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?
Harlequin Presents. There’s just something about those foreign alpha heroes doing their secretaries that gets me.
Rawr.
Eleanor from eHqn here – Malle’s right, we very recently (as in two scant weeks ago) launched our new Search feature which includes all the juicy meta-data stuff you guys are looking for.
It’s not yet perfect – but I think (hope!?) you’ll find it easier to find books that you like.
I didn’t really like most of the Harlequin line back during the 1960s-70s. I really started loving series romance when the Loveswept line came out, particularly Kay Hooper and Iris Johansen. There mixture of romance, mystery, and dollops of paranormal aspects appealed to someone who was deeply into both the mystery and science fiction genres.
I preferred Silhouette Romances to any of the Harlequin line. They were more robust to my mind. Harlequin Presents were too violent, the relationship between the hero and heroine bordering strongly on abuse, both physical and emotional. There were some authors worth reading, but none really made it to my “must buy” list.
It wasn’t until I discovered Betty Neels, Jayne Ann Krentz, and Nora Roberts that I began reading more Harlequin. Ms. Neels did have very gentle, almost tame romances, but her love of language drew me back again and again.
If I was looking for something just a bit different, with a streak of darkness, I would read Anne Stuart.
My must have romance authors to buy, synopsis unseen, are Nora Roberts (and J. D. Robb), Jayne Ann Krentz (in all her various pseudonyms), and Stephanie Laurens. Add to that David Weber’s Honorverse in science fiction and you’ll see how pared down my list now is. W.E.B. Griffin is fast joining the ranks, but not quite yet.
I enjoyed Nora Roberts early Silhouette books, but it was Silhouette Intimate Moments that really got me hooked on category romance.
My all-time favorites from that line are the first three books in a series by Marilyn Pappano called Southern Knights. I still have them somewhere and go back and re-read them occasionally. For me, the series just got better with each book. The last one – A Man Like Smith – still ranks as one of my favorite books and favorite heroes.
I forgot to add that the three authors who got me truly interested in reading romance were Emilie Loring, Glenna Finley and Lucy Walker.
Well, Heyer is my one, true, lasting love of the romance novelists, and I did start reading her pretty early. But… if I’m being totally honest, what got me hooked was Barbara Cartland. Even at 13 I knew they were appallingly badly written (her punctuation has to be seen to be believed, and she began a new paragraph for literally every sentence) but I adored them all the same, for their ludicrous plots and their guaranteed happy endings when the heroines were always transported to some mystical seventh heaven of happiness. In fact, I might just have to go and see if I still have some in the attic…
The first romance novel I read was The Flame and the Flower (Woodiwiss) when I was about 11. Then I read all her other books I could find.
I vividly remember loaning out my stash of Woodiwiss novels in junior high and one of my friend’s moms confiscated them because they were dirty books! My mom had to call my friend’s mom and politely request she return them. Too funny!
Oh,yes, Ros, and…those ellipses…
They started to annoy, and…I counted thirteen sets on one page in the last one I started…and didn’t finish…
I’ve been reading Harlequin/Silhouette for at least twenty-two years. Some of my first authors were Diana Palmer, Linda Howard, Susan Fox, Emma Goldrick, Violet Winspear, and Sara Craven. Lynne Graham and Susan Napier came a long a little later, but I still adore them.
My favorite lines were Silhouette Intimate Moments, Harlequin Presents, and Harlequin Romance. Harlequin Presents is still one of my faves. I also love the Harlequin Historicals. I take a lot of flack for loving the HPs and very few people seem to recognize the quality of writing in the Harlequin Historicals when I suggest authors and titles from this series. I am addicted. I can’t give them up.
Oh gosh, me too! Sometimes I get into an argument with someone (usually online, usually a SF/F reader) over romance novels—the person’s argument is that romances, especially categories, are too formulaic to be any good. My counter-argument is that most stories of any sort follow a formula, and most importantly, category can be a restrictive genre, but many art forms of writing are restrictive as well—sonnets, haikus, all sorts of poetic forms, and on down to other fiction genre categories, not to mention essays, papers, articles…. But that doesn’t mean the content can’t be spectacular. (Usually the other person ignores this counter-argument and just starts repeating themselves about how stupid romance novels are, refusing to address any of my refutations. Blegh…)
My very first romance ever was A Rose in Winter by Kathleen Woodiwiss, stolen from my mother’s bookshelf. I was really young, but even then there were parts that annoyed me, and parts that bothered me—and yet I still read it over and over again. When it was good, it was soooo goooood! I read that book until the cover fell off and I had to get a new one.
My very first Harlequin, I cannot remember the title, the author’s name, or even when it was published or really what it was about. But I do remember it had to do with a woman stuck back in the home of the man she’d once loved, and I swear it had something to do with Helen of Troy’s jewelry. It was a contemporary. I’ve been trying for years to think of what that book would be, I’d love to read it again. I still remember it fondly, over fifteen years later.
I may not remember the title or the line it was in, but I do remember how engrossing it was, and how I had to get more.
Dammit, the internet ate my post! Here we go again…. I’m one of those who has to admit to getting hooked by Cartland, though I soon graduated to Heyer and others in the 1970’s era Avon Regency line—one of my all-time favorites is Joan Smith, who produced some almost Heyer-level comedies back in the day. Aunt Sophie’s Diamonds is one of my favorites, and I still have my old Avon copy with the lurid Alan Cass cover art. Never really got into categories, unless the above mentioned Avon line counts.
(And in all fairness to Cartland, it’s possible that some of her grammatical oddities were not deliberate, but rather the fault of whatever secretary happened to be transcribing her words that day. The ellipsis-laden dialogue, in particular, could be the result of Ms Cartland’s natural pauses that were wrongly interpreted as part of the story; after all, I can’t imagine that anyone dictating a book into a tape recorder never pauses to catch her breath or think about what to say next. If I were dictating a book, it would probably come out as mostly um…um…um…)
I was 17, and sick in bed. When my dad went for the RX I asked him to pick up something for me to read. I was a big reader of SF/F and just about everything but romance.
My dad picked up Kathleen Eagle’s Priviate Treaty A. because I didn’t read romance so he knew I hadn’t read it. B. I think it had the least embarassing cover.
I did like it, but I think the tall kitchen garbage bag full of Loveswepts & Desires my mom found a week later cinched the deal.
I was totally hooked on Silhouette Intimate Moments during the ‘90’s. My favorite book was Prince Joe by Suzanne Brockmann. I remember the cover had the hero with an awesome mullet. It kills me that I gave away all my category romances during a book purge in college. Then about a year or two ago I tried the Harlequin Presents line and I just could not get into any of the story lines. But I will always have good memories of those fun action/adventure Silhouette Intimate Moments. Sigh.
Lynne Connolly—so glad you love the Modern Heats! (I do too, but then I’m a little biased since I write them :grin:). But, just so you know, Modern Heats are released in the US as Presents (two every month), so you can get your MH fix in this country too!
First romance novel would have been Mary Stewart’s Nine Coaches Waiting when I was around 11-12 in the early 60’s. Then her The Moon-Spinners and anything else I could find by her. For a while my mom actually had to go to the library with me so she could check out the books I wanted (stupid library had a rule that one had to be 16 to read “adult” books; another reason why I ultimately became a librarian – to do it better). But I was more into SF/Fantasy so McCaffrey’s “Pern” books and Norton’s “Witch World” – all with elements of romance – were favorite fodder.
I never really got into the Harlequin books although I remember reading a few at my grandmother’s for lack of anything else. Not until sometime in the late 1990’s did I discover Betty Neels (recommended by my uncle of all people) and devoured everything I could find by her. She is the only author I followed and I still don’t read HQ’s or Silhouettes, etc. unless it is an author who has gone on to longer, better work and I am checking out the early stuff.
I think my mom used to leave her romances laying around specifically for me to find so she wouldn’t have to explain sex to me.
Tiffany White was my favorite by the time I was in high school and reading the Temptation line. But the first category I ever read was Dangerous Marriage by Mary Wibberly, published in 1980, so the heroine was very young, the hero was incredibly mean and closed mouthed, and the bad guy was her FATHER…. dun, duh, duuuuuuun. I still have it, though.
Also loved Jennifer Crusie, Carla Neggers, and Cathleen Coulter (I think?)
In the seventh grade, I volunteered to sort books for the school book fair. When “Season of Enchantment” by Emily Elliott, a Dell Ecstasy Supreme, crossed my path, I had to have it. It was the first clinch cover I’d every seen and the suggestive bulges had me feeling all tingly.
I’m ashamed to admit I stole that book, and still have it to this day. It’s horrible, but it was my gateway drug.
My first romance novel was Partners by Nora Roberts. I believe it was for Silhouette but I’m not sure which line. I LOVED it and continued swiping categories out of my mother’s library bag for years. She finally figured it out and I was allowed to read them out in the open:-)
My first romance novel was Savage Conquest by Janelle Taylor—not sure what I would think if I re-read it now, but at the time, I was hooked.
I read a lot of Harelequin and Silhouettes, and don’t really remember what my first one was—but two of the earliest that I remember were Embers which I believe was in the Special Edition line, and Double Vision by Sherryl Lynn (I think?)—which I believe was an Intrigue. I think at one time or another I was hooked on all of the various lines, but right now i mostly ready the Silhouette Romantic Suspence (used to be the Intimate Moments) and the Harlequin Intrigues.
I’ve always been a category fan. I started gobbling up Harlequin Presents from the library when I was about 10, and never went back to the kids’ shelf after that. At that age, growing up in a blue collar mining town, I think I was more interested in the exotic settings and interesting jobs than the love stories, frankly. Through the years I’ve been an SE, Desire, Temptation and Blaze fan, but strangely enough, most of my category keepers are at least a decade old, with some verging on the quarter century mark! Nora’s MacGregors, Stanislaskis, O’Hurleys and Calhouns are dear old friends. Leslie Davis Guccione’s Branigans? Still to die for. Lindsay McKenna’s Love and Glory series featuring the Trayhern family, for SE, still has a special place in my heart. And I reread one of my favorite category books of all time, “Quinn Eisley’s War” by Patricia Gardner Evans, at least once a year. Gawd, I love that book.
I have to admit I can’t for the life of me read ‘Presents’ books now – but they were my gateway drug, fer sure.
I am not really a category fan, but reading Lori Foster Temptations? And while not a fan of Nora Roberts some of her earlier silhouette series, these two would probably have opened my eyes as a kid to start looking around at the genre.
Category romance… I’m sure I started with Anne Stuart.
Her name on the cover got me buying it and reading it (oh, I remember once getting confused at the store and buying an Anne MacAlister book instead, a book about a younger man and an older woman that was good but no Sister Krissie novel).
I also liked Day Leclaire. And Doreen Owens Malek’s The Eden Tree, and a couple of her YA books (That Certain Boy and Where The Boys Are).
Haven’t read categories for years now, but still look through them (flip through to the *good stuff*) at the library.
So many books out there to read!
Thank you, Kelly and Meghan, for reminding me of two favorite books. I really enjoyed writing BABY, YOU’RE MINE and STRICTLY BUSINESS…
Yes, I’m still out here—though these days I’m writing single-title historical (Regency period).
There are so many familiar names mentioned here—it was like old home week to read through all the favorite authors and titles.
Leigh
“Winner Take All” by Brooke Hastings (Silhouette Romance) might have been the first. The storyline is a little fuzzy after all these years, but I think it was marriage of convenience for business purposes. After that, no stopping. My parents would make fun of me returning from the library with a bag full of “purple books”. Then I moved on to the white ones (Presents) and the red ones (Desire) and it went on from there.
I, too, had an early fondness for Roberts and Howard. Also Tracy Sinclair and Brittany Young. I still have every Iris Johansen Loveswept. And I back glommed Alicia Scott (Lisa Gardner) when I discovered her categories. Reformed prostitute heroine? I am so there! Also have a fine collection of old Anne Stuart, Glenna McReynolds (Tara Janzen), and in process of tracking down old Merline Lovelace. I’ve read (or have in the TBR closet) about 90% of the Bombshell line.
Current books, I will make the effort to find Cindy Dees, Jo Leigh, Leslie Kelly, Maggie Price, Tori Carrington, Catherine Mann. I’m gradually picking through the Nocturnes as I see them at the library, but I’m pacing myself to avoid PNR burnout.
ok, books that hooked me –
Nora Roberts, the very first MacGregor title.
With Anne, the doctor in 1950s america.
SOLD!
ARRRRRGHHHHH.
how could I have been so fickle??? So forgetful of our love?
BLACK MOTH
and a consolidation with her mysteries Behold Here’s Poison – not a romance, but still featuring scintillating description, speech, ALL.
And Randall, in a symphony of brown…
I got hooked by “A Question of Trust” by …someone, I don’t know who, when I was just a wee kidlet. It was one of a pile of books left in a motel for our reading pleasure and I may possibly have lifted it in order to find out what happened in the end – how naive. But that got me started 🙂 and I still have a soft spot for my Mills and Boons….particular for those by Essie Summers set in New Zealand. They are hilarious.
I cut my teeth on my mother’s Mills & Boons novels – my favourites were by Emma Goldrick. She wrote a book called Summer Storms where the heroine is called Charlie and she has a pet pig (!). Good times. I loved the Sweet Dreams teenage romance line too, especially “That Certain Feeling” which I recently found online and read again – it’s just as cute more than a decade later…
I think my first romance was Mary Stewart’s “Airs Above the Ground” – excellent book. I still have most of Mary Stewart’s books.
Willa – I think the book you mentioned is “The Jewels of Helen” by Jane Donnelly
Some of the first romances I read were Harlequin Presents books. My grandmother gave me bags and bags of them when I was a teenager (this was in the 80’s). Most of the books were from the 70’s or early 80’s from authors like Janet Dailey, Charlotte Lamb, Penny Jordan (my personal favorite), Anne Hampson, Anne Mather, and Lillian Peake. There are others, but I can’t recall the names. I still have some of my favorites from that time.
I even have some really old Harlequin Romances from the 60’s which I haven’t read in years and years, but I keep since they are so old.
This was one of the Leigh Michaels books that hooked me, too, and I went on to read all of her books I could get my hands on from the ages of about 12 to 21. I also glommed Debbie Macomber at an early age—especially the Orchard Valley trilogy, Ready for Romance and The Forgetful Bride (still reread the last two). Penny Jordan was another early favorite.
Now I’m feeling nostalgic… I REALLY wish I hadn’t given into my roommate’s urging to part with most of my (very large) Harlequin collection when we moved a few years ago 🙁
I have never read a category. i would not know where to start. I started reading romance with Julia Quinn’s Bridgerton books when I was a freshman in college and I’ve pretty much followed the line of Amazon recommends ever since 😉
Nora Robert’s two-book collection The Stanislaski Brothers. The first one, with the artist Mikhail, was fabulous. The second one, with the spunky, feisty journalist Beth, was retarded (I’m a journalist! I fit the profile of serial killer victims! I know – I’ll get kidnapped by the killer for my big reporter break!). I still have the collection so I can enjoy the highs and lows of romance in one convenient volume.
Psst, Lisa! Stanislaski sisters Natasha and Rachel get their own HEAs in “Taming Natasha” and “Falling for Rachel.” Also check out “Waiting for Nick” (Rachel’s hero’s stepbrother and Natasha’s stepdaughter) and “Considering Kate” (Natasha’s daughter).
tis, thank you so much, that’s it! Your powers of recall/deduction/however you knew that are amazing! I’m off to buy a used copy.
Oh! I forgot to mention Bethany Campbell. I loved her too.
I didn’t know I liked categories until just a few weeks ago, but i’m suddenly quite the fan, especially of Silhouette Desires – the perfect length for a quick read before bed or between other tasks. Still getting a feel for different authors, but I’m crazy about Catherine Mann.
Janet Dailey, That Boston Man circa 1980.
I’m with Sarah McG on the Silhouette Intimate Moments from the 90s. That was definitely what got me hooked on category. The two I remember reading that I’m pretty sure sealed the deal were Keeping Annie Safe by Beverly Barton and one of Marilyn Pappano’s Southern Knights- I think it was Convincing Jamey. It was one of the few lines that my local library carried, but I was soon buying most of my categories because there weren’t enough at the library to keep me happy.
I’ve tried other lines- Desire, Blaze, Superromance, Intrigue, Special Edition, Presents- but I really haven’t found much staying power in those lines as I have with SIM (now Romantic Suspense) in terms of my reading interest. I was also a big fan of Bombshell, but they ended that line sadly.
I started with Harlequin Presents when I was in 8th grade. Someone had given my mom a bunch of them. They sat unread on a shelf until I started sneaking off with them. Then I started scouring the local libraries for any books I could find. I moved onto longer books with Johanna Lindsey, Julie Garwood, and Jude Devereaux. I also read most of the books by Philippa Carr/Jean Plaidy/Victoria Holt.
I haven’t picked up a Harlequin Presents book in a long time but recently thought about trying them out again.