guns and roses

guns and roses pl (plural only)

1. The glamour of love, war, and adventure, as opposed to mundane reality.
   • 2012, Bob*Star Publishing, American Literature Review, page 48:

     A whaler's life isn't all guns and roses, however, so Melville and a shipmate jumped ship at the Marquesas Islands.

   • 2015, Daniel Byman, Al Qaeda, the Islamic State, and the Global Jihadist Movement, page 105:

     But the story is not all guns and roses. Many of these foreign fighters die in the combat zone or end up moving on to fight in other foreign conflicts. Significant percentages simply cannot endure the training or become disillusioned once they come to realize that the harsh realities of waging a bloody jihad are far less glamorous than they seemed from afar.

   • 2021, SM Flint, Devotion and Duty:

     'You're all guns and roses, mate,' was one off-hand comment on one of my crime thrillers where romance blossoms between two people trying to stop terrorists blowing up Heathrow Airport. In my erotic romances, I take time to discover the lives of the people involved before the action starts.