16 March 2011

The importance of 'The First Kiss'

Mention the word 'kiss' and it evokes memories in everyone. 
Mention Cupid and everyone thinks of February 14th!
Be we Cupids work all year round.
So while getting our targets together may seem easy to the innocent bystander, ensuring they stay together may depend a great deal on the kind and quality of their kisses. 

Kissing in Western cultures is a fairly recent development and is rarely mentioned even in Greek literature. Cultural connotations of kissing vary widely. Depending on the culture and context, a kiss can express sentiments of greeting, affection, respect, love, and passion. Depending on the culture, relationship and context,  may carry a different social significance.  The French are renowned for kissing the fingers, whie embracing each other the Mediterraneans' kiss each cheek, to name just two of the most obvious.
In the Middle Ages it became a social gesture and was considered a sign of refinement of the upper classes while in China rubbing the nose against the recipient's cheek is a sign of affection. 

There are so many different kind of kisses there just isn't space here to begin listing them, so I won't!

But do you remember your first kiss?  You know the one I mean.  The one between you and that first 'someone special'?

On January 10th 2011 The Guardian.co.uk posted an article asking that question.
They say that according to Sheril Kirshenbaum, a scientist at the University of Texas, a first kiss is likely to be one of your most vivid memories.

Sadly I must be an exception, or else the kiss was so unmemorable it never rated even the vaguest memory! As an author of romance that’s a shameful admission, but true.  As an author of romance I wish I’d written Judy Garland’s line of 1939 "Twas not my lips you kissed, but my soul."

This so represents what I search for when writing.

In my short Valentine novella, The Wrong Target, published by eTreasures as part of the Cupid’s Gone Wild anthology and still available at http://www.etreasurespublishing.com/  and http://tinyurl.com/6ys4h6a there is explosive emotion between Tina and Ryan all the way through the story, but their first kiss does not come until near the end of the story.
It may have resulted from a challenge from my heroine to my hero, but indeed, that kiss reached their souls and sealed their future.

 BLURB:
Headmistress Tina Blackberry and business tycoon Ryan Thomas can't control events after Ryan's daughter steals his coveted golden arrow and takes it to school, But put Cupid on the job and nothing can go wrong, or can it?
Excerpt:
“Goddamit,” he exploded, “Can’t you stand still for one second? I have something to say, but I can’t while you’re jogging round the room.”

She halted toe to toe in front of him. “You have me dismissed from a job I loved, because I upheld the safety of my pupils, and still have the audacity to stalk me to my holiday destination and demand I listen to you because you have something to say?” Flapping her hands at her sides, she spun away and back again, planting her hands on the chair arms, she pinned him in his place and snarled, “Let me tell you something. I’ve come here to enjoy myself and your presence isn’t part of my plan.”

“What is your plan?” he demanded.

“To get laid!” Astonishment pushed her away from the chair, her eyes wide, her lips curved up in a defiant sneer. “I intend to find myself a man and screw the living daylights out of him. And,” she paused deliberately, “I don’t need you for that.”

To find more information about Sherry Gloag's other books, The Brat and Duty Calls -


visit her webiste and blogsite at




Website: www.sherrygloag.com
Blogspot: http://tinyurl.com/68oomm6




and other places online:-
Duty Calls – http://tinyurl.com/4rxo5sw
And The Brat, her debut novel - http://tinyurl.com/5spkumm
The Wrong Target - http://tinyurl.com/5vadzhq

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