My hero

Jewel of the Nile came on the other day and I was watching it, and something occurred to me.

Joan Wilder was my hero.

Seriously. I was a preteen (I think) when I first watched the first movie, Romancing the Stone, and fell instantly in love with it.

Joan Wilder is the heroine of the Romancing the Stone and Jewel of the Nile movies. She's a romance author who gets roped into real adventures. She meets her hero, Jack T. Colton, who is a bad boy. She doesn't exactly tame him as much as she learns to accept him for what he is.

I can still remember watching Romancing the Stone and how Joan Wilder transforms from dowdy romance novelist, talking to her cat to...well, Kathleen Turner for one thing and a woman with a thirst for adventure.

I love how she's so popular a novelist that in Romancing the Stone, her popularity saves them from the local drug cartel. It provides the way the villain tries to take Joan and Jack out in Jewel of the Nile and that leads to their rediscovery of their romance.

When I was younger, I loved Romancing the Stone the best as it explored the falling in love period for Jack and Joan.

However, now I really do love how in Jewel of the Nile one of the problems she and Jack face is not knowing what happens after the happily ever after and how they resolve their differences to find a permanent happily ever after. Which being married for eighteen years, you do have to get creative to stay together.

Yep, Joan Wilder is still my hero. Even after all these years.

Mechele Armstrong
www.mechelearmstrong.com