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Asha Bhosle is born on September 8, 1933. She is one of the best-known and highly regarded Hindi playback singers in India Asha Bhosle was born in the small hamlet of Goar in Sangli, Bombay Presidency, into the musical family of Master Deenanath Mangeshkar, who belongs to Gomantak Maratha Samaj.
She and her elder sister Lata Mangeshkar began singing and acting in films to support their family. She made her Hindi film debut when she sang the song Saawan Aaya for Hansraj Behl's Chunariya (1948). Her first solo Hindi film song was for the movie Raat Ki Raani (1949). Between 1948 and 1957, she sang more songs than any other playback singer, but the majority of these were in small, indistinct films--and whatever big film she got a chance to sing in, it was usually for the heroine's best friend or in a duet with bigger singers like Shamshad Begum, Geeta Dutt, or her own sister. And unfortunately having made an ill-advised marriage that alienated her from her family, she had no choice but to take up all available assignments to provide for her children. By the end of the 1960s, she was second only to her sister, and the two of them were the queens of Indian playback singing right through to the 1990s. However, in spite of her incredible vocal range, she was getting typecast in singing sensual songs.
My favorite kind of historical romances have heaping helpings of both history and romance; when the history shapes the romance, I am one happy camper. Sometimes this combination comes in the form of actual historical figures making an appearance, or the fictional characters engaging in actual events recorded by history. Cynthia Wright’s website offers pictures of the real life locations that inspired her recently reissued classic, You and No Other, where the hero and heroine are closely linked to King Francois I of France.
Pamela Clare’s MacKinnon’s Rangers trilogy couldn’t possibly take place at any other time or in any other place than the French and Indian War. Three sons of an exiled Highlander grow up on the colonial frontier, and when coerced into fighting on behalf of the Crown, it’s not as traditionally trained soldiers, but a new sort, the Ranger. The special forces of the eighteenth century, their stories play out in a tumultuous time in a newly emerging world.
It’s not, however, only kings and battles that make for historical verisimilitude. Some stories take a quieter but no less effective approach, concentrating on the very real effects brought about by the choices we make.
Take, for example, Cecilia Grant’s A Lady Awakened. Heroine Martha is driven to her desperate scheme by the inheritance laws of the time in which she lived. With her husband dead, Martha has no claim to what we would consider her own home, as the estate belongs to the men of the family. She’s ready to move in with her family—that is what one does, after all—until she finds out that the new owner, her husband’s lecherous brother, poses a serious threat to the female servants who keep the estate running.
A son, however, would come before a brother in the order of inheritance, keeping Martha in her home, and the female staff safe from unwanted advances they had no way to refuse. Only problem is, Martha’s not pregnant. Only nobody knows that for sure, so there’s still a chance, which comes in the form of Theo Mirkwood, another ne’er-do-well, forced to rusticate on a neighboring estate. Free intimate congress with his beautiful next door neighbor sounds like a twentysomething’s dream, but then reality sets in and things change.
A lifelong faithful employee of the estate faces ending his life in the workhouse when his usefulness comes to an end, merely because he has no family to take him in when he can no longer earn his keep. A servant suggests that there are other ways Martha might obtain a child if she doesn’t bear one, or if her natural child is the wrong gender. Even the difference between sitting in the third and first pew of a church matters. The romance and the history nourish and depend on each other. Take one away, and the other falls.
Whether heads of state or household affairs, history can be an essential part of a fabulous romance, as vivid as any finely crafted fantasy world. What are some of your non-wallpaper historical favorites?
A Lady Awakened by Cecilia Grant
This appeared to be a totally artificial set-up—woman has one month to conceive a child following her husband’s death so the child, not the evil nephew, will inherit the estate. And it is, but it’s also got two rich, deeply flawed, difficult-to-love characters in the hero and heroine. I was blown away by Grant’s textured language and the resonance of historical details.
Feed by Mira Grant
With very rare exceptions, I do not cry over books. This one I think holds the record for longest cry-fest. It’s a wonderful twist-filled book set in a post-Zombie world and the characters—again, always the characters—are nuanced and extremely knowable.
Can’t Buy Me Love by Molly O’Keefe
Coming from a literary fiction background, I am quite comfortable with difficult characters (see the Grant, above). So when a traditionally structured romance has two very difficult characters as their leads, I am hooked. This book was so good I didn’t want it to end, and yet I rushed to finish it so I could have a satisfying HEA (which I got). 2012 seems to be the Year of the Contemporary, and this book, for me, epitomizes why contemps can be so compelling.
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