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Tell me about your first time
So in the past couple weeks there’s been an ongoing discussion about why the romance genre seems to be so popular. I’m not really here to talk about that, I just want to know all about your first. The first time you ever picked up your first romance novel that is.
Here’s my story. It all started just before I became a teenager. Originally I was hooked on Nancy Drew, but then realized I only really liked the books where Nancy talked about her love interest. So not long after that I moved onto Sweet Valley High. I was in love. Teenage girls, cars, and boys! But soon again I realized I still wasn’t getting what I needed. It was really clarified when I read the one where Jessica almost got it on with a boy at the beach. My reaction was why the heck did you stop? Let him touch your breast! I was totally disappointed. I’d had this glimpse—this peek into a window of what a romance novel would be like. And I wanted more.
So I walked over to the book shelf loaded with white-spine books. Book after book of Harlequins—it’s about all my mom read. So I gathered them off the shelf, looked at all the covers, and picked the raciest one I could find. I went to my mom and said, “Mom, I want to read one of these.” My mom just stared at me for a minute with narrowed eyes before saying, “There’re love scenes in those novels.” Which of course I knew. So after a few minutes, she gave me the go ahead.
I hurried off to my bedroom with the book clutched in my hand, and didn’t emerge until I finished—I was a fast reader. I have no recollection of what the name of the book was or the author. I just remember the shock of reading the sex scene, and the sweetness of a man and woman finding love and their own happily ever after. I didn’t stop there. I grabbed more books and joined book clubs. And I read enough romances to give me terribly high standards for what I want some day. But I don’t regret it, and today I still find pleasure in reading a really good romance. I love finding a new genre of romance or a new author. Romance is my comfort food of the literary world.
So how about you? Do you remember your first time? Were you hesitant? Were you cynical? Or were you eager like me? Tell me, I’m curious!
My first was Shanna by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss. I was fourteen. My mom passed it along to me. We were camping, visiting historic sights in Virginia. It was hot in the little tent I shared with my sister, but I kept that flashlight lamp on most of the night, every night until I finished it.
I can still remember the absolute thrill of empowerment when Shanna delivered the setdown to her female tormentor.
Years (yeah, I won’t say how many) later I met Ms. Woodiwiss at a writer’s conference. Like the idiot fangirl I am I gushed, “You were my first.” She was very gracious in the face of my stammered admiration, not at all patronizing. She seemed surprised that people admired her. The memories of my first time remain sweet.
I in turn passed Shanna on to my sister. We still quote the heroine’s set down with a toss of our locks and a stomp of our dainty feet, “[Shanna] Beachamp, if you please. Or if you don’t please, the Beachamp bitch.”
K.A., I discovered Kathleen a few years into my life of romance reading. She’s great!
My first romance was Feather on the Moon by Phyllis A. Whitney. I liberated it from my mom’s room when I was 8 years old. She was of course horrified when she found out what I’d been reading but by then it was too late, I was hooked. I’ve never found another genre that comforts, thrills and excites me the way romance does. Forget comfort food, when I’m depressed I want comfort reading, and that means the steamiest romance I can get my hands on, with a HEA of course :)>
Minx
Shelli,
I don’t remember the title, but I know I got hooked on romance novels when a family friend gave my dad a huge box of Harlequin Romances and Presents. My poor father probably never realized what he was putting in my hands!
The thing is, even though I don’t remember titles, I sure remember some of those stories like I’d just finished reading them last week. I think that’s what keeps romance so popular — you’re talking about powerful human emotion and it stays with the reader long after the last page.
My sister (who is ten years older than me) only read romance novels, much to the chagrin of our mother. I don’t remember reading any of my sister’s novels, but in junior high I started reading the Sunfire romance novels. I read everything the library had. I loved the tension in the books with the two love interests and the heroine having to chose one or the other. These days she doesn’t have to chose, she can just have them both :) Then I discovered the “racy” romances through a friend of mine and that was all she wrote…er, all she read?
I agree, Minx! I love them extra steamy, but I need my HEA.
Linda, that’s what I read the first couple of years. Harlequin Presents! And then I got into Harlequin Intimate Moments. Basically it was years before I read a single title book. When I did, Sandra Brown hooked me. I bought everything she wrote!
Jessica, “These days she doesn’t have to chose, she can just have them both :)” OMG ain’t that the truth now? LOL!
My first romance novel was by Joan Balser called Passions of the Realm. It was the day before Valentine’s Day and I was all alone at my aunt’s house and bored. Went through some sacks of paperbacks and found this one. Days later, I was hooked. It was a wonderful story to read and I had to get more like it. Mom was happy that it was books that I got hooked on and stayed out of trouble.
Now 14 years later, I am still hooked and so obsessed with reading romance novels, that I can’t ever find the energy to work on the stories of my own that are swimming around in my head.
My first were Harlequin Presents in summer between seventh and eighth grade! Way too far in the past ever admit when that was exactly.
I too had read every Nancy Drew and loved the ones where her BF was featured, but nothing exciting ever happened. I like contemporary – always have. I bought every book that came out every month. But then, there started being so many! I tried to keep up…
I cannot remember the title or the author, but the first was about a man who kept the heroine captive on a Carribean island for revenge. Anyway, over the years, almost every author that I read single title started out with Harlequin. Nora Roberts, Sandra Brown, Janet Dailey, Fern Micheals, Debbie Macomber, and on and on and on. [Of course there is some controversy that I’m not fully versed on and don’t really want to spoil my take on her books with regard to Janet Dailey.]
Anyway, my mom always read romance, but she like(s) historicals. Which, sorry to those who write them, but they bore me. The only one I could get into was Gone with the Wind. But from there I ventured into Herman Wouk and “The Winds of War” and “War and Rememberance.” Those were great novels, relatively contemporary, that had great love stories that wove the pre-history of WWII and after together. I loved the mini-series too! (I’m going to buy them on DVD.)
I do like some paranormal and otherworld type romance, but I don’t want it soooo far out there. I want a touch of realism and a mix of contemporary setting if possible. And I do like racy, steamy, but it has to have romance. I don’t want to read sex just for the sake of reading about it. I want it to have a meaning to the people involved (kinky or not.)
So, as for my first time, it is what sealed my fate! I love the genre and live vicariously through every book. I want emotional responses to be stirred within me and a HEA.
Shelli,
I like Sandra Brown a lot, Debbie Macomber, Jayne Ann Krentz, Dianne Castell, and so many other authors.
But a book that originally made a big impression on me was Gone With The Wind. I was in 7th grade and bored one summer and found a copy of it that belonged to my older sister. I loved it. I also read a lot of my sister’s Harlequin romances.
My first romance book that I can remember was by Rosemary Rogers. Unfortunately, I can’t remember the title but it was American historical. I read a few more of her books and then kind of lost interest in the romance genre until I discovered Nora Roberts. I was well and truly hooked and still am. I can’t even begin to name all of the romance writers that I have read but it is a very lengthy list.
My first was The Ruthless Rake by the grande dame of romance, Barbara Cartland. I absolutely fell in love with the genre and started to devour anything and everything I could get my hands on that had a love story involved.
-Kat
Well I started reading those Silhouette teen romances they had out in the 80s and like you, I always wanted more!! So I foraged around in my mom’s bookcase and found a romance novel – The Flame and The Flower by Kathleen Woodiwiss. I devoured it. Then I discovered Jude Deveraux. Then I discovered Lavyrle Spencer…
I could go on and on. Let’s just say that I love a good romance and I have since I was in my early teens. :)
One day in the 5th grade, a friend brought a Harlequin to school. I think it was a Intrique if that line is that old. The only details I can remember is the hero was a spy, and an Aries, Heroine made comments about his stubborness. I had nearly no access to romance novels. My mother did not read them. My sisters do not read (that is another issue entirely.)
One special day at the beginning of the sixth grade, something wonderful happened. There was a new girl on the bus, reading a romance novel of all things. According to her, which I still vehmently deny, I stole it from her. We have been friends ever since. Her mother had romance novels all over the house. Harlequins, Loveswepts, and single title historicals. It was like that first hit of crack. I was addicted and had a supplier.
I can’t remember my first one but I used to read Jean Plaidy and Victoria Holt. My grandmother liked Mills and Boon so I used to read her books and then I found them at the library too. I loved Sci fi and devoured anything by Andre Norton. Loved the romance of the Witch World series.
The very first romance I read was Dragonwyck by Anya Seton, which I think I picked up in an airport on the way to Disneyworld when I was about ten. I was totally blown away by the intensity, and by how the hero could be so wicked and so delicious at the same time. At the time I had no idea there was such a thing as a genre of romance novels, so it was years before I found my way back, and I had to actually fall in love myself before it occurred to me to write them :-)
Jen
We had moved to Spain when I was 11. Before then, I was a TV addict. Cartoons, game shows, commercials – I’d watch anything. However, Spanish TV wasn’t exactly what a transplanted American middle-schooler had in mind as good view time. A school friend loaned me one of her mom’s books—The Black Lyon by Jude Devereaux. I can credit that book for turning me off TV and turning me on to reading. After that, I read everything I could get my hands on, from The World According to Garp to Andre Norton’s Witchworld series.
By the way, I never gave the Black Lyon back to my friend, and it’s still on my bookshelf now 28 years later.
Thank you, Ms. Devereaux.
I read my first Betty Neels (Harlequin) when I was eleven. A million years later, I’ve now collected ninety-three of the hundred and thirty she published. I’ve read every single one of them at least five times, I swear. Talk about your “comfort” emotional attachments… Betty will always be my security blanket.
Luckily for me, my mom was a voracious romance reader and I couldn’t even guess how many Victoria Holts, Barbara Cartlands and Harlequin Presents I’ve read in my life. She sent me home this last weekend with six shopping bags crammed full of Presents, so… this could be bad.
But I’ve theorized that women read romance for the same reason they adore chocolate — It’s been scientifically proven that chocolate causes the release of endorphins. Simulated, chemical love. Reading romance and getting that HEA could and probably does create the same biochemical release. And if that’s true, as far as addictions go, romance novels are a heap better than most, right?
At least they’re not fattening ;)
The first romance I ever read was The Raider by Jude Devereaux (If I mispell that I’m sorry, the suffix always kills me) when I was 16 years old and it hooked me on both Jude, historicals and romances forevermore. Love that book. I have it on my keeper shelf. Hmm, I may have to go reread it again.
While it wasn’t my first, I read Shanna as a teen too. Roark was hot and Shanna was a strong woman. I loved that. I found an original edition in that bright orange cover on the free shelf at the hospital where I work and I snatched it up. It’s on my no touchie shelf too. Ashes in the Wind and a Rose in Winter are my other faves of hers. OMG! Love them.
After that, I sucked down Garwood, Coulter, Lindsey, Woodwiss, Quinn, Dodd, Quick, etc before moving onto paranormals by Kenyon,Davidson, MacAlister, Knight, Hamilton et al when I got into my late 20’s early 30’s.
I still read historicals. I’ll probably never write one, heck, I love to read them for that very reason. They’re like dessert to me, sinfully rich and fun fun fun.
Gosh, I don’t even remember my first romance novel except I’m pretty sure it was a historical. It would have been Pride and Prejudice, Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre. Back when I was young, the public libraries limited your access to anything other than the sort of thing you’d find in the school library if you were younger than fourteen. Yeah, it was back in the dark ages.
Judy
I remember my first like it was yesterday, although it was 20 years ago now. It was a harlequin temptation called A Gift of Wildflowers by Georgia Bockoven. I bought it at the local department store because the guy on the cover looked like a movie star I had a huge crush on. I thought I had discovered the secret to the universe. Imagine my surprise when I told all my friend and they asked ‘You read those?’. Prior to that I’d been reading Jackie Collins, and to this day I wonder why no-one poked fun at me for that :).
I used to read Nancy Drew as a kid too, but more often the Hardy Boys books that I took from my brother’s book case. I used to watch the TV series as well of course. Oh, those Hardy Boys… I was so in love with them.
My first romance… Wow. The first one that really got me hooked was a JD Robb book. I think it was in the middle of the series, I was sick as a dog with nothing else new to read, and begrudgingly picked it up.
grins And here I am now, addicted to her books and a whole host of others.
Gotta love the steamy, HEA stories with plot!
Blessings~
I can’t remember the name of the book I read, but I know I did the Sweet Valley High thing as well. Then an older friend gave me a romance book and I was hooked. I’ve always loved to read and I didn’t get it from my mom or dad. They are not readers. Who knows, but I love it. :D
Misty
Shelli, your romance reading history is sooooo similar to mine. I remember that exact Sweet Valley high and I had the same dissapointment. I moved on to Harlequins which I started getting from the library. My mom didn’t read them and I never directly asked permission to read them but she saw me doing so and never said anything. I’m sure she knew what was in them.
A few years later, a friend found her mom’s romance book stash and I got hooked on historicals. I don’t remember the titles of any of the harlequins I read in those early romance reading years, but I do remember reading Sweet Savage Love by Rosemary Rogers.
My ‘first’ was a rather illicit affair.
I was about ten or eleven and although my mom had no problem with me reading gory stuff by King, Saul, and Koontz – she would never have allowed me to read anything with S-E-X in it. LOL.
Luckily, my grandmother had a constant supply of M&B and Silhouette coming in and out of her house and she never kept track of them. So I began to pilfer a few here and there EG
My first romance was a Silhouette Desire by Sherry Dee called ‘Make No Promises’. I was hooked. And soon, I was out reading my grandmother. To keep up with my habit, my best friend’s mother became my second supplier :)
While I still enjoy the odd Dick Francis and Jilly Cooper, romance will always be my favorite genre.
Kathleen Woodiwiss was my “first”. I read The Flame and the Flower when I was in high school. I can’t remember who lent it to me. It was all the rage at the time. From there, I read Rosemary Rogers’ Sweet Savage Love and Dark Fires, then Laurie McBain. I’ve been reading romance for 30+ years (that makes me sound ancient!) Historicals are still my first love.
Wow, I’m amazed at how many people first read and still read the historicals. I’m the same. I recently (past few years) discovered Rosemary Rogers and same with the old Elizabeth Lowell historicals (LOOOVED those). I still love reading historicals, but I can’t imagine ever writing one and pulling it off! Though… that could be a goal some day!
Silvia, ain’t that the truth? That book with Jessica and the boy. LOL. How to tell we were destined for romance novels!
I was in a little time waster called Study Hall in the tenth grade. I was bored to death. The “teacher” was none existent, at best, but heaven forbid we leave to so much as pee.
One of my friends, Rhonda, handed me, “Shana” under the table. That was it. I was in love and I knew it. I started reading romances voraciously. I read other genres, but I always come back to my romances. I used to be bothered that all the men had pecs bigger than my boobs, but that’s all changing now, which is allowing me a lot of freedom in my writing. I also don’t find romances formulaic at all. Yes, there are parameters, but it’s the same in all genres. You have to meet the readers expectations. Which is a good thing.
I also was taught three belly dance moves in that study hall. Starting another life long love.
I read voraciously from the first words I read, “Look. Look.” Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Dana Sisters, Cherry Ames, Sue Barton series. I advanced to sweet YA romances in my early teens, then to everything in the world after that. I didn’t come back to strict romance until Rosemay Rogers’ Sweet Savage Love and Woodiwiss’ The Wolf and the Dove. Those books brought me back to romance and to writing.
I can’t remember my first romance novel, but I know it was a historical. The first series book I read was Mackenzie’s Mountain by Linda Howard. I was hooked!
I remember reading my mom’s Harlequins. First one I really remember by title is Autumn of the Witch. It was the first Harlequin that included risque sex. Came out, IIRC, in 1971.
My mom wouldn’t let me read it, but I sneakily did. And I remember Barbara Cartland very well.
I was thirteen, and the book was a sweet little romance called “Paint Box Summer.”