how did you get started reading romance novels?

I was a late-bloomer, at least as far as reading went.  Yes, six years ago (I know I’ve told some of you that it’s less than that, but I really sat down and counted.  Gosh.  I had no idea so much time had passed!), I thought that romance novels were dime-a-dozen grocery-store interchangeable books.  And some of them, I have to admit, are.  But . . . .  But!

I read my first romance novel when I was visiting my then-boyfriend’s family over Christmas.  We’d been together for two years, and there was a huge snowstorm, and so we were stuck in their house.  His mom had stored a bunch of novels on the shelves, and one of them was a Georgette Heyer (I forget the name now, but it was the one with the incredibly stupid girl that would run off with anyone who offered to buy her a purple dress).

I read it because I was a desperate devotee of Lois McMaster Bujold (and still am–I regularly have to stop myself from using her phrases.  I’ve read her books so many darned times–and by “so many darned times” I mean, in some cases, well over fifty), and because Bujold dedicated one of her books to “Jane, Georgette, Dorothy, and Charlotte–long may they rule.”

Jane I had already read, and loved, of course.  Charlotte Bronte I wasn’t too fond of.  Dorothy Sayers had been a riot while the books lasted.  And that left . . . Gerogette Heyer.  So I read the Heyer.  And then I read another one–The Black Moth, I think.  And then I was out of Heyers, and not yet out of snow, so I picked up a regular old romance novel.  It was “Thunder and Roses” by Mary Jo Putney, and boy was that a different read.

Sex.  Not just sex, but some of the most incredible sexual tension I’d read.  (Later, after I’d read substantially more, I’d realize something I haven’t said before:  I think sexual tension, rather then sex, is what really makes romances great.  Some authors confuse the two;  Putney does not, and “Thunder and Roses” is the most incredible proof thereof that I can imagine.  It’s still one of my favorites.)  And real characters, characters I cared about.  Characters who were smart, and interesting.  I was hooked.  I was beyond hooked.  As an underestimate:  at the rate of approximately 6 books per week (underestimate–fewer this year, of course, but way more a year or two ago), times fifty weeks (assume that I take some time off), times six years.  I’ve read almost everything Georgette Heyer has ever written (thank you, large lots on eBay), everything by Putney since.  And Jo Beverly, and Loretta Chase (everything of hers I can find, that is), and Edith Layton, and Julia Quinn, and Eloisa James, and Christina Dodd, and Teresa Medeiros, and way too many others to mention.

Too many others except Diana Gabaldon and Nora Roberts—I’ve read three Roberts, and haven’t liked it, and barely managed to bull my way through Outlander, which I found boring.  So go figure.
How about you?  What was your first romance novel?

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