In my first novel, Heart of Lies, the two main characters, Martha and Leo, experience what the French call, “le coup de foudre,” the thunderbolt, an instant and overwhelming attraction for each other: love at first sight, but on steroids.

Not everyone is comfortable with this concept, or the inevitable consequences. I was once speaking to a large book club about Heart of Lies, and when it came time for questions a diminutive older woman raised her hand. “I just want you to know,” she said sternly. “Martha would not have jumped into bed with Leo so quickly. She was not like that.”

What could I say? “I’m so glad you felt that you got to know Martha so well,” is what I think I came up with. But I made her up, is what I managed to keep myself from blurting out.

Traveling around the country, talking with book clubs and other groups about my work, I’ve noted an unexpected but very commonly occurring phenomenon. If you include a steamy sex scene in a book you’ve written, some people who read it will treat you like you’re Dr. Ruth. Well, maybe that’s off the mark; they seldom ask me for advice, but they do tell me things. Sometimes very odd things.

For example, in the original version of Heart of Lies (published by an independent press under the title, Silent Lies), Leo is seduced at a very young age by his foster mother’s best friend, a hedonistic Hungarian countess. The whole scene is described in vivid, passionate detail. (In Heart of Lies, at the suggestion of my editor, this action takes place offstage.)

At book signings, private homes, book festivals, civic clubs””even synagogues””many gentlemen, mostly older ones for some reason, would find a way to come up to me privately and say, “That’s exactly what happened to me. My music teacher/riding instructor/father’s secretary/babysitter/lifeguard at the country club pool/baseball coach’s wife”¦”

None of the men who told me these stories seemed to have anything but the happiest of memories regarding their sexual awakening at the hands of an older, experienced woman. Perhaps they approached me because they were at a point in their lives where they were growing nostalgic, and I guess I seemed like a ready audience because by writing about Leo’s experiences I’d expressed an interest in the subject (although I thought I’d made that stuff up).

However, let me make one thing perfectly clear: I AM NOT NOW NOR HAVE I EVER BEEN INTERESTED IN SEDUCING TEENAGEDBOYS. Not even when I was a teenager myself. And if a gentleman interesting in confiding in me begins to share too many lurid details, I quickly find a way to cut him off.

But there’s no question that a good writer builds bridges between people, or at least between one’s characters and one’s readers. And if what readers can relate to is that steamy love scene, either because something similar has happened to them or because it’s what they’ve always wanted to have happen, the writer will hear about it. At least I do. (Wait, it’s not just me, is it? Anybody? Anybody else???)

Readers also share stories of a more romantic nature with me, often dealing with love at first sight, either their own story or that of a family member. Some people do not believe in love at first sight””in fact some bloggers reviewing some books have been downright rude about their scorn for any book where LAFS plays a role””no bitterness there””but that was my own personal experience when I met my husband (luckily it was mutual) and I’ve heard dozens of similar stories as I’ve traveled around the country. I think some of these stories really involve Lust At First Site, but as my husband says, “It doesn’t matter where you start, as long as you end up in the right place.”

Last summer I was in Texas doing a book signing for Heart of Lies when a gentleman came over to my table, picked up the book, started reading the back cover, and then said, “Shanghai. Well, I guess I’ll have to buy this book.”

“Have you been there?” I asked.

“No,” he said. But my father met my mother in 1948. They lived in Michigan at the time. They’d known each other for just two weeks when he left for his new job in Shanghai””he was going to work for an oil company there. When he got as far as Singapore he sent my mother a letter saying he’d been madly in love with her since the first time he laid eyes on her, and while he knew it was a presumptuous and crazy thing to ask her to do, he wanted her to join him in Shanghai as soon as she could so they could get married. He enclosed enough money to cover the ticket, and when she got that letter, she hopped on the next train to San Francisco and sailed straight to Shanghai. My mother passed away ten years ago, but I have the letter.”

My jaw dropped. In Heart of Lies Leo meets Martha in Paris, and then he has to leave two days later for Shanghai (under rather different circumstances) and he writes and asks Martha to join him, which she does, no questions asked, because”¦.

Because some believe in love at first sight.

And I THOUGHT I MADE ALL THAT UP!

Brief Bio

Although born in New York, M.L. Malcolm spent most of her childhood in Florida. Her education gradually brought her back north, as she earned degrees from Emory University and Harvard Law School. However, after practicing law for a short time, M.L. determined that “she and the law were not meant for each other,” and she is now a self-described “recovering attorney” and freelance journalist. She has also lived in Georgia, Virginia, California, and France, and currently resides in Washington, D.C.

M.L. has won several awards for her fiction, including special recognition in the prestigious Lorian Hemingway International Short Story Competition, and a silver medal from ForeWord Magazine for Best Historical Fiction Book of the Year 2009, Deceptive Intentions. She has also amassed an impressive hat collection (and yes, she does wear them).

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