Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Ramadan 17, 1445 H
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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

If you haven’t read it yet...

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From classic romance novels to well-known plays such as Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet to modern works, here is one of the bestselling novels at the recently held Muscat International Book Fair. “If I Haven’t Met You” is a beautifully written romantic novel.


Writing romance is very popular and romance novels continue to sell in great numbers. Whether you’re looking for a love story to entertain yourself or interested to learn from others’ experience as an inspiration or you are just a reading enthusiast with a preference for an engaging romance story, then this novel should be your best choice! It’s written by a young Omani female writer, Salma al Rahbi.


We are asleep until we fall in love! This is what drove Salma to write her first inspiring novel. A simulation of potential love stories is what the novel is all about bringing to the reader a semi-real case or a story of love. The novelist is trying here to reflect on how a real love story would look like thus providing a learning experience to readers.


Reflecting on someone’s feelings of love and compassion, here are some statements similar to what the novelist has expressed: “I can’t sleep, I can’t eat, I can’t do anything but think about him. At night I dream of him, all day I wait to see him, and when I do see him my heart turns over and I think I will faint with desire.” Very inspiring and heart-provoking emotions indeed! Such kind of emotional writing is very appealing to the readers and refreshing perhaps.


“If I Haven’t Met You,” is a romance novel spreading the spirit of love and passion to its readers. Throughout the pages, it narrates how love could affect not only feelings of human beings, but their attitudes and life activities too. Different examples of stories on how people are being attacked by love and surrender to their emotions are described. Some of those stories or incidents could be similar to real life stories while others might be featured for the sake of showing how love could affect people.


DREAM COMES TRUE


Commenting on releasing her first novel, Salma remarked: “The writing journey of this novel took me a couple of years to get it published as it was completed since 2014. In fact, this novel was a dream, but today it’s a reality. To me, it marks the fruition of all the tremendous and exhausting efforts and achievements I have made over the years since I believed in my dream and had self-confidence that I could make it. With all the challenges and disappointments I had come across, I promised myself that the dream has to come true someday”.


The novel sheds light on how lovers sometimes get badly affected by their unpleasant love experiences till they even lose interest in their own life. However, this shouldn’t be the outcome out of such involvements. Life always brings surprises and we should be ready and cope with the different kinds of expectations we come across. We should never cry over the spilled milk like what Charles Dickens said: “I wish you to know that you have been the last dream to my soul”.


“When you fall in love, it is a temporary madness. It might explode like an earthquake from inside and then it decreases. Love is something valuable and precious, but how we look at it is what all is about. It’s us who draw the image of love in our imagination and based on our own experience”, the novelist, Salma al Rahbi, inspiringly expressed.


A LIFE EXPERIENCE


As it has been said, “Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same”. Love is an awe-inspiring feeling that meant to last forever. Love brings good memories, great moments and honest feelings between people. That is why love shouldn’t be mistreated and undervalued by mankind otherwise the beauty of life will be lost as well.”


Regardless how pleasant or not the love experience we had undergone, it shouldn’t negatively fire back on us affecting our day-to-day life. Experiences and challenges are lessons, but sometimes with thorn on them. Thus, it’s us who could make the most of such unlikeable incidents. According to the novel, people should not surrender due to the failure of their love experiences. One has to be strong enough to face the music of every struggle and challenge.


Romance novels are debatably the most economically successful of all fiction writing. It’s been recognised that more than half of all new fiction is comprised of romance novels nowadays.


These kinds of stories are about people and the changes they go through and believable characters should change throughout the length of a story. Today, novels in general and romance in particular are the most sought-after readings especially among youngsters.


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