The Internet Is A Dangerous Thing (Patricia Potter)

I think we all have discovered the internet can be a very dangerous thing. With me, it’s a time consumer. The first thing I do in the morning is check my email before turning to the work in progress. Bad move. Yet I can’t seem to help myself. What if there’s an offer to sell the rights of the latest book -- or an old one -- to Russia, or Japan, or Germany? What if there’s an urgent message from my editor? What if a long lost friend has contacted me?

I tell myself I can wait and check after finishing a certain number of pages. I’m hurrying to meet a deadline before dashing off for a much needed holiday in Coronado with fellow blogger Lynn, she of the falling ceiling and much put upon cat, Lyman. One hundred pages must be finished in a week.

But still my fingers ignore good intentions and take me to the internet and my mailbox. Nine hundred and two messages listed (no kidding). I'm on lots and lots of loops, and I don't erase some emails because I intend to answer them when I have time (never happens, but I always have hope). Check email. No new offers, darn it. No urgent messages. I skim over the most recent, erasing spam, leaving others. I'll do something about those later. Time to leave.

But . . . maybe while I'm here, I’ll take a second to check out one of the on-line communities of which I’m a member.

Ah, someone mentions a book in which the devil appears. My mind whirls backward. I once read a book in which a heroine had an affair with the devil. Years ago. Many, many years ago. Yet I remembered that there was thunder when they made love.

Ignoring passing time, I try to remember the title and author of the book. As is my wont, when a question seizes my thinking process, I can’t let go. The question will nag at me until I answer it. And I can't disappear in that magical, creative world done when something nags at me.

Two names come to mind as possible authors of said tale. Anya Seton and Kathleen Winsor. I was reading both about the time I THINK I read the devil's story. I was enthralled with both authors. Kathleen Winsor’s “Forever Amber,” was my first guilty pleasure. As a teenager, I read it under the covers with a flashlight. I go to Kathleen Winsor on the web to try to find the elusive book I'm hunting. Nothing concerning the devil, but there is a lot about "Forever Amber." “Forever Amber,” it said, “was forbidden, banned in fourteen states," in part, according to one attorney general, "for seventy references to sexual intercourse" and “10 descriptions of women undressing in the presence of men.”

I read avidly. I learn that "Forever Amber" was Kathleen Winsor's first book, and it was the fifth draft of the book that was accepted for publication? The publishers promptly edited the book down to one-fifth of its original size. The resulting novel was 972 pages long. “The saga frolicked through Restoration England and vivid images of fashion, politics, bedrooms and public disasters at the time, including he plague and the Great Fire of London," according to one review.

I now know more about Kathleen Winsor, including her divorce and marriage to Artie Shaw, the band leader, but I find no mention of a book with a love affair between the heroine and the devil.

I’ll try Anya Seton next. She too was one of my early favorite authors.
On to Wikipedia. Yep, she wrote "Dragonwyck," one of my first gothics. Loved it. Then there was “Katherine,” a magnificent historical romance. And “Foxfire” and “Green Darkness.” Oh my, how I loved those books.

I also learned that her father was one of the founders of the Boy Scouts.

But still no devil . . ..

However, entranced by old and very fond memories, I go to Amazon and order copies of six novels by Kathleen Winsor and Anya Seton. Are they really as good as I remember?

The day is gone, sucked away by the internet and my quest. The pages that were to be written are not.

Six great novels, though, will soon be on top of my sky-high to-be-read pile.

The internet is truly a dangerous thing.

And, sadly, I still haven’t found that story that instigated this journey through delicious books of the past. So I plead here, does anyone remember a story/novella/book in which the devil tempts a woman who lands in his domain? Can anyone put me out of my misery?

And secondly, do you have any guilty pleasures like “Forever Amber” in your past?