For most people, movies are the highest form of storytelling. Movies offer the lowest barrier to shared story next to television, radio and word of mouth. And with the internet, movies are often more accessible than television.

So, since movies tell such great stories in ways that most people can understand and appreciate, why not use movies to help us learn about relationships and how to improve them? Why not use something we love doing together, to help us learn how to be together better?

As a marriage and family therapist, Lisa Locke has discovered the power of movies to help individuals and couples learn to express their own feelings and emotions and improve their relationships. She uses film to help people explore principles of healthy relationships and what she has come to term Blockbuster Love. Locke says she has found film to be a powerful medium for helping young and old alike understand deep truths of relationships that are sometimes hard to explain and even harder for some people to imagine--until they see them in practice.

While entertaining readers through the power of a great story, Blockbuster Love--Part 1: Romance: Lessons from the Movies will help readers understand:

• The personal qualities that lend themselves towards successful relationships
• The way to build strong and lasting relationships
• The secrets of keeping relationships fresh and exciting.

Married to a screenwriter and author for over 25 years, Lisa has watched thousands of movies and learned to appreciate and break down thematic metaphors, archetypes, plots, structures and characterizations. During her clinical work, movies proved a powerful, but non-threatening tool of communication both to help clients learn about themselves and to help clients talk about their own emotions.

The goal of this book is to help you see movies in a new light--as a safe medium to learn about yourself, to learn about your partner and to tell your own story.

This book is the first part of a four-part series designed to reflect the different stages of strong relationships:

• Part I: Romance--the initial meeting, dating and beginning stage of growing in love
• Part II: Reality--after the honeymoon stage when things get real and some couples give up or successful couples grow to deeper stages of being in love
• Part III: Respect--the discovery of the power of loving bonds and learning to respect differences while being fully free to be oneself
• Part IV: Rewards--the eventual, confident, lasting power of deep, abiding love

Each chapter of Blockbuster Love Part 1: Romance explores a single movie, which thematically relates to a single important principle of strong, healthy relationships. After reading the chapter, couples are encouraged to simply watch the movie together, and then discuss the single principle of relationships.

So grab a box of popcorn and get ready to watch some great movies as you learn powerful Lessons from the Movies on How to Build Lasting Love.