That was the last one. No more tales of intrigue, murder, and passion: the hero fends of evil to the delight of the heroine and with true and enduring love they ride off, sail, fuck (if they haven't been already in which case they can now stop skulking about on the down low) into the sunset. I actually got teary-eyed as I read the denoument and wondered, as the tears rolled down my face, why the hell I was crying. I suppose it touched me.
I grew up on Penny Dreadfuls: Harlequin Romances, Barbara Cartland, Robert Ludlum, Jayne Anne Krentz. A good love story with an intricate plot involving mystery, the hero and/or heroine, both funny in their own fashion, harboring some dark secret and heading up some dashing rescue (the villian always, always, flushed with imagined victory, spilling their guts in the end) will always have a place in my literary affections.
But that's it. I turned 37 the other day. Some things that seem innocuous taken singularly, together scream out "I am no fool". And now I can't enjoy these lurid tales anymore. I suspected this time would come seeing as how I dragged my heels to read this last one. Naivete no longer holds my interest.
