Last night on the Twitter feed I had a ripping good conversation with so many people about their favorite Harlequin lines and which authors are absolute never-fail for them. So many people mentioned the Harlequin Presents line, while I’m partial to the Silhouette Desire line.
Authors that make the autobuy list of many on Twitter last night included Sarah Mayberry, Cheryl St.John and Karen Templeton (from Sybil), Sharon Kendrick, Anne McAllister, India Grey, Day LeClaire, Leslie LaFoy, Julia James, Lynne Graham (from Lynne Connolly), Allison Leigh, Christine Rimmer Maya Banks), Nancy Warren, Emilie Rose, Kathie Denosky, Yvonne Lindsay, Anne McAllister, Rhonda Nelson (from Limecello).
Note to Harlequin: meta tags for book shopping would be SO AWESOME. Being able to shop by location (Spain! Antigua! England! Australia! Spain! New Zealand! Spain! CANADA!) or by plot hook (“secretary” “secret baby” “cowboy”) would be SO great.
So many of us started reading romance with category romances. Here’s my question for you: which category got you hooked on romance? A recent title? A book from waaaay the hell back when? Titles and authors, please – or as much as you can remember. Which one was the highway to happily ever after?
The first romance novel I ever read was in the eighth grade and I bought it off of a bargain rack at the local used bookstore for 50 cents. I felt pretty proud of myself for getting it into the house, but looking back it was relatively tame. In fact, it was really tame. It was called “The King’s Doll” and is by Elizabeth Chater. Looking back, I don’t think it was that great a book. The plot was jumpy, the characters lacked depth, and at the end of the book I had to go back and read it again because all of a sudden the characters were “in love” and I totally missed it happening. It holds a place in my heart anyway.
I love Regency Romance and those got me started in college. I notice that it’s getting to be tapped out and I’ve seen a few authors move into other historic times. Not that I have good examples off the top of my head. I would like to see some early 20th Century stories.
Harlequin Presents was what got me hooked on romance. It was an Anne Hampson title called Hills of Kalamata. The plot line was the heroine was going to kidnap the Greek Millionaire (I guess million was like a billion is today in 1977) and she ends up being his prisoner instead. It belonged to my great-grandmother and I had finished it at her house over the weekend. When I went to go home I reluctantly handed it back to her and I guess she saw my pout and handed it back to me and said I could keep it as a gift. I still have the book to this day. It is very fragile and worn because I had read it so many times. Thanks Granny Jones, you ROCKED!
I did read Harlequin back in the day, my sisters and I used to trade them back and forth. But the authors I always scouted for at that time (late 70s, early 80s) were Glenna Finley, whose books were Signet I believe, and Nora Roberts for Silhouette. I loved her books from the first one she wrote (Irish Thoroughbred), and have read her ever since. I haven’t been reading categories in recent years, and moved more from romance to mystery in my reading tastes, but I thank both those authors for my good memories that have me still with a soft spot for romance.
The first romance I bought was a Barbara Cartland. Did she write for Mills & Boon? The bookstore had racks and racks of BCs and I picked one with Leopard in the title because I had a cat. It was a wonderful story about reincarnation and and had some exotic scenes of India in it. I wore out my copy. I’ll always remember the Leopard with fondness though subsequent Cartlands have been hit or miss.
Wow. That was a very long time ago! I was always a sucker for anything with ‘sheik’ in the title. If it involved dudes in white with full head dress, I’m there. Absolutely. I can STILL remember after probably 20-odd years a Harlequin Romance standard that was probably written by Penny Jordan. PJ had a way with words that made you think there was just a touch of sarcasm going on there. The TDH in question was actually an engineer. He fixed the air conditioner and she ogled his buttocks in blue jeans. Very, very cool!
What got me hooked was my mum’s Georgette Heyer collection. First one, Regency Buck. I’m sure I read some Cartlands but she’s pretty silly compared to Georgette.
For me, nope, I can’t understand the concept of buying by group or line or meta tag* (unless, of course, it’s Regency Marriages of Convenience … then you can sign me up for a monthly package, sight unseen :D) … when I buy older Harlequins, usually at a UBS or a library, it’s because I want to see what an author I now enjoy was up to years back. The other day I bought: This Time for Us by Elaine K. Stirling, The Dream Comes True by Barbara Delinsky and Circles by Lauren Bauman.
I do like many of their historical authors, like Cheryl St. John, Betina Krahn and, Of Course, Carla Kelly. So great to see Miss Kelly in print … I’m sure there are others I’m forgetting: there are some wonderful historical writers that are part of the Harlequin family.
* not even sure what that is—oh well!
Linda Howard’s Silhouette Intimate Moments! I was hooked from my first read, which was Against the Rules. I got it from my local library, then spent YEARS searching for it at used bookstores and garage sales. I remember finding it at a garage sale probably 10 years later as vividly as I remember the first time I read it. I loved the Mackenzie series, too.
When I was about 10 or 11, I was cutting my romance teeth on Rosemary Rogers and the like because I was filching books out of my stepmother’s Brown Paper Bag o’ Books. (The Brown Paper Bag o’ Books was what she’d bring back every month or so from the Paperback Exchange—an awesome place of wonder and treasure, completely crammed full of books and comic books that were shelved in no particular order). I didn’t actually start reading category books until I was 13 or so. I think the first Harlequin that I ever read was by Charlotte Lamb. I must have liked it a lot, but I recall looking for her titles when I bought more.
Way back, I was on a category romance jag, but I was finding a lot of them rather ho-hum. Then I stumbled into a book by someone named Erin St. Claire. Stunningly good. I found another. Then another, until I couldn’t find any more. For years I thought she’d stopped writing. Then one day years later at the Sleepless in Silverdale conference, I found out she’d turned into Sandra Brown.
As for what got me hooked on romance to begin with: old medical romances, like those pubbed in the 60s. I can’t remember which one in particular, but whatever it was, was a natural segue from the Cherry Ames nurse mysteries I grew up on. And I’m sure it must have been a Harlequin.
And I’m commenting about medical romance and my Captcha is well97. lol
Meta Tagging would be awesome! I’ve got a customer that is a huge Presents fan that loves all things Sheikh, Greek, & Italian, with a smattering of Spainards and Aussies. She has a great story of teaching her daughter’s Girl Scout troop how to savor the words of a romance when reading out loud after they found a Lynn Graham in her van.
I started series romance with The Law is a Lady by Nora Roberts in Silhouette Special Editions that I picked up at a church rummage sale at the age od 13 or so, but quickly became a fan of the Desire line. Every time I was sick and stuck home from school I would drag myself out of bed to walk a mile to the closest grocery store so I could pick up an new Desire. My mother would have killed me if she’d known. Not that the romance part would have bothered her, she always encouraged reading, but going to the store when I was too sick to attend school would piss her off no end!
Wow, this topic takes me back.
I cut my teeth on Harlequin Presents back in middle school. My stepdad had written a satire of a Presents (long story). He wanted my mom to read it and had gotten the “four free books!” so she could see how they compared. One by one, I slipped them off the shelf, hoping no one would notice the gap. I want to say there was a Penny Jordan in the bunch.
Soon after, I discovered Rosemary Rogers and Sweet Savage Love and longer romances (Zebra books with the little hologram!) But through it all, I would bring home Presents by the armful from the library (20+ at a time). It’s also what started my judging a book by it’s cover. lol I couldn’t bear the ones where the hero had gray hair, even at the temples, because my young heart was squicked by that.
That’s also about the time that my folks started shaking their heads at my reading choices (romances and comic books…oy!) and my desire to write romance. They still laugh, but in a good way.
I started with Anne of Green Gables and Emily of New Moon, Anne McCaffrey’s Pern books, and anything Mercedes Lackey. Later, I realized what I really loved in those books was the romance.
My first true romance was The Sherbrooke Bride by Catherine Coulter. I read that one and the other two bride books many times. For me, though, once I was more well read, they (and their marriage bed rapes) were not worth the rereads. It makes me feel icky to think about it now, and I wonder how I didn’t end up with a really warped idea of what sex should be. Yikes!
Julie Garwood is who I really remember really liking early on. In college I would forbid myself from reading romances. But once I met a goal (test, paper, project, etc) I’d go to the library and check out one of her books. Then come home and stay up and read the whole thing. Aahhh. Still makes me smile!
I’ve already bought my ecopies of October’s Harlequin Presents.
The First Romance I remember reading was The Convenient Marriage by Georgette Heyer while I was in High School. My next door neighbour lent it to me when I was home sick in bed with some infectious disease. Unfortunately the last page was missing.
Then in my last year at high school my old Infants teacher lent me all her hard cover Heyers. Bliss! I’m now collecting e and audio versions as fast as I can.
This. I started reading romance at a fairly young age—-6th or 7th grade. I was a voracious reader and had long since gone through all the interesting YA at our public library. Then I discovered the huge collection of Harlequin’s and just got sucked in. That library had 3 or 4 long shelves of them. To this day I’ve never found another library with a collection to rival it. Erin St. Claire was my first “crack” author. There is one book of her’s that I still look for every time I’m in a UBS.
As time went by I started looking for longer romances and basically stopped reading Harlequins, so I was thrilled to discover that Erin St. Claire was Sandra Brown. Oddly, I’ve liked a lot of SB’s books, but never as much as I loved Erin St. Claire’s.
I’ve since started reading some Harlequins again and I’m enjoying several of the authors that others mentioned.
I’m not even 100% sure what line it was, MIRA?, but Elizabeth Lowell’s Blackthorne Brothers got me so hooked, it was ridiculous. I must have read OUTLAW, GRANITE MAN, and WARRIOR at least fifty times each. Just looked them up, they were Desires. Man, I wonder if I still have copies? Thinking about them makes me want to reread.
His Lady Mistress by Elizabeth Rolls is the reason I’m hooked on romance. Anything by her is an auto-buy.
Sticking to Presents and Desires (because this list would get waaaaaay too huge otherwise) my autobuy authors are: Olivia Gates, Annie West, Jennie Lucas, India Grey, Maya Banks, Emily McKay, Abby Green, and Kate Hardy.
The category that got me into romance was definitely Regency/Historical. Waaaaay back in the early 70’s as a pre-teen I started in on my Mom’s Heyer collection, though that far back I can’t remember which title was my “first love.” Miss Heyer’s books are still the most likely romances to be “keepers” for me and The Grand Sophy is my all-time-favorite romance. I also surreptitiously read several of the Woodiwiss books as a teen; they seemed SO racy at the time. The Wolf and the Dove was my favorite of hers, but I haven’t read it in decades and may never again in fear it would ruin a fond memory. I know I read a lot of Harlequin back in the 80’s, but most were not all that memorable to me.
In the UK, Presents are known as Moderns. I’ve read both, and there’s no difference apart from the spelling, and sometimes an author is exclusive to one line or the other.
But in the UK, there is a sub-line called Modern Heat, which in the US is put out as a regular Presents, and I love that line. The heroines aren’t as wimpy or doormatty, and the heroes are a little less like immovable objects. You get to travel some of the journey with him, and if there’s anything I miss, it’s knowing the hero a bit better. Romance is something that should happen between two people, after all.
Authors who have Modern Heat books include one of my very favourites, Kate Hardy, and Trish Wylie, both of whom also write for other lines, so take care.
Oh, and I forgot Abby Green. I like her books, too. And Olivia Gates – she has a very distinctive style, but she’s an Egyptian, a doctor in Cairo, so her sheikh books have a touch of reality. Just a touch, mind.
There are some disasters, and sometimes they can be funny, they’re so awful.
It’s only been just over a year since my category deflowerment. But once I read Emilie Rose’s The Millionaires Indecent Proposal, Silhouette Desire #1804 . I was a true beleiver. I so admire writers that can produce such wonderful stuff in such a restrictive frame work. Not to mention do it over and over again.
Going into my first Category I was cautious and a little naive much like laid off accountant, Stacy Reeves. Thank goodness my first experience was sexy and oh so very satisfying. Kinda of like Franco Constantine, millionaire heir to a chocolate covered empire.
This book shattered all my misconceptions.
Cheesy titles aside that the author has no control over, I was wrong about everything else. And there was nothing choppy or simple about the writing. It was tight yes, but without losing any sense of the gorgeous setting or the deep emotions. Although the sex scenes were short they had great impact in those few words. The sexiest scene of all isn’t even on the page. He mentions his plans for the night beforehand and she mentions it again briefly after the fact. I couldn’t get the scene out of my head and technically it was only ever in my head. And there is no denying the vocabulary was rich and varied and the whole thing was intelligently written.
Luckily me, my first time was magical.
I have a feeling though that all categories, like all men, are not created equal but there are ones that can rock your world.
The first romance category to get me well and truly hooked was Belle of Portman Square by Clarice Peters – and I liked it mostly because it was hilarious. The heroine ends up dropping volumes of Shakespeare on the hero from the library stairs and they have many witty exchanges over crab patties.
The lines that kept me happy were the romantic comedy lines – Harlequin Duets, Flipside. I’m really sad that those lines always seem to falter. I love laughter in my romance!
I was probably around 10 or 12, and I bought a Harlequin Romance at a local thrift store, Leigh Michaels’ “Baby You’re Mine” and was utterly hooked. 12+ years later, and I still haven’t stopped. I will always have a soft spot for category romances. And I would LOVE it if Harlequin would have meta tags – if I see a sheik romance, or an inherited baby (NOT secret baby) romance, I’m THERE!
I liked the Silhouette Intimate Moments for their Romantic Suspense. I found Justine Davis (She wrote about cops and had wounded heroes, including a parapeligic hero) and Maggie Shayne (her first book pre-vampire was one of my faves- had a latina heroine).
I also found Jenny Cruise in the categories.
My older sisters used to read Mills and Boons, and I just HAD to read them because they were forbidden. But the books that really hooked me were the Loveswept Romances. It’s too bad they stopped publishing that line.
I still remember reading books by Fayrene Preston and Kay Hooper. I liked that their storylines weren’t as ridiculous as the Mills and Boons. To this day, one of my sisters LOVES the ‘high intensity’ storylines, where the hero and heroine basically hate each other throughout the book, right up until the last five pages where they miraculously fall for each other and live HEA.
I despise those storylines just as much as I did when I was 12 – I’m all about laid back, fun and flirty romance, which is what the Loveswepts delivered.
The first romance I read was in the 5th grade, THE FLAME AND THE FLOWER by Kathleen Woodiweis. The category line I followed semi-regularly was Loveswept.
For me, it was A Song Begins by Mary Burchell, published by Harlequin and Devil’s Cub by Georgette Heyer. They both made my adolescent heart swell.
I read my first few Harlequins when I was in 5th or 6th grade (thus about 15 years ago) but they dated back from the 70s and 80s, methinks. I was reading them in French back then so I’m sure the series name are different, but one I still remember very fondly is the one with the nanny/cooking lady who moves to New Zealand and falls in love with the Owner of a sheep herd. The angst! I remember the angst, and the sweet, sweet ending. I remember my mum had quite a few set in exotic locations (South America, New Zealand, Sierre Leone, Greece, etc.) and I loved that.
OMG – meta-tagging the Harlequin catalogue? YES PLEASE!!! I can’t even start to reminisce about my ‘first’ romance novel because I’m too excited about the possibilities of being able to search for, oh, say, pregnant/amnesiac/former marine.
The first romance I read was Storm Winds by Iris Johansen. I found it at a friends house and read it in one sitting. The hero is still one of my favorites. I think I was about 12 or 13.
The first romance I bought was I think To Sir Phillip With Love by Julia Quinn. The title is what made me want to read it. I love titles that play on movies/song/books.
Shockingly I haven’t read more than 2 or 3 Harlequin books. I tend to stay in either Regency or Contemporary romances.
I love all these comments. I got into romance reading by being a horribly awkward 13 year old on vacation in Key West (circa 1995) in a rental house that was stocked with Jane Feathers and Catherine Coulters. I’ve always wanted to try category romance, but I find it all so overwhelming, and … dare I say it as an out and proud romance reader … I’ve fallen prey to the idea that category isn’t as “good” as full-length novels.
This has been super awesome and educational and I am definitely going to be making a list of categories to try.
Thank you Smart Bitches and Bitchery!
My first “grown up” romance was The Gift by Julie Garwood. It set me off on a pirate binge. I found it on a friend’s mother’s bedside table and spent the better part of the day ignoring my friend and reading. It was a natural progression from the Sunfire YA romances that I devoured from about 10-13.
I haven’t read many catagories lately, but in the mid- to late-nineties I read one, sometimes two a day. (Working as a receptionist left me a lot of time to read.) I loved the Temptation line and Love & Laughter, which morphed into the Duets line. I know at the time I had some favorite authors, but it’s been so long it’s hard to remember who they were. I know I discovered Jenny Crusie and Vicki Lewis Thompson in those days.
I do feel obliged to point out that Georgette Heyer was never published by Harlequin. It would have sent her spinning in her grave.
She refused to join the RNA (Romantic Novelists’ Association) so two formidable ladies were left to claim the Queen of Romance title – Denise Robins and Barbara Cartland. The stories of these two and their rivalry are legion in the UK, and someone should really write them all down.
I started reading Woodiwiss, Rogers, et al when I was 10 or so, out of my mom’s stash.
Then, when I was 12 or 13, my school pal Martha gave me two Harlequin Romances as a birthday gift. They were A Rainbow for Megan, #2020 by Jane Corrie; and Summer Rainfall, #2019 by Kerry Allyne. I was hooked. They were a product of the 1970s, so they came with the requisite TSTL helpless yet feisty female and the overblown alpha male who dragged her around by the hair, but I loved ‘em anyway. I still have them.
Most of the categories at that point were written by British and Australian authors, and I loved the ‘far away’ feel to them… so different from New Mexico, where I was from. Lots of tales from the Outback, or South Africa and of course England and Italy and Greece.
Most of my favorite authors went on to become best sellers—Nora Roberts, Linda Howard, Jennifer Crusie, Jennifer Greene, Elizabeth Lowell, Janet Evanovich, Barbara Delinsky, Kathleen Korbel, Emilie Richards, Suzanne Brockmann, Jayne Ann Krentz, etc.
I love all the Noras (she’s kindof in a class on her own, IMO—there’s Nora, and then there’s everyone else) and my favorite Noras can change with my mood, and have their own list. But there are a handful of other category books that are always in my Top Ten All Time Favorite Books Evah:
Night of the Hunter, SD481 by Jennifer Greene
An Officer and a Gentleman, SIM 370 by Rachel Lee
Manhunting, HT463 by Jennifer Crusie
Anyone But You, HLL4 by Jennifer Crusie
A Rose for Maggie, SIM 396 by Kathleen Korbel
Dragonslayer, SIM511 by Emilie Richards
Other great category authors were/are Cheryl Reavis, Cheryl StJohn, Tanya Wood, Carla Kelly, Judith Duncan, Diana Palmer, Ruth Wind, Sharon Sala, India Grey, Julie Cohen, Lori Borrill, Kathleen O’Reilly, Iris Johanssen, Katrina Britt, Margaret Way, Sandra Canfield, Sarah Craven, Anne Mather, Carole Mortimer, Anne Hampson, Helen Bianchin, yadda yadda. The list is endless, really.
Diane ;o)
The first category book I remember reading, and I’m pretty sure it was the first “adult” romance book I read, was Strictly Business by Leigh Michaels. It was a Harlequin Romance set in my hometown of Chicago, and the lead characters worked for a cosmetics company. Actually a pretty damn good story that I should go back and re-read to see if it holds up 20 years later. I now have 2 copies of it that I’ll hold on to forever.
Folly To Be Wise by Sara Seale was my very first Harlequin. I started reading them in 1976. The bookmobile lady would bring me about 40 every 2 weeks and I’d read them all!
In the 80s for a short time I had the monthly subscription for super romances. My favorite thing to run across was a book set in an area of America I was familiar with. European settings weren’t as interesting to me. For many years I quit reading them because they seemed so similar but in the past 2 years I’ve been reading some WINNERS. It’s fun to be in the bookstore and talk to snobbish readers who poo poo HQN then pull a book off the shelf that I liked and maybe commented about on my lil blog and talk them into buying it. Even more fun when I get an email saying they were so surprised that they liked the book and ask for more recs!
I can’t remember the storyline of this book but I think the young girl in pigtails is the 18 year old heroine and the man was like 36 or so. LMAO that age difference would piss me off big time now days!
My first romance was a Virginia Henley in 10th grade that my classmate gave me. My eyes were sure opened there 🙂 Then around that time (before or after I’m not too sure), I read A Knight in Shining Armor by Jude Devereux. But I was a moron in high school and didn’t read any more romance until after I graduated and we moved and I found both a great used bookstore and a library. The first category line I discovered was Harlequin Temptation and I think the first one I read was by Jayne Ann Krentz. Then I discovered the Silhouette Intimate Moments line and was mad about those books for years.
One of my all-time favorite category books is Loose Ends by Justine Davis (SIM 391). I will not part with this book for love or money. It’s an unrequited-love storyline that still works well after all these years.
Lately though, sad to say, I haven’t read a lot of category. I’ve tried to get into the Silhouette Romantic Suspense line (formerly Intimate Moments) but it just hasn’t had the same feel that IM did.
The thing that amuses me to no end is when someone who considers categories to be inferior raves about a book they just read by Nora, Brown, Palmer, Howard, etc—and it’s a reprinted category! Why is it an acceptable book because it’s now been printed in HB or trade size and costs $20, but it was unacceptable pulp fiction when it was a PB for $1.85?
I like to think I’m ahead of my time, since I had the good sense to read them all those years ago—and more cost-effectively too! LOL It can also be a lucrative side biz if one is so inclined and knows the ‘demand market’ … some of those original first ed categories can be worth big bucks on eBay these days.
Diane :o)
The new and improved search on eHarlequin.com does find you secret babies, marriage of convenience, sheikh and locations! “Forced proximity” pulled up 207 results alone.
And we (Harlequin) have published Georgette Heyer!
My two favorite lines are Super Romance and Blaze. Janice Kay Johnson is always a solid choice. I am also a fan of the now defunct Harlequin Flipside line. I have only been reading category romance steadily for the past couple years… and I am sad that it took me so long to realize how good it can be!
I think my romance reading started with Danielle Steel and Judith Krantz when I was a teenager.
I got addicted when I was a preteen by reading the First Love from Silhouette line. They were really naive little books compared to what teens can read today, but I ate those puppies UP. And this is going to sound cheesy, but they really groomed me in a way—I started to think about what I really wanted in a boyfriend all the way back at age ten, eleven, and twelve, at a time when girls that age didn’t do anything with boyfriends than pass notes and maybe rollerskate together holding hands. I was thinking about how a boy should and shouldn’t behave—what behaviors were signs that he wouldn’t be a good boyfriend, what a girl should or shouldn’t do to get a boy’s attention, what to put up with in a relationship. To read First Loves in 2009 is an crash course in corny, but they were extremely earnest. The women writing them (Elaine Harper, Veronica Ladd, Doreen Owens Malek, Beverly Sommers, Andrea Marshall, Patricia Aks, Sharon Wagner, Maud Johnson, Deborah Kent, Marilyn Youngblood to name just a few) were certainly writing to guidelines, but with a kind of gentle, non-preachy wisdom. Most of the books end with a first kiss, but occasionally the books had pretty intense, almost passionate relationships. (Those rare ones were my very favorites.) I still pick these up at used bookstores whenever I see them.
Ahem. And then I got a little older, I got a bagful of Candlelight Ecstasies at a yard sale. And there went the naive!