LOVERS ROCK WEEK FINALE - Hosted by Leslie Kelly

UPDATE: The winner of MAKE ME OVER by Leslie Kelly, plus two suprise Harlequin titles, is Sunnymay. Congrats! Please email you physical addy to contests(AT)knightagency.net.

Most people who know me are aware I am a big Broadway musical fan. Ever since I was a kid, I have chosen to listen to show tunes over just about any other kind of music, and I’ve seen dozens of lives shows. So when The Knight Agency asked me to be a guest during their Lovers Rock week, my mind immediately went to musicals.

Christine and the Phantom? Nah…overdone. The Baker and his wife from Into The Woods? Tempting…but then again, she cheats, and then she dies. Sigh. Camelot? Uh…there’s that cheating thing again. Newer stuff—my new fave show Next To Normal? Talk about dysfunctional! Rent, Spring Awakenings, Boy From Oz…yikes, not many happily-ever-afters there!

So, back to the classics. One couple immediately came to mind as my favorite—and it’s one some people don’t even think of as a romantic couple at all. I’m talking about Professor Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle from My Fair Lady. (Also, of course, from the book PYGMALION…but the book doesn’t end the same way as the musical and I like the musical better!) I should have thought of this one immediately, since I actually wrote an entire book (MAKE ME OVER) as an homage to it!

To quickly sum up the story for those who don’t know, a snooty linguistics professor accepts a bet from a friend that he can take a cockney girl from the streets and turn her into a lady who could even fool royalty. He succeeds…and falls in love with his own creation. Audrey Hepburn played Eliza in the movie, Julie Andrews played her on Broadway. Rex Harrison starred in both versions. Not necessarily a “classical” romantic hero, Harrison nonetheless takes this arrogant, impatient, stuffy man and lets us see his icy heart thawing as Eliza gets under his skin. (Oh, quick side note, Harrison also starred in one of favorite old movies ever—The Ghost & Mrs. Muir—in which he was a gorgeous, ghostly ship’s captain and the happily-ever-after didn’t come until after she died!)

Back to My Fair Lady. There’s no blatant romance, not one kiss, not one embrace. No “I love you’s” are exchanged. Eliza and the Professor are antagonists through much of the story. Yet even as Eliza is drastically transformed from street-girl to lady, you see Higgins begin to realize how empty and lonely his own life has been. Until by the end, when she is ready to marry someone else, he acknowledges to himself just how much she has come to mean to him. He puts it best in one of my favorite songs:

I've grown accustomed to her face.
She almost makes the day begin.
I've grown accustomed to the tune that
She whistles night and noon.
Her smiles, her frowns,
Her ups, her downs
Are second nature to me now;
Like breathing out and breathing in.
I was serenely independent and content before we met;
Surely I could always be that way again-
And yet I've grown accustomed to her look;
Accustomed to her voice;
Accustomed to her face.

It’s not a passionate declaration to her, just a self-admission that he cares about this girl when he had never really cared about anyone. Simple and sweet and lovely.

When she returns to him, choosing an uncertain future with him over marriage to a handsome, charming young suitor, he doesn’t leap up and take her into his arms, their relationship is too tenuous. He instead leans back and puts his hat over his eyes, wondering aloud where he left his slippers. The viewer doesn’t see the happily ever after, it’s left to you to fill in the blanks of the story. In my mind, Eliza and Henry marry and have a wonderful life together.

I guess that’s why I write romance novels. I choose to see the happily-ever-after.

How about you?

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Leave a comment to win a signed copy of MAKE ME OVER by Leslie Kelly. As a bonus, The Knight Agency will throw in two suprise titles published by Harlequin! So that's three books total! The winner will be announced tomorrow afternoon.

To learn more about Leslie, visit www.LeslieKelly.com.