in love with isn’t James at all…

Jasper Holland, a gentleman rogue of the first order, is trapped. Talked into a scheme by his best friend, he pretended to be James for eleven years as he wrote to Gemma, even though he’d promised James he’d break it off. But now with his return to England, his secret will come out – and he’ll lose the one woman he can’t live without.

 

What began as a game of words, now becomes a game of hearts, and Jasper will pay any price to call Gemma his.

 

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Excerpt

“What can I do for you, Lady Greenley?” Gemma asked.

“Can I depend upon you to rescue me from these unruly young bucks? Take them about the garden, and see that they don’t scandalize my party, won’t you?” Lady Greenley demanded of Gemma, a wicked glint in the older lady’s gray eyes. With her crafty mannerisms and being rather boisterous for her age, no one dared to cross her.

“Of course, Lady Greenley,” Gemma answered politely.

Both men grinned at her. The direct attention from both James and Jasper heated her skin with an embarrassing blush. There was nothing decent in either of their gazes. She could understand a look like that from James, after what they had shared, but Jasper? He should not be eyeing her form with such a bold look of appreciation like he did at that exact moment.

Lady Greenley watched this odd triangle of looks with an arched brow of interest, and Gemma thought she saw the old woman hide the beginnings of a smile beneath her ridiculously foppish bonnet. Where James’s gaze seemed to outline every curve of her body with speculation, Jasper’s gaze had the deep sensual sweep of such force that she almost felt his hands stroking her rather than his eyes…it was a knowing gaze, like he knew just how the flesh of her breasts would tighten, her legs tremble and her breath quicken beneath his touch…

“Why, is that really you, Miss Haverford?” James exclaimed with a broad smile and a deep bow. It did little to dispel the ensnaring enchantment of Jasper’s heated gaze which distracted her from James.

Gemma forced a soft laugh, letting James take her hand and kiss it, but the tingling rush of contact she expected did not come. His voice did not seem quite the same as the night before, perhaps because it was disguised by his whispering tone…

“Mr. Randolph, Mr. Holland, I’m so glad to see you both returned to Midhurst in good health.” Her gaze was strangely drawn back to Jasper, who watched her in deep concentration and she didn’t know what to make of his scrutiny. She nibbled her bottom lip, studying Jasper intensely. His shoulders were wide…a little wider than James’s now that she compared them so diligently.

James dropped her hand and glanced between her and Jasper, one brow raised.

“Er…we’re quite glad to be home, Miss Haverford,” James added, trying to draw her attention again. “I see Midhurst has treated you well over the years, Gemma.” His voice deepened, but still Gemma didn’t tear her gaze away from Jasper.

Was it possible to have a battle between a man and woman based on eye contact alone? She did feel as though she were battling this man, what she couldn’t understand was why. His lips twitched, her eyes narrowed and her heart gave a strange little flip in her chest when his gaze lowered, inch by inch to focus on her lips.

We’re strangers, after all these years. I should not be fascinated by him.