Janice Gentle Gets Sexy Read Free Page A

dullness will be the very epitome of Phoenix rising. In fact, that might very well be the title of the book.
    When the red-gold woman brings out a Church Times and begins reading it, Janice feels that her cup of invention is full. To create a romantic heroine from a vicar's wife — flaming hair, scorched hopes - is the beguilement that she seeks. Without such beguilement Janice Gentle could never complete a sentence let alone a whole book. Now she has what she needs.
    Red Gold, who will be eternally happy.
    Little Blonde, bird-like, bird-brain, who will be driven by boredom and disappointment towards a bitter, wretched end.
    Square Jaw, whose even features resembled the Before in an Alka-Seltzer advertisement, will become a solid and desirable force — one who will be forgiven and loved.
    The tale is set.
    Janice can go home now, for her day's work is fairly done.
    Genius, born out of such disparities.
    Genius.
    *
    It is of course genius that Janice Gentle has. Her works have been likened to Jane Austen, they have been likened to Enid Blyton, they have been likened to Grimm. They have been discussed in sentences that breathed the names of both Richardson and Danielle Steele, they have been reviewed in The Times, they have sold by the yard in airport bookstalls. She is read by the wives of both Oxford dons and Oxford butchers, for she writes of that which touches the human condition most, that unfashionable, elusive item on which turns the world. She writes, at the core, about love. 'S tone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage . . .' Janice may be recluse, she may have little experience of the commodity, but it does not stop her understanding it. After all, she has never been sat upon by an elephant, but she knows that if she were it would hurt. Life may pass her by, but she is not hampered in letting her own small experience fly free. Indeed, very possibly, it is the life passing her by that helps.
    She herself had been touched by love once and it made a profound, if inconclusive, impression. Until she found Dermot Poll again writing about the condition was preferable to seeking more of its reality. And so she did. Calliope, beautiful-voiced Muse to a thousand epic poems, had blessed her sister with the gift of words (every woman has something if it is only smooth elbows), and Janice, alone and heart-bruised and severely into the pleasures of eating, used her gift well.
    Sylvia Perth was right. Ninety-three per cent of her readership were women, princesses to pauperettes, taking the romance with as large or as small a dose of salt as they chose. They were loyal, enthusiastic and read her avidly.
    Of the seven per cent remaining, this was almost entirely made up of men who, so far from having romance on their minds, were accused by their womenfolk of not having it anywhere within their vocabulary of understanding - not even so much as tucked away in an armpit. They read Janice Gentle as one might read a textbook, looking for a solution and a set of rules. And they came away, usually, as baffled as they had been before, the enchantment of the genre being beyond the ken of fact-finding man.
    From Sydney to Stockholm, Dubai to Dundee, Janice Gentle's books were very much in demand. She had made a lot of money and spent little . She had spent little because her personal requirements were scant and also because she did not know that she had made a lot. Had she known how much she had made it is unlikely she would have been taking a tube-train journey this morning at all, it is far more likely that she would have been lying on a settee with her feet up, eating and waiting, waiting and eating, until the Quest she could at last set going produced results, and her Crusade could begin.
    But only Sylvia Perth, agent and friend, confidante and publisher's go-between, loyal fan and devoted accountant, knew exactly how much money Janice Gentle had made from her books, and for reasons of her own, for the present, she did not feel