What Book First Led You To Romance?
Tuesday, April 17, 2012Posted in: romance, romance is bad for women and it's just porn anyway
Yesterday, myself, Maili, DA Jane, and a few others were having a debate about iconic romance books. The books that formed the basis of the romance that we read today, for example Anne Rice’s vampire books, Linda Howard’s Mackenzie’s Mountain
Dear Author is going to be doing a series where canonical romance books are celebrated, but that’s not what I really wanted to talk about. Maili and I went back and forth on whether or not the books that started you off down the romance path was integral to the evolution of the romance book. I said it was, but I guess as there are several paths that led us to our love of romance today, including films like Gone with the Wind
Anyway, I want to know what book or film led you down the romance path. I’m assuming that we all didn’t just grab a Mills & Book or a Silhouette Desire straight away?
Well mine was Anne of Green Gables
I think I mostly enjoyed the unrequited love aspect of it. We all knew that Anne must have secretly liked Gilbert or she wouldn’t have been so mad at him when he made fun of her hair, but my little feminist heart secretly enjoyed Anne turning her nose up at Gilbert every time he made an effort to make up with her.
Anyway, enough of me prattling on, what book or indeed film, led you to appreciate the romance novel?
Katiebabs
April 17
10:35 am
Gone with the Wind. My mother gave that book to me at thirteen and I never looked back. My second romance happened to be a Harlequin Presents. I was hooked.
Jessica
April 17
12:19 pm
This is easy. I grabbed a romance novel by mistake while on vacation in Florida. Little did I know, it was the crack of romance: J. R. Ward’s Lover Revealed (book 4 in the Black Dagger Brotherhood, I think). From there is was on to historical, then contemp, and I’ve never looked back.
Mireya
April 17
12:20 pm
Nothing “iconic” about the book that got me hooked on romance, in my case. The book in question is “The Empress New Clothes” by Jaid Black, believe it or not. I didn’t even need something well written to get hooked. All I needed where characters that I liked, lots of graphic sex in my reading material, and the bonus of a “feel good” feeling when I reached the ending. That was it. I read it in one sitting, got the rest of whatever was available in the series it belongs to the very next day. I branched out to the other sub-genres of romance from there. It’s been 10 years, and I only occassionally read erotic romance now, on occasion, as I sort of got burned out and disappointed, have to admit. Too many people jumping into the “formula for rapid and easy success” that some thought erotic romance would be, and I got to read too much erotic trash sold under the guise of erotic romance, sold that way obviously for purposes of dupping readers into spending money for books that even someone with only a bit of experience with erotic romance would realize were not romance (erotic or otherwise). Anyway, I am digressing. No classic masterpiece or “timeless” book, in my case. Just an erotic romance that wasn’t even particularly well written, but which had the right ingredients to get me and keep me interested for quite a while.
Roslyn Holcomb
April 17
3:05 pm
Given my love for history, I can’t really say any particular book unless it was Little House on the Prairie, more so the books than the tv show. I also loved Little Women. For the longest time I read nothing but historicals. I remember my first being a Woodiwiss, but can’t remember whether it was The Flame and the Flower or Shanna. This would have been late seventies, early nineties. I would occasionally read contemporaries, primarily Harlequins. I got burned out by the early nineties and didn’t get reinvigorated until the mid nineties. I fell in love withbBeverly Jenkins black historicals, and got excited about romance again. I wish there were more, but I don’t think they sell particularly well. At least mine didn’t!
Lori
April 17
4:31 pm
I read a vague romance here and there but the one that pushed me down the rabbit hole of romance was Absolutely, Positively by Jayne Ann Krentz.
I loved that the hero and heroine were smart, the sex was hot and the humor rampant. She was my real first and I still enjoy reading her (on occasion).
Lynnd
April 17
9:13 pm
I think that I would have to say that it was the books of Lucy Maud Montgomery (Anne, Emily, Jane, Kilmeny etc.) and the Little House books that sent me down the romance road. The first true “romance” that i read and loved was Shanna. I went off romances for about ten years when I read mostly fantasy, historicals and mysteries. It was Loretta Chase’s Lord of Scoundrels that brought me back to reading romances again.
Keishon
April 18
4:15 am
The novels of Victoria Holt, the first book was The House of a Thousand Lanterns. Loved it.
Becky H
April 18
12:53 pm
Surprisingly, it was Danielle Steel’s Kaleidoscope that got me reading romance.
Exit To Eden got me interested in the erotica genre.
Jeannie S.
April 18
6:19 pm
It was The Thorn Birds, before it became a movie. Very popular back then (I am dating myself a bit lol), and it was passed around between my mom, my sister and myself, and our friends next door. It was very shocking back then (for mainstream fiction) and we were all talking about it. An older man AND a priest??? Wow!! But you still rooted for them…such a delicious read!
Jeannie S.
April 18
6:21 pm
Actually looking back now, I am shocked my mom let us read it (maybe we read it before her?) We were in our teens and she was very conservative.
Gina Ardito
April 18
10:14 pm
The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare. I was probably 8 or 9 when I read it, but after that I sped through all her historical romances for young adults before moving on to my older sister’s copy of The Flame and the Flower (which had S-E-X in it–oh, my Gawd!).
Dawn
April 18
10:42 pm
I can’t remember which book lead me to become hooked. I just remember going to the library every Saturday when I was around 15/16 and taking out as many Mills and Books as possible, reading them and then heading out again to do the same thing.
I then had a major thing for historicals, one of the first was with a heroine called Marietta Danvers – can’t remember the book’s name. She was a feisty red head heroine/trollop. I then discovered The Wolf and the Dove by Kathleen Woodiwiss one of my all time fave stories and authors.
Then after giving up on romances for some years – not sure why, I went to the library with my young daughter to get her some books and rediscovered Mills and Books. Boy had they changed since the last time I’d read one! Then I discovered Cheyenne McCrey and Ellora’s Cave and I haven’t looked back.
Over the years I’ve put up with a lot of ribbing about reading romances but the older I’ve become, I’m no longer defensive or embarrassed about it. Frankly, I don’t want to read ‘literature’ all the time. My life is pretty crap sometimes so I want the escapism that romance gives me.
Carolyn
April 18
11:41 pm
Does anyone remember Forever Amber? Not truly a romance because Amber was the only one who thought she was getting a happy ending, but I gobbled that book up and went looking for more.
But I supppose the very first romance that stole my heart, was Jo and Mr. Bauer in Little Woman. I so wanted it to work out for them. And Laurie kissed Amy in a punt on a lake. *sigh*
Roslyn Holcomb
April 19
3:32 am
Dawn, Marietta Danvers I’m pretty sure was a Jennifer Wilde heroine. I never clicked with Wilde, but Marietta is a legend.
Dawn Brookes
April 19
3:30 pm
@Roslyn. Thank you. I always remembered her name but not the author. I was beginning to think I’d imagined the whole torrid story.
Las
April 19
9:57 pm
My first romance was an old HP that my sister bought at a garage sale. I’m pretty sure it was an Emma Darcy. At 11 years old, it was the sex that had me coming back for more. Having parents who didn’t speak english was awesome when it came to books and music. HPs were my crack for a while, then I discovered
Sandra
Brown’s The
Silken
Web, and I quiickly got into full-length romances. I wiah I knew which was my first historical, since that became my favorite subgenre.