In 1934, Texas-born Novalyne Price was a pretty, young schoolteacher with romantic notions of becoming a writer. On a late spring afternoon, Clyde Smith, her beau at the time, introduced her to Robert E. Howard, a working writer with a handsome face and a passion for words unlike any Novalyne had ever encountered. To the outside world, Bob Howard was a mercurial social misfit. Slavishly devoted to his ailing mother and to his writing, Howard was prone to telling spontaneous "yarns" of seduction, violence and death perpetrated by his most famous character, "Conan the Barbarian." To Novalyne, he was extraordinary. After more than a year of verbal sparring, Novalyne and Bob share their first kiss. Novalyne waits anxiously for a declaration of love from Bob, who can only pull back, insisting on his freedom and declaring that marriage will never be in his future, leaving Novalyne with no choice but to move on.