Fond First Times… Our first experiences with romance novels
Most of us remember when we first started reading romance, who introduced us to it or how we discovered it ourselves, and – perhaps even – which book we first read. Did we read romance in secret or with a group of friends or other people? Did we hide our reading from others – did we need to? – or were we open about our choices? And overall, what made us fall in love with romance novels?
AAR staffers discuss these and other burning questions in the first of two blogs about our first experiences with romantic fiction.
My love of romance novels definitely started with reading my mom’s gothic-tinged romantic suspense novels. She loved (still loves) Phyllis Whitney’s books, and the first one I remember her giving me to read was Window on the Square. I read it when I was eleven or twelve, and I remember the dark moodiness of the story drawing me in. From that point, I was hooked and I picked up many an old gothic romance at library book sales. As a teenager, I had a serious Phyllis Whitney/Victoria Holt habit going. My romance reading interests broadened throughout high school and college, but the love of gothics and romantic suspense I shared with my mom definitely paved the way.
I honestly have no idea when I read my first romance. I think in middle school I started reading Barbara Cartlands, but I really can’t remember very much about them, except that I always fast forwarded through to the parts where the hero finally kissed the heroine… who I always thought was kind of a moron. My parents had all kinds of books in our house, including The Happy Hooker, The Joy of Sex, The Godfather, etc. I was allowed to read whatever I wanted. In fact, I don’t think my parents ever thought about policing my reading. So I really never had the experience of having to hide what I was reading from my parents. When I was thirteen, my parents hired a babysitter in her twenties. This would’ve been around 1974. Her name was Pam, and she read bodice rippers. She gave me her copy of Sweet Savage Love by Rosemary Rodgers, 
and told me – specifically — to read the scene where Steve has Ginny locked up and forces her against her will and introduces her to oral sex. I remember THAT very clearly. After that I read every bodice ripper I could get my hands on until I was fifteen, at which point I completely quit reading romance for the next twenty years. And the book that brought me back? Dreamfever by Karen Marie Moning.
My first romance novel was a Catherine Coulter called The Cove that I read when I was eleven. I wandered into more inspirational romances for a while – Robin Jones Gunn, anyone?! Can we talk about Christy and Todd?! Then in grad school, Nora Roberts’ Bride Quartet turned me back into a voracious and committed member of Romancelandia.
When I first moved to Seattle a long time ago, I stayed at the YWCA downtown. There was a small library with lots of Harlequin romances. At that point, I remember having seen TV commercials advertising the books, but I scoffed at the screen. Nonetheless, I chose one book to read and was hooked. I went back the next day and grabbed a whole bunch more to read. So that was my first introduction to romance books, but by then I had also read the classics Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice, which I loved.
I still have my first romance novel: An Irresistible Impulse by Billie Douglass. (Believe it or not, Barbara Delinsky was writing under an alias then!) I got that book in a bundle of books from my great aunt. I’m not sure she knew it was an explicit one, and so at roughly the age of fourteen, I was introduced to my first written love scene. By my later teens, I was devouring romances by Catherine Coulter, Heather Grahame, Beatrice Small, etc., and reading reviews from Romantic Times. My local bookshop was amazing when it came to romance stock, and I’d buy hundreds of books a year from them. The rush of emotions, the interpersonal interaction, the historical storytelling – all of them kept me reading!
As a child and young adult, I received books on cassette tape through The National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped. For the most part, librarians did a good job choosing age-appropriate books to send out to patrons, but one of them mailed me a copy of Velvet Angel by Jude Deveraux. I was around fourteen at the time, and I remember being utterly captivated by my very first adult romance novel. It swept me away to a time long past, and I hated to put the book aside to return to more mundane things like chores and homework. My parents were never big readers, and they never paid much attention to the books the library sent me, so I didn’t have to worry about them disapproving of the novel, and after I sped through that one, I requested a bunch more similar romances. I’m not sure why the librarians agreed to send them my way, but I’m so glad they did. Those historical romances have a special place in my heart, even though I haven’t read a Deveraux book in years.
Technically my first romance novel would’ve been Lord of La Pampa by Kay Thorpe. The story of Lian, an English girl who travels to Argentina in the hopes of becoming a dancer, and Ricardo, a man who stands to inherit a large ranch if he can only find a bride instantly, had me glomming Harlequins during my middle school years. It was my cousin Jackie’s book, so you could say she introduced me to romance, but a part of me feels I had read romances for years before that.
Rosemary Sutcliffe was shelved in the children’s section of my library, and she had several deeply romantic historical novels such as Knight’s Fee. Margaret Leighton wrote Journey for a Princess and Judith of France, which are also romantic historicals for “children”. Another book I loved was The Sapphire Pendent by Audrey White Bryer, essentially, a Regency romance with young protagonists. Gladys Malvern wrote several that I loved, The Foreigner being my favorite, and Phyllis Whitney had many young adult novels, and all of them were what I would call romances, with Step to the Music being my favorite. Promises in the Attic by Elisabeth Hamilton Friermood was another YA romance that I loved as a young elementary school girl.
Teen and children’s books were essentially housed together in our library so I was reading romance by fourth grade or so. The Harlequins didn’t start until seventh grade, but since I had been searching for books with romantic themes since fourth grade, I never had a huge conversion moment. It was more like just finding a more grown-up source for my addiction. I’ve never been a closeted romance reader. I’m proud to read these books, love sharing them with others, and am tickled to be reviewing them for AAR.
When I think about my early days reading romance, there are two experiences that come to mind. Both occurred when I was around thirteen years old. The first was in grade 7, when I shared a locker with a friend. She would bring some of her mother’s Harlequins to school, and she let me borrow them. I remember being thoroughly shocked but intrigued by a Presents plot where a young woman was lusting after an older man who was technically her new step-brother after their parents married. Who knew it was ahead of its time, given the current craze of step-sibling romances!
During those same teenage years, I spent time during the summer at my grandparents’ house in Northern Ontario. They lived across the street from their local library, which had racks upon racks of historical romances, and with (what seemed to me) the entire collection of Barbara Cartland releases. I read as many of them as I could in the two weeks I spent there, and then, the next summer I did the same thing. I was very clever at hiding the romances I was signing out by having some other innocent looking books (like Nancy Drew) stacked on top. I’m sure my grandma knew what I was up to, but she never said anything.
I don’t recall discussing romance books with any of my friends. No one was into reading as much as I was, though we did have some favorite soap operas that we watched, where the romance storylines were clearly the most popular. With the exception of a hiatus I took when my kids were born, romances have always been a part of my life.
My first experience with romance was at the shockingly young age of ten. I sneaked it from an older teen in my neighborhood on the pretext of helping one girl to lend a book to another. It was a short category contemporary by Mills & Boon. And it shocked my tender soul. I was embarrassed that I had to ask for help with word meanings from my uncle – I was on vacation with his family – and he gave me funny looks, but dutifully explained. After that searing experience and then being teased by the older girls when I returned it, I stayed away from romance for a few years. Georgette Heyer’s These Old Shades brought me back to romance in my older teen years – I still have that yellowed copy with pages that have become fragile with age – and my love of historical romances and Heyer’s books continues unabated to this day.
However, there was a time period between becoming engaged and having my first child that I didn’t read any romances. But after the birth, all this time on my hands nursing and the inevitable stress of inexperience with a newborn made me crave the comfort of romances, and I haven’t stopped reading them since. Until my recent foray into romance, I always read secretively, sharing books with a few select friends. But my resumption of romance also coincided with my entry into Romancelandia, and I started them in public, in parks and on planes. Over the years, the number of romances I have read has waxed and waned, but there has never been a year when I read none.
Hope you’ve enjoyed reading our stories – look out for more in part two! Do drop by and tell us about YOUR first experience with romance in the comments.
~ Keira Soleore
I love reading everyone’s comments and own first times (and I completely messed up there – BERTRICE Small, of course!)
I loved reading your blog and all the comments – you’ve brought back so many happy memories, about books and authors! I especially loved the Count of Monte Cristo. I could not put that down in school. I read it in class hidden inside a textbook.
Oh, gosh! Thank you for reminding me of Cristo. I read Musketeers and Cristo in every abridged form as well as the full unabridged format. So romantic to my teenage mind.
Funny- Little Women and Jane Eyre were two of my favorite books as a young person (and still are) but I never thought of them as romances!
They were romances to me, or rather, I used to use the term “love story.” I didn’t come to a better understanding of the romance genre and its definition until much later. I used to read sagas and Danielle Steele and straight up romances and they were all love stories to me.
Growing up on a farm without electricity till I was 10 and no tv until I was 17, I have always loved reading and read all the books on the bookshelves as an escape into the world of adventure and romance. I remember my mother handed me her school prize copy of Lorna Doone when I was about 13 and said “ You’re old enough to enjoy this” which I did. My older sisters had some of the Anne of Green Gables books which I devoured. There were also a few Georgette Heyer on the bookshelves which I also loved. Likewise classics like Jane Eyre .The romance in those books seems pretty tame by modern standards but they are so well written that I occasionally reread them and enjoy them all over again.
As a teenager I and my friends read books like the Angelique series and thought them very risqué.
In my late twenties, after years of sneering at Mills and Boon ( Harlequins) I started reading a few and discovered authors like Charlotte Lamb, Roberta Leigh, Anne Mather, Janet Dailey, Essie Summers, BettyNeel, Daphne Clair and Helen Bianchin. Now I find myself unable to reread many of these authors because I become very annoyed by the reliance by some authors on the big misunderstanding as a plot device and the super alpha male and submissive female H/h characters.
When I was in my early forties a friend lent me Pride and Prejudice and, after reading it and her other books I immediately understood whyGeorgette Heyer said that if she had to be stranded on a desert island with the works of one author she would choose Jane Austen.
Nowadays there is probably only one author in the Harlequin stable ( Janice Kay Johnson) who is an autobuy for me . However I check sites like AAR, Wendy the Super Librarianand Miss Bates Reads Books for recommendations and often find authors like Maisey Yates, Patricia Potter and Beth Andrews whose books I’ve enjoyed.
Nowadays I find I like my romance with strong female protagonists and an adventure/ suspense story as well as the romance so my favourite authors are Nora Roberts/ J.D.Robb, Jane Ann Krentz/ Jayne Castle/ Amanda Quick, Ilona Andrews, Julie James, Mary Balogh, Patricia Briggs, Kendra Elliott, Lois McMaster Bujold, Linnea Sinclair. I find I am reading more stories with romantic elements than just straight romance lately.
I also notice that increasingly I find an author eg Susan Anderson, Rachel Bach, Kresley Cole, Kelley Armstrong, glom a whole series of theirs, and then move on.
If I had to be stranded on a desert island with the works of five “ romance”authors I would pick Jane Austen, Georgette Heyer, Ilona Andrews, Nora Roberts and not sure who the fifth would be. L. M Montgomery? Lois McMaster Bujold? ( Perhaps choosing our five desert island “romance” authors – and why- could be the subject of a future blog discussion.)
Thankyou for this blog topic. I loved reading about other enthusiasts introduction to romance.
The “no TV until I was 17” did the trick for me as well. Reading and playing with friends was what I did for entertainment. I, too, devoured Anne Mather, Betty Neels, Mary Burchell and others. I find Neels and Burchell still enjoyable as well as a smattering of some of those old Mills & Boons.
My desert island authors would most certainly include Austen and Heyer. Laura Kinsale most likely. Then there are Jo Beverley, Joanna Bourne, Meredith Duran, Michelle Martin, Joan Wolf…so many wonderful historical writers.
Wow, this really has me thinking. I’ve never gravitated towards romance as a genre – the few Harlequins I’ve read bored me to tears or made my skin crawl – but I know I’ve read more romances than I think I have. ;) I read Jane Eyre when I was 12, but I think I resonated more with the coming-of-age and madwoman-in-the-attic parts than the romance. I read Leon Uris’s Exodus around the same time, which has a strong romance arc with a happy-for-now-ending…and lots of sex. My young sensibilities were kind of horrified by what I now know were pretty tame descriptions. I think I was responding to the emotional intensity behind the kisses, caresses and flirtations.
When I first read the classics around the time of my first romance novel, I was drawn to the love story sub-plots and the intensity of the emotions around them. Austens, Little Women et al, The Three Musketeers, Jane Eyre, Count of Monte Cristo…the love story was what drove my interest in the narrative.
Like so many others, my gateway was gothic romance and romantic suspense as a young teen. I discovered bodice rippers in my older sister’s closet when I was around 13. This was at the height of their popularity in the late 70s through mid 80s. Around that time I also began trading books with my BFF and her older sisters. We really bonded over sharing those books, and that is perhaps why I still remember several with fondness. My sister also subscribed to HQN for three or four years in the 80s. I read quite a few of them, but they didn’t appeal to me as much as the epic historical romances. I stopped reading genre romance when I went to college and didn’t start up again until I was in my 40s.
Over the years, I have tried subscribing to Harlequin’s reader service, but I always come away disenchanted. I like my reading to be “pull” rather than “push”, where I choose them rather than being asked to read them. When you have laid out money, you feel guilty if you don’t read them, and the pressure made the reading unenjoyable.
My older sister had signed up for either Silhouette or Harlequin as an older teenager and I used to sneak some of her books and read them. It took me so many years to figure out the “Stephanie James” books I used to smuggle out of her room were written by Jayne Ann Krentz/Quick etc I had “discovered” separately years later.
I was an avid reader from an early age and read across all genres. My favorite “gateway romances” in my “tween” to early teen years (the early 1970s) were Victoria Holt & Jean Plaidy—Gothics and Historical Romances. In about 1973, I read Anya Seton’s KATHERINE—one of the greatest historical romances of all time and one that holds up wonderfully well even 60-plus years after its publication. In the mid-1970s, I read SWEET SAVAGE LOVE and FEAR OF FLYING back-to-back. Each in their own way ushering in a new era of female-centric, sexually-explicit literature. Over the years, I’ve cycled in and out of romance reading in various sub genres. At one point, I read exclusively regencies. Now my favorite romances are romantic suspense and dark & angsty contemporaries.
Anya Seton’s KATHERINE has been on my reading list in recent years since it is an oft-studied book by romance scholars. Is it readable for modern sensibilities for a casual reader as opposed to a scholar?
It’s hard for me to be objective about KATHERINE as it was such an important foundational book in my romance reading—plus I first read it as an impressionable teenager, so you have to take that into account—but I think it holds up extremely well. Seton did a tremendous amount of research in uncovering the story of Katherine Swynford, John of Gaunt’s longtime mistress (later his third wife) and sister-in-law of Geoffrey Chaucer (KATHERINE was the book that led me to read THE CANTERBURY TALES). It’s very much in the style of 1950s epic novels: it covers a long period of time (over 30 years, iirc) during a tumultuous period, and in addition to the passionate love story, there’s rebellion, war, intrigue, pageants, plague, etc. I’d say give it a try—but obviously I’m biased in its favor!
Thank you for explaining all of this. I had no idea it was so rich in the history of its times. And it making you read Chaucer is quite a recommendation. I’ll put it on my to-read list, daunting though it may be.
My first “romance” was Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women followed by Jo’s Boys and then Mrs. Mike by Benedict and Nancy Freedman. I read all three of these by the age of 10. I confess to having nicked Jubilee Trail from our local library when I was 11 and my 9 year old sister and I read it over and over again. I admit that, over 50 years later that library book is still on a book shelf somewhere in my home. ;-)
I reread Mrs. Mike a few years ago and thought it stood up (as a product of another era) beautifully.
Little Women and the rest of the series were one of my earliest memories. The romance sub-plot certainly drove my interest in those books. I have always regretted she didn’t end up with Laurie, even though I know that they would’ve driven each other mad within a few short months.
My mother read Harlequin romances and gave them to me to read. I read everything as a bookworm child but I felt especially enchanted by romances. Strangely, I stopped reading them for decades after middle school and only came back to them about ten years ago. In my profession in higher ed, romances are still viewed pretty disdainfully and I haven’t seen as much progress as I would have hoped, especially given the rise of popular culture studies and the value placed on some genre writing such as science fiction and fantasy. Dystopian feminist novels like The Hunger Games are popular in college literature classes though and lots of students who claim not to like “romance” seem pretty into the romance plot.
Mystery and SciFi/Fantasy have come into their own as respectable scholarly genre fiction, but the study of romance still sinks under knowing looks and disdain. A couple of years ago, I attended the romance track of the annual conference of the Popular Culture Association, and it was heartening to me to see how well it was being studied. I have my notes on my blog, if you’re interested. It’s a series of three posts.
I don’t remember my first romance specifically- I know I read the teen romances by Janet Lambert, Rosamond du Jardin and Betty Cavanna. My earliest memory of romance novels from the adult section of the library was the Jalna series by Mazo de la Roche. I just thought they were wonderful and ate them up. Once I went to college and throughout young adulthood, I sort of turned my nose up at romance (foolish me!) In my late forties, early fifties I started turning more toward women’s fiction and discovered a whole new world- Sandra Brown, Suzanne Brockman, Nora Roberts, Mary Balough- at my small local library. Once I read Outlander, I was a romance addict, in ALL it’s delightful formats and genres. I haven’t looked back.
I always find it interesting what makes romance readers turn away from romance at some point in their lives and then what brings them back to it. Life circumstances have such an influence on our reading habits.
The first romance novel I read was ASHES IN THE WIND, by Kathleen Woodiwiss, in the middle of the 1980s. My parents had lots of books, and they didn’t care which one I chose to read, It just blew my mind, because the main character was a young woman, she had adventures, and had a successful life, including a handsome doctor & soldier as a husband. I think it wasn’t mainly the romance or the tame sex that attracted my young self towards these novels. It was great to be assured of a HEA, yes. But I think the attraction was that the main character was a young girl and she was clever and had many adventures.
Agency in a heroine is such an attractive trait! I find myself drawn to books where both characters take risks and pursue life energetically and intelligently and thoughtfully.
Barbara Cartland was my gateway (along with Phyllis Whitney, Phillippa Carr, etc) into what I think of as “romance lite”.
The first “real” historical romance author I read avidly was Laurie McBain. I thought her books were so explicit and steamy back then! Now most people would barely get through them as she wrote the kind of epic stories that take place over several years with maybe one or two scenes that would be considered barely racy now.
I was a huge fan of Jude Deveraux and Joanna Lindsey way back when, but looking at them now there is barely one of each author’s works I would reread today. The only author from that era that I think stands the test of time is Jayne Ann Krentz and her pseudonyms. I remember reading books in the 80’s and wishing the hero and heroine actually liked each other. (Krentz’s pairs actually seemed to!)
Ah, yes, Cartland. I admit that in my salad days, I enjoyed her books even as I admired her pink boas, frou frou dogs, and bon-bon-eating habits. Krentz is truly one of the greats with a long list of very creative books, bold boundary-pushing storylines, and forward-thinking heroines.
I’m glad Phyllis Whitney’s romantic suspense stories are available in eBook form. My first romance wasn’t a Phyllis Whitney book — but my first mystery was probably one of her children’s books. :)
I didn’t know she wrote children’s books as well. I will have to look them up.