What age did you start reading romance? I was 13. I read Message from Nam by Danielle Steel. Now that I have a 13 year old of my own, I know that my mom had no idea what I was reading.
There was such heartbreak in Message from Nam. Paxton Andrews was a journalist that went to Vietnam after her finance died when he was drafted to Vietnam. There was plenty of history and sex in the movie. Paxton lost another man while she was in Vietnam, then a third. It was really a heartbreaking story. I read it at least three times.
I also remember reading in history and my teacher Mr. Smith (yes, it was really his name) catching me reading several times. An exasperated “Casee!” was something I heard more than once. Once time he yelled at me and I informed him that I was learning about Vietnam. I gave him a few details and I remember the astonished look on his face that I actually learned anything from a romance novel was priceless.
The rest is history. I went on a Danielle Steel binge and never looked back.
How about you?
HI CASEE! I miss your face around these parts!
I started reading romance after I had Brenna so I was 18. New baby, nothing to do all day while she slept so I picked up Something Wonderful by Judith McNaught. I have not turned back since.
I started when I was 12 or so. This was in the 1970’s and bodice rippers were getting very popular. Somehow, I got my hands on Sweet Savage Love by Rosemary Rogers. Prior to that, I had already read my mom’s copy of Valley of the Dolls. She let me read whatever I wanted. She never tried to censor me.
I read a few when I was in grade school (filched from my mom and the library) with my friends, but I didn’t seriously start reading them until the early 2000’s. I listened to an audio of Killjoy by Julie Garwood and from there discovered her historicals. The rest, as they say…
I was about 13 or 14 when I read a book review in the NY Times (at least I think it was in the Times…my Dad used to buy the Sunday edition and encouraged me and my sisters to read it) of a new book “The Wolf and the Dove”. I knew I had to read it. Still can’t believe that both parents were okay with my choice of reading material.
I also remember a book I read early on…The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher.I loved that one.
My mom was a big romance reader my whole life, mostly contemporary harlequins. (Nowadays she is more in the Macomber, small town contemporary area, so our reading rarely overlaps.) I would occasionally steal them to read when I was probably about 10 but they were a little too sexy for me to really get into. Then when I was in my early teens, she used to occasionally take me with her to a used romance book store and that’s where I started discovering the old harlequin regencies, the kind with nothing sexy (ha, how far I’ve come!). After a couple years of those I realized the library had romantic suspense, especially harlequin intrigues, which is where my love affair with that line started! And then I went to college and totally stopped reading romance. I don’t think I read a single romance for like 13 years mostly because I thought I should be reading “smarter” stuff, but I know exactly when I started again. After I had my son in 2010 i had all these health problems and was depressed and overwhelmed. I don’t know the first romance i read that but I know it was either one of Victoria Dahl’s Donovan series or Shalvis’s Wilder series. I needed that happy ending, and since then I haven’t looked back.
I read voraciously and widely growing up. Between the ages of ten and fourteen, I can remember reading:
Cherry Ames as well as The Godfather.
The Hardy Boys as well as Mary Renault.
Agatha Christie as well as Valley of the Dolls.
Georgette Heyer as well as Sherlock Holmes
The Bobbsey Twins as well as Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Ask.
My reading was not censored other than when my mother found me reading Sergeanne Golon’s Angelique when I was eleven. She told me that I could read it at age 16. Being the obedient child that I was (and I was!), I promptly finished it the next time I was home alone. By fifteen, I still read widely, but I had a definite fondness for romances and had amassed a hundred plus collection of Harlequins and regency romances which my parents teasingly called Literary Junk.
I haven’t stopped reading romances yet!