Valentine's Day: Books with LOVE Hop Guest Post-

Valentine's Day: Books with LOVE Hop

Lisa Desrochers bring you all today her post on Valentine's day. She is the author of a book we all know and love called Personal Demons and the sequel is Original Sin. Lisa was kind to donate for the giveaway hop a chance to win a signed copy of Personal Demons. Here is what Lisa had to say about Valentine's day. 

Valentine’s Day has unfortunately turned into one of those Hallmark holidays, but, did you know that we have Chaucer to thank for the celebration of love? It’s true. St. Valentine story had nothing whatsoever to do with expressing affection. As best as anyone can tell, St. Valentine was a priest who lived around 270 AD. He may or may not have conducted secret marriage ceremonies for Roman solders in opposition to Claudius II, who forbade marriage of his solders believing it made them weak. When Claudius found out what Valentine was doing, he was more than a little pissed. In the end, he had 

Valentine executed, and, it’s believed that this execution may have happened on February 14, 270, though nobody in the know is speaking up to confirm that.

So…so far, not much reason to celebrate, methinks. But, along comes Pope Gelasius I in 496. Apparently, he thought Valentine deserved some…something, so he added a memorial to St. Valentine to the Roman Catholic calendar, where it stayed just that, a memorial—not a celebration, just a day. That is, until 1382, when our good literary buddy, Geoffrey Chaucer came along and wrote: "For this was Saint Valentine's Day, when every bird cometh there to choose his mate," in Parlement of Foules, and voiala! Valentines Day is suddenly for smooching. Since then, it has taken on a life of its own and the fact that Pope Paul VI removed the memorial from the Roman Catholic calender in 1969 stating: "Though the memorial of Saint Valentine is ancient, it is left to particular calendars, since, apart from his name, nothing is known of Saint Valentine except that he was buried on the Via Flaminia on February 14," hasn’t slowed us down.

If you’ve read Personal Demons, you know how I feel about smooching—the more the better. So, thanks to Chaucer, we all have free rein to smooch today. Smooch early and smooch often.

You read it here, Chaucer says we must all smooch away! Thank you Lisa for this great post. 

Personal Demons

Personal Demons #1

Author: Lisa Desrochers

Pages: 365 pgs

Reading Level: YA

Published: September 14th 2010

Tor Teen

ISBN: 0765328089

Summary: (from goodreads) Frannie Cavanaugh is a good Catholic girl with a bit of a wicked streak. She has spent years keeping everyone at a distance—-even her closest friends—-and it seems as if her senior year is going to be more of the same . . . until Luc Cain enrolls in her class. No one knows where he came from, but Frannie can’t seem to stay away from him. 

What she doesn’t know is that Luc is on a mission. He’s been sent from Hell itself to claim Frannie’s soul. It should be easy—-all he has to do is get her to sin, and Luc is as tempting as they come. Frannie doesn’t stand a chance. But he has to work fast, because if the infernals are after her, the celestials can’t be far behind. And sure enough, it’s not long before the angel Gabriel shows up, willing to do anything to keep Luc from getting what he came for. It isn’t long before they find themselves fighting for more than just Frannie’s soul.

But if Luc fails, there will be Hell to pay . . . for all of them.