British people are traditionally seen as reserved, formal, bearers of stiff upper lips. But a survey this week revealed that in fact beneath the cool exterior run torrenting rivers of passion to equal those of our Mediterranean neighbours.
The survey, commissioned by erotic publisher Xcite Books, found that despite the recession, ‘it’s passion not wealth that the majority of us are lacking in our lives’. The researchers asked people what they’d like more of in their lives. Passion came top, followed by wealth and further down the list, romance.
Given that the respondents of the survey were no doubt readers of Xcite books, it’s little wonder that passion scored so high – in a larger survey of a broader range of people, I would expect romance to rate higher. Still, it’s good to see that money isn’t king.
I deliberately chose to make the protagonist of my novel Burning Embers English. I needed Coral to have unexplored the passion within before meeting Rafe – with his romantic African/French background. The book is set in 1970, and right after the swinging sixties, when something of a revolution took place in Britain thanks to independence afforded by the Mini car and the contraceptive pill, not to mention sexy new fashions like the mini skirt and knee-high boots. Coral is more reserved than some of her sisters of this era – she’s still a virgin, for example – but she’s quintessentially English in that within her burns a flame of passion. But this is one flame that’s not to be quenched, but instead ignited by the right man – Rafe.