Variations on the Theme

There's only one week left to Serengeti Lightning, boys and girls. I feel like I've been talking about this book constantly, but maybe that's just the voices in my head getting louder.

It's funny to me how I find myself boiling the story down to a single access point. Serengeti Lightning has shades of a bunch of different elements - the feeling that you're running out of time to have the life you want, the willingness to take risks with your heart, the strength involved in letting yourself be vulnerable, the dichotemy between what we think we want and what we really need, gender roles, steamy sexxing in a public place, and all the Happily Ever After you can handle.

But with all that to gab about, I seem to keep talking about one element of the book over and over and over again. Older woman, younger man.

An author friend commented to me recently that she also had an older woman/younger man story coming out in the next year. We talked briefly about how different the stories were likely to be - give any two authors the same premise and just watch how completely different the results are.

It got me thinking of all the variations on that cougar theme. The older woman could be in a position of power, the younger man a plaything. The older woman could be afraid of feeling old, the younger man a shot of youthful vitality to her system. Or it could be just a couple with an age difference creating issues they have to come. The dynamics can shift in so many different directions. It all depends on the characters, I think.

My particular cougar story falls mostly into the last category, but there are hints of the first two. Mara thinks she can discount Michael as husband-material because of his age, but she has never been more wrong.

Do you like age difference stories? Do you have a favorite angle on the theme that you like to see?