Love has been defined by many people, each stating an opinion on the topic. Many famous people have shared their views on the subject, and here I quote a few: “Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.”—Aristotle. “Love isn’t something you find. Love is something that finds you.”—Loretta Young. “You can’t blame gravity for falling in love.”—Albert Einstein. “Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.”—Zora Neale Hurston.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary lists nine definitions of love. In this article, I will focus on one: Love is “Attraction based on sexual desire: affection and tenderness felt by lovers.”
In my upcoming novel, The Ambition, two characters are attracted to each other, one a married woman. They are fully aware that pursuing the attraction could lead to disaster, and they fight the feeling but cannot resist the magnetism. When they finally begin to learn about each other, they discover that they have much in common. One thing they both love is Andrea Bocelli’s music.
In 1997, I met a delightful Italian who owned an accounting firm. We instantly liked each other. I became her business banking account manager, and she became my client. She referred several of her clients to me, and in a short while, my portfolio brimmed with Italian clients.
One day, one of these clients took me to lunch at a charming Italian restaurant. During the delicious meal, the restaurateur played the CD, Romanza, and as Bocelli’s voice filtered through the sound system, I fell in love with it. Con Te Partiro touched my heart. I didn’t know the singer then, so I asked my client about him and the song. Before I left the restaurant, he presented me with a copy of the CD. I still play it often, and the feeling remains fresh twenty-six years later. As I developed the story of The Ambition and expounded on the love affair between the man and the woman, I knew Bocelli and Con Te Partiro had to find a place in it.
Read the novel when it is released in September and absorb how I infused music into romance.