Reading Memories

Coincidences make life interesting. A couple of weeks ago, a fellow author was asked about a book by one of her readers. The reader believed this was one of the author’s books – the author knew it wasn’t. So she asked if anyone could remember the book under discussion. At the time I thought that it sounded like a book I had read and that had had quite an impact on me way back when – in the days when I had been learning my craft and had been following the advice I give all would-be writers – Read, read, read - to discover what’s being written and how.

But the problem was that I couldn’t recall either the title or the author of the book. The only thing I had to go on was the description the reader had given. The book was about a rich girl who is kidnapped by a man (the hero) and three others. He’s kind to her through the whole thing and s he falls in love with him. In the end she finds out that he was actually working with the authorities and that's why he made sure that she didn't get hurt. She's pregnant and of course there is the happy ending.

I could remember several kidnapping books – one had a hero by the name of Wolf and that was all I could really recall. But then in one of those secondhand bookshops in Scarborough, scanning the shelves of older M&Bs, just where I had rested my hand, I spotted an orange spine, the title Comrade Wolf, the author Madeleine Ker, and I knew I had found the book under discussion.

One of the interesting things about the author, is that Madeleine Ker is the pseudonym of one of M&M’s male authors. He also writes thrillers under the name of Marius Gabriel. When I first read this book, when it was published back in 1984, just as I was beginning my own writing career, I didn’t know this. Reading it again, with that knowledge in my mind, I felt that I could see that it was in fact written by a man. There was an emphasis on the ‘thriller’ aspects of the plot – the kidnapping, the rough treatment of the heroine, and the political reasons for the kidnapping. I’ll admit that also, this time around, I was less convinced by the heroine falling in love with the mysterious ‘Wolf’ - or that it was more than an infatuation that would last beyond the time of her imprisonment. At the time of reading it in 1984, I remember that I was fascinated – and still am – by the syndrome known as ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ which is a psychological response sometimes seen in an abducted hostage, in which the hostage can show signs of having feelings of loyalty to the hostage-taker, regardless of the danger (or at least risk) in which the hostage has been placed. Because of this, and because of the intensity of the situation in which the kidnapped victim finds his or herself, the syndrome and the kidnapping situation is one that many romantic novelists have wanted to get their writing teeth into.

But I remember that at the time there were several books published by M&B with this theme. And as they had largely the same set up and explanation – hero infiltrates gang in order to hand them over to the authorities but has to go along with the kidnapping in order to have the villains trust him – I remember looking for a new twist on the situation. What I did was what I often like to do if possible – I turned the story on its head.

Why should it be the hero who kidnaps the heroine? Why couldn’t it be the heroine who kidnaps the hero and holds him in her home? The result was Captive Lover, a book that was published in 1987. The whole story was a lot lighter than Comrade Wolf – the heroine and her brother kidnap the hero as a Rag Week stunt for charity – and then he is not quite the man she believes. Later, I was to return to the kidnapping theme with Hostage Bride.

It was great to revisit Comrade Wolf – which was one of the books that I remember so vividly from the very early days of my writing career. Kidnapping is a tricky theme to handle at any time and looking back at this 1980s version made me realise yet again how much the books have changed and how there are so many things that would probably not be acceptable now – or at least they would need more justification than was needed in 1984. It was fascinating for me to see how much I was questioning – the way the hero and heroine were not together very much at all– a lot of ‘telling’ not showing - that feeling of not really being convinced - and how I wanted to write the story and write it in a different way. Maybe I will one day – not that story, as in Comrade Wolf, because that would be plagiarism – but taking that basic seed of an idea and seeing which way I can take it to make it new, different and very much my own. . .

Watch this space.